The tournament was held this year in the University of West Scotland in Paisley, near Glasgow. The tournament hall was large, comfortable and air conditioned, with an adjacent coffee bar, although the lack of team rooms was a slight handicap.
The Netherlands entered four teams and so, for the first time for many years we had a six nation competition with a five round all play all format. All parties are enthusiastic and it thus appears that this ideal format will continue well into the future.
As usual, we did not have our best possible teams available. Seven of the 20 players originally selected did not participate. France and the Netherlands produced very strong teams and the evidence suggests that we were massively out graded. Quoting the FIDE grades used for the tournament and excluding our Stokes and all the Irish teams, for which figures were not available, our players were, on average, 421 points worse than the Dutch, 390 worse than the French ,165 worse than the Scots and 176 worse than the English. (Caspian’s deficits against his opponents were 420, 471, 324 and 43!) In the circumstances, I have to say that virtually all our players played up to, or above, expectations. All of the games were hard fought and most of them turned on the tiniest of advantages gained by the opposition.
The Gilbert team had the best results, beating Ireland and Scotland and drawing with France. The Stokes team beat Scotland 5-1. All the other matches were lost.
It was one of the closest tournaments ever. The Glorney and the Robinson were decided on tie break and the Stokes was won by half a point.
Nicholas Evans, currently studying at Lancaster University, accompanied the party and did much to encourage the younger players. He conducted post mortems with everyone who asked him, racking up a total approaching 90 in two and a half days.
Incidentally, the Welsh grading officers think that many of the opponents’ ratings were too low. They are currently discussing how to correct them.
The final scores were as follows:
Glorney France 17.5, Netherlands 17.5, Scotland 16 Ireland 13, England 7.5, Wales 3.5.
Gilbert Netherlands 12, France 10, England 8, Wales 6, Ireland 5, Scotland 4.
Under 14 Netherlands 21 ,England 21, France 17.5, Ireland 13.5, Wales 9, Scotland 8.
Under 12 Netherlands 21.5, England 21, Ireland 16, France 13.5, Wales 9 Scotland 9.
The scores of our players were as follows:
Glorney Hugo Fowler 0.5, Imogen Camp 2, James Evans 0.5, Caspian Fowler 0.5, Daniel Jaberansari 0.
Gilbert Shayanna Sivarajasingam 2, Susanna Fraser 2, Rachel McIntosh 2.
Under 14 Venetia Sivarajasingam 1.5, Ifan Rathbone-Jones 2.5, David McIntosh 1, Madeleine Smith 0,
Duncan MacDonald 0.5, Merlin Davies 3.5.
Under 12 Hiya Ray 1.5, Ethan Chung 2, Milo Davies 1, Bence Szakmany 1.5, Yuxuan Wu 2, Oliver Sapsford 1.
Report by Ian Eustis
