Triumph at Derbyshire Jamboree

Some of our players took the trip to Rolls Royce near Derby to take part in the annual jamboree on May 9th.

This season's Derbyshire Jamboree saw West Nottingham capture the Plate (the lower rated competition that evening) at a very enjoyable event.

Four rounds of 15 minute games were played at Rolls Royce Social Club. The players were elbow-to-elbow, leading to lots of pressing other people’s clocks in the early rounds. West Nottingham sent Alex Ward, Robert Willoughby, Andrew Watson, Maksim Krasnov and Daniel McWilliams. The organisation (Mr Kevin Dalley) grouped the four regular WN3 players together as a team. Maksim also played in all the rounds and was placed into an independent players alliance.

Everyone collected points throughout the competition, and coming into the last round West Nottingham were leading the East Derbyshire Exiles. Three of our players were sitting on the top four boards, meaning that we had a series of difficult games. We suffered in those last games. I especially struggled by only knowing 3 moves of opening theory and I was checkmated while trying to resign as my clock ran out. On reflection, I should’ve offered a draw.

Scores were tied between the top two teams and a tiebreak was calculated. The Exiles came out on top, but they were revealed not to be members of the Association. They had forgotten to click on the 7 day free trial period. So in a stunning turnaround, We Are The Champions.

Daniel McWilliams