The 34th Nottingham Rapidplay was held at the High School on Sunday, 2nd
February. Rapidplay is a form of chess where the time control is relatively short, in this case each player having 20 minutes plus an incremental 10 seconds per move to complete each game.
The organisers, the Nottinghamshire Chess Association, were delighted at the record turnout of 180 entrants. Radcliffe and Bingham Chess Club (RBCC) was similarly pleased to field no less than 19 participants, more than 10% of the total.
Of course, there were many ups and downs over six rounds of the competition, including Stuart winning in 12 moves and Matt coming up against veteran grandmaster, Mark Hebden. With so many RBCC players in the competition, inevitably there were several keenly contested games pitting club colleagues against each other. The victors’ bragging rights will no doubt last for the rest of the season.
A special ‘shout out’ goes to juniors Adam (4 points out of 6), Joshua (also 4) and Harry (3.5). Indeed, Harry won the Slow Starter prize in the Improvers section.
Also, there were excellent performances from veteran Barry and first-timer Mark, who both scored 3.5. In the Open Matt recovered from losing to GM Hebden to share the Slow Starter prize in that section.
