02/05/23
Saxmundham came within a whisker of doing the ‘double double’ on Tuesday with both teams contesting their divisional Rapid Play Cup finals. This involves teams of four playing a double round match with a time limit of 25 minutes each per game with a ten second increment.
| Saxmundham A | | 4 – 4 | Ipswich B | |
| 1 | Simon Wilks | 2078 | 0 – 1
½ – ½ | Yaroslav Orishko | 2000 |
| 2 | Malcolm Lightfoot | 1756 | ½ – ½
1 – 0 | Simon Riley | 1680 |
| 3 | John Feavyour | 1978 | 1 – 0
0 – 1 | Les Jones | 1693 |
| 4 | Sam Gaffney | 1683 | 1 – 0
0 – 1 | Thomas Sheat | 1650 |
The A Team had an intense struggle with Ipswich B with the advantage swaying back and forth. Sax edged the first round 2½ – 1½ with Sam and John’s wins making up for Simon’s loss on board 1 with Malcolm drawing his game. The scores then reversed in the second round with Sam and John losing, Simon drawing and it needed Malcolm’s win to keep the loss to 1½ -2½, thus tying the match 4-4. Unfortunately the tie break favoured Ipswich.
| Saxmundham B | | 6 – 2 | Clacton | |
| 1 | Mike Usher | 1767 | 1 – 0
1 – 0 | Marek Ciorga | 1597 |
| 2 | Matthew Lawes-Wickwar | 1862 | 1 – 0
0 – 1 | Melvin Steele | 1560 |
| 3 | Hugo Brown | 1737 | 1 – 0
0 – 1 | Warwick Estlea | 1394 |
| 4 | Lee Osmon | 1417 | 1 – 0
1 – 0 | Andrew Todd | 1394 |
Sax B were playing Clacton and things got off to a flying start with a 4-0 clean-sweep in the first round. However, things didn’t continue so well in the return when first Hugo lost, followed shortly after by Matthew, and with Mike having dropped a whole Rook it looked like there might be a complete reverse. Luckily, he still had enough pieces to complete a deadly attack on my opponent’s King, and Lee romped home to his second win and we had a comfortable 6-2 result.