ANNUAL REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE
OF THE METROPOLITAN CHESS CLUB - 2003/4
I am glad to report that there were no great dramas occurring on or off the board
this year. The club continues to flourish in both contexts. I am sure that Tom Deery,
our former President on whose death I reported last year, would be delighted with
the club's progress.
The season began with yet another highly successful congress. Despite the
attractions of live European football and World Cup rugby, and several
county chess matches taking place over the congress weekend we nearly
matched the record number of entrants in 2002.
The club's teams had a reasonably successful season. The first team
were promoted back to the London League Division 1, this being the
second time in the last thirty years the club has been represented
there. In the Middlesex league the First Team managed to retain their
place in the First Division, despite finishing in the penultimate
position, as Athenaeum have withdrawn one of their teams for this season.
The National Club team performed splendidly to reach the final of the major
section. The 4NCL team also performed creditably against very strong opposition.
One particularly notable incident occurred in the Middlesex Formula 5 league
when our third team played against Wood Green. The Wood Green team Included
Philip Gelman, aged 102, and a junior aged 10 on an adjoining board! Our players,
who wish to remain anonymous, (Begorrah and Gooday), both lost. Mr. Gelman is
featured on the cover of the August 2004 edition of Chess magazine, with an
article about him as well. Full details of the league teams results are contained
in the Captain's reports attached.
Several of our members featured in the National Counties Championship finals for the
losing Middlesex under 125 team, namely Peter Szabo, Joe Farrell and Ray Hamilton.
Peter Doye featured in the winning Essex under 175 team. Peter Szabo, Joe Farrell,
Keiran Murphy and Wilbur Francis have won various congress prizes since last year's AGM.
Kevin Lenaghan won a number of congresses, and finished third in the BCF Amateur Grand Prix.
It is also encouraging to report that the current club membership of just
over 70 members is the highest for sometime. Because of this there was the
largest entry in the Summer Tournaments for many years, which resulted in the
introduction of quickplay finishes for the first time in order to complete these.
The club website remains a credit to the club under the stewardship of
Kathy and Zafer Djabri. See this at address - www.metchess.org.uk.
The Nottage Cup, awarded in memory of former member George Nottage,
goes to the member achieving the highest change in BCF grading. This season
it is awarded to Ken Alexander. His grade went from 71 to 102.
The Shanson trophy, also awarded in memory of another former member of
the club, is awarded to the member achieving the most meritorious performance.
Various names were nominated by the committee for consideration amongst them
David Welsh, Nick Noden, Ian Calvert and Kevin Lenaghan. However, the committee
decided in the end to nominate Zafer Djabri for his Captaincy of the London League
and 4NCL teams, as well as his commendable playing record mentioned in the Captains' reports.
Kathy and Zafer Djabri have kindly donated to the club the
Tom Deery Memorial Salver, a trophy for the highest scorer in the 4NCL,
the first recipient appropriately being our President George Dickson for
being the top scorer in the season 2002/3.
Honorary Secretary - Raymond Hamilton, 15th September, 2004
London League First Team
The First Team had a very successful season, winning division 2 with a match score of
8/10, and so securing promotion to return us to the top division for only the second
time in the last 30 years or so. We lost only one match, and drew two, winning the rest.
Naturally, there were some good individual performances, but the biggest factor
was the very consistent turnout from the first team players - five players played
in every match, and there were no defaults at all.
This frequently meant we were considerably stronger on the lower boards, even
if we were outgraded on the higher ones.
We had a shaky start to the season against Wanstead. The match finished at 5-5, but
a lot of blunders on both sides meant that both teams emerged with a lucky half-point!
We found some form in the following
match against Metropolitan 2, and were able to carry it over into convincing wins
against Beckenham and Streatham, strong teams both just down from division 1. Another win
against Woodbridge put us into a clear
lead at the half-way point.
A dismal match followed against Phoenix - the top 3 boards collapsed, and we were not
able to compensate elsewhere. King's Head 2 turned out to be a very close match against
a strong side - it all hung on the last
two games to finish, both struggling to reach the time control. Both captains were involved,
and the Metropolitan one at least had lost track of the match score, so only some arithmetic
after the games finished revealed that the match had been drawn!
