THE 14th IAN McNAB MEMORIAL TROPHY 2022-23 REPORT!
THE 14th IAN McNAB MEMORIAL TROPHY 2022-23
Thurs 27th April 23 – 7:30pm
While most members now will have no idea who Ian McNab is, we still have one or two who do! Ian would have loved this event in his name and in true McNab style we held it in the main hall, with no requirements to be silent during play!
Once again we played 960 (Fisher-Random) chess which takes out everybody’s opening knowledge! This would have suited Ian right down to the ground!
We had 13 players involved with a few new players down, including players from Abertay University Chess Club!
The format was 5 rounds of Swiss pairings, 15 minutes each player with a different position for every round!
ROUND ONE
There were no surprises in round one, but some hair-raising games! The black pieces won more games than white!
ROUND TWO
Daniel Coleman beat Andy Rowe in a shocker; Cosmo took out the Ray Noble who had no idea on how to play this type of game! One of the new guys, Luke Evans won for the second time, and the black side won 5 of the 6 matches!
ROUND THREE
No shocks in round 3 unless you count Luke Evans win against Kit McEvoy Gould! That makes it 3 win for Luke! Unbelievably, the black side won all 6 games!
ROUND FOUR
Two players left the competition so we are now down to 11 players. Finally Luke Evans does not win a game, but neither does he lose as Joe Wilson drew with Luke! For a change, the white side won more games than black!
ROUND FIVE
Going into round 5, Luke Evans leads by a ½ point. In the last round he faced the experienced chess player (maybe not 969 chess!), in Andy Rowe. Now once again, black came out on top with 4 wins out of the five games, with white only winning one game, but boy what a game as it was as Luke Evans as white came out on top to finish on 4½ points!
Congratulations to Luke Evans on a fantastic tournament and winning the 14th Ian McNab Memorial Trophy 2023! Well played sir!
Well played to the runners-up; Ben Gilmour and Cosmo Bobak on 3½ points each. As for the organiser, Ray Noble, “No comment”! It seems this format gives black an advantage or is it just the players who made it look that way!
Thank you to everybody that played in the 14th Ian McNab memorial trophy and made it another great nights chess at Castlehill Chess Club Dundee! That’s what it’s all about and I am sure Ian would have been over the moon with all aspects of the night!
Castlehill Chess Club is here for chess and our members and tries to give our members a wide choice of chess events to play in if they wish. We are also the only chess club in TAFCA to run “ALL YEAR ROUND”, only closing at Christmas & New Year, or when our venue has a fixed booking (not very often that happens!).
Next up is the 1st of 5 OTB Quick-Play Grand Prix competitions, 5 round Swiss, 3 minutes + 2 seconds, this Thursday 4th May 23!
May the 4th be with you!
For all the results and standing, click the link below.