Trophies !

The last games of the January Quads Tournament were played yesterday evening. @Flexxooo's victory with the black pieces in an English Opening against @Darktigr allowed him to take first place in Section B with a perfect 6-0 score. Boris Spassky here we come ! Section A was won by Pascal (@pascalg) who drew with Paul (@E3Engineer) for a second time in his last round game. It would be interesting to see a longer match and some decisive games between these two players at some point. As I noted last week, Scott (@godot321) won Section C by a ½ point while Tom (@MrPithers) took the honours in Section D with a perfect score. The tournament pairing sheet contains links to all the games of the tournament, results, performance ratings and links to the previous round reports.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this event and made it such a success. We seem to have hit on a formula that works well as of the 49 games scheduled there was only one that did not get played. The round-robin format that allowed games at times other than the normal one and the division of players by rating bands both seem to have made a difference. As much as I like to fantasize about upsetting the likes of Gus (@sourbaum) or Ron (@BigData1969) in an open tournament, the reality is that everyone enjoys themselves more when playing in competitive sections. As I noted in an earlier round report, there are still ample learning opportunities for each of us.

We will take a couple of weeks to allow winners to savour their victory and others to lick their wounds before we start another event. Given how well this one worked we will probably follow a similar format. When we look at the rating distribution of those that register, and based on feedback from players, we may consider changing the size of some sections (always staying between four and six players) in order to ensure a bit of variety for everyone. I will also do my best to find new players to join us by publicizing our events on Twitter (holding my nose the whole time of course), Reddit and elsewhere. Please feel free to do the same in your personal networks.

In the meantime, I would encourage you to solicit games or matches from players you have met here. Last summer we set up a match format to be used in a ladder competition and you could use those rules (scroll down below the ladder rankings) - or any other you prefer - for these games. I have already mentioned one possible matchup between @pascalg and @E3Engineer that I would like to see and there are many other rivalries to settle. I know I would like another crack at @godot321 for instance :)

The tournament closing dinner and awards ceremony will be held at the Witsend Pub in Hemmingford next Thursday for anyone interested in joining me there for a beer or two :) Thanks again to you all for playing and for participating in the chat, kibitzing and post-mortems. As limited as this social interaction is, it still goes a long way to creating a relaxed and friendly atmosphere that makes the play that much more enjoyable.