Our promotion was secured by winning the next two matches against relatively weaker teams
Albany and Athenaeum 2, albeit by very narrow margins. This we made up for in the last
match, however. Against the normally solid Lewisham team, the first game was drawn
very quickly. After that, the floodgates opened, and we won all the others. How exactly
is still not clear!
The top scorer was John Moore, with 8/10, followed closely by Zafer Djabri with 7.5/10,
Nick Noden with 6.5/10, and Andrew McGuinness with 6.5/8. Tony Peterson and George Dickson
more than held their own on the top boards, often against very strong opposition. Two other
very impressive scores were Norbert Fogarasi and Peter Doye with 4/4 and 3.5/4 respectively.
London League Second Team
The second team entered the season knowing that another tough year lay ahead if they were
to avoid relegation again. This would be especially true for the top boards who would be outgraded heavily usually by at least
20 pts but sometimes by as much as 70!
However we got off to a flyer by beating Lewisham who were newly relegated from Division 1.
Our hopes were high as we faced our first team in the second match of the season.
Sadly history was not to be repeated as they soundly thrashed us 9-1. Revenge is a
dish best served cold!
Facing Streatham the team put together a very solid performance against a much stronger
team to notch up our second point of the season. John Kitchen and Noel Stewart
both beat their 170 opponents and Mark Oakden had a good win over a 156.
There followed a string of close but ultimately lost matches, including a loss to Woodbridge
who were also among the back markers with us and who we needed to take points off.
Our best chance of another point came against Albany, who were propping up the
division and who were now almost certain of relegation. After a very close match the
honours were split, so we were still in relegation danger.
Again it came down to the last match of the season with a win required against Athenauem 2
to ensure our survival. Unfortunately we were soundly defeated, so our fate was now in the
hands of Woodbridge who needed a draw to jump over us in the table. They also lost, so
against all odds the second team survive for another year in division 2.
Top scorer for the team was Noel with 4/9. Mark Oakden scored a very creditable 50% against
an average opposition of 143 and only just lost out on the top scorer prize with 3.5/7.
Other notable results came from Kathy who only scored 2.5/8 but as her average opponent
was 190, and included an IM this gave her a performance of 170 for the season. Simon Moate
was also a very welcome addition to the team half way through the season scoring 2.5/4.
Many thanks to all those who played for the team. We were boosted mid season by the arrival of
Alan Dunn, Simon Moate and Gary Faulkner although we lost David Flynn who had been playing well
for us at the beginning of the season and also Stuart Nelson.
London League Third Team
It was always going to be difficult to maintain the exceptional standard achieved last season,
and unfortunately it proved to be so, we struggled throughout the season. I had expected a
result somewhere in the middle of this division but we finished eighth out of eleven teams
with a score of 3 1/2/10. Dulwich Plough won the division with a score of 9/10. On reflection though
it should be considered that this division is much stronger than was the case last season, but more
importantly, we are a third team amongst mostly first teams, in fact there are seven first teams,
two second teams and only one other third team, and therefore, as it turned out, we were heavily
out-graded in all our matches, our top two boards on two occasions having to face players graded
in the 180s and 170s. R. Hanson, C. Bennett, D. Flynn, G. Vasco and P. Szabo produced some good
results on the very difficult top boards, in fact, C. Bennett (124) beating C. Sherwood (175)
of Morley College with a 51 point grading difference was the result of the season.
A total of 22 players were used throughout the season. Top scorer and winner of
the 'Spencer Trophy' is P. Szabo with 6/8 (with only one loss) some of the other results are as follows;
R. Hamilton 3.5/10 ; G. Vasco 3/8 ; K. Lenaghan 3/8; J. Jones 3/3 ; C. Bennett 2.5/7
D. Flynn 2.5/4; V. Raj 2/3 ; J. Farrell 2/4 ; N. Chapman 1.5/5 ; S. Moate 1.5/4
W. Francis 1.5/6 ; S. Roy 1.5/6 ; J. Wilby 1.5/3 ; M. Oakden 1/3
Special thanks goes to R. Hamilton for attending all of our matches and also to
P. Szabo, K. Lenaghan, C. Bennett and S. Roy for their very high attendance.
And a very big thank you to everybody who played.
Middlesex Second Team
This season got off to the usual start: a loss in our first match, although that was
against Athenaeum 3 who went on to win the division.
Undaunted, the team were convincingly unbeaten over the next 5 matches (4 wins one draw)
before narrowly losing (3 1/2 - 4 1/2) to King's Head 3 in our penultimate match.
We went on to finish third on 5 1/2 points behind Hammersmith 2 (6 points) and Athenaeum 3 (6 1/2 points).
The team missed promotion this year by the narrowest of possible margins - another half
match point would have been sufficient and that could have been gained with a single
additional half game point in any of two crucial matches (against King's Head 3 and Hammersmith 2 - a quick
check of the records reveals that the team captain lost his own games in both those matches
and so takes entire responsibility for our failure to win promotion!)
Many thanks to the total of 18 players who contributed to our good result this season,
often at short notice, with the best scorers being Ray Hamilton with 4 1/2 from 7 and
Robert Kruszynski with 4 from 6. Other scores included Kieran Murphy (3 1/2 from 5),
Peter Szabo (an unbeaten 2 1/2 from 3) and Stuart Nelson (2 from 3).
Ray Hamilton is the winner of the new Bill McLaughlin Trophy, which has been donated in
Bill's memory by Mrs. Jane McLaughlin.
Again, match attendance was excellent with not a single board being defaulted over the
entire season of eight eight-board matches.
4NCL Team
Our second season in the 4NCL, which has been expanding rapidly: we were in a division of
18 teams, as compared to 8 last year. This was played as an 11-round swiss, leading to some
curious but unavoidable pairings in the later rounds!
We started out well, and after 2 weekends we had 3/4, having lost only to Oxford
(essentially the Varsity team). 2 further wins on the next weekend against Nottinghamshire
and Hilsmark Kingfisher 2 even put us in 1st place midway.
It turned around in the 7th round, when lost a close match to Brown Jack, and by
the same margin to Poisoned Pawns 2 the following day. Despite this, our score was
still too high to avoid an encounter with an extremely strong Cambridge University
side on the Bank Holiday Monday, and we dropped out of
contention for a promotion place. A consolation win in the final weekend meant we
finished with a respectable 6/11.
Some extremely fine individual games were played - two of which made it into the pages of
CHESS Monthly - and Nick Noden emerged as the high scorer with a remarkable 7.5/9 on
top board. George Dickson also scored a very impressive 7/11. Nick Noden wins the
Tom Deery Memorial Salver.
Overall, an enjoyable season with many matches decided only by the last board to finish.
National Club Team
We entered one team in the Major Championship (run as a knockout competition), which rules that the
grades of the individual players must all be under 200 and the average grade of the five team players
must be under 160, treating any grade under 110 as110.
A splendid all round team performance enabled us to finish as runners up, to Wanstead and Woodford
in the final, after winning through four previous rounds.
In our very first round we won an extremely hard fought match on board count
against Wood Green, who finished as eventual winners of the Plate Competition (open to first round losers).
On our subsequent route to the final we were able to field an unchanged team of
Nick Noden, Ian Calvert (coming in for Norbert Forgarasi who had left for
Hungary after round one), Zafer Djabri, Kathy Djabri and Noel Stewart.
Successive 3-2 wins over Maidstone, Tunbridge Wells and Brown Jack
enabled us to reach the last round without losing a board in these three matches.
It is notable that despite our loss in the final both Ian Calvert and Zafer Djabri
maintained their unbeaten records. Zafer Djabri made the highest score of 3.5/5, to
give a grading performance of 176. On top board Nick Noden turned in a superb (197)
performance against opposition who averaged 187. As your captain contrived to lose all
five tosses (a record?) the scores of both Nick and Zafer were made exclusively with
the black pieces!
Many thanks to all who played in the team with such great enthusiasm, and an
extremely enjoyable competition was concluded by bringing back the runner's up
cheque of £150 for the Club plus a commemorative shield for each player who took part in the final
Honorary Secretary - R Hamilton