Bury League
I am pleased to report that this has been a successful, if unusually long, season for the club, winning a record 7 leagues and tournaments in all.
Our main activity, of course, is the Bury League. The Linton Leopards retained their Division 1 title, surprisingly comfortably in the end. Cambridge Examiners had a healthy lead at Christmas but in the second half of the season Leopards won all their matches whilst Examiners failed to win any of their last six. Our other first division team, Linton Lions, finished mid-table, which was a considerable achievement by captain Paul McMahon bearing in mind how much they suffered from the non-availability of their nominated players.
In division 2 there was a season-long tussle between Linton Lynxes and Linton Llamas with other teams occasionally intruding. Lynxes eventually ran out winners, a fitting finale for captain Alan Wadsworth after almost 50 years at the club (though he is continuing as a player). The Lynxes, led by Oded Pilowsky-Bankirer, narrowly missed out on making it a hat-trick of division 2 titles.
In division 3 Linton Lemurs, captained by Michael Osborn, finished mid-table. In division 1 of the Roger Goldsmith tournament Nate Weersing led the Linton Larks unbeaten through the season for a convincing victory. In the Bury League Jamboree at the start of the season Linton retained the Heron trophy, our teams coming first and third.
EACU Patrick Ribbands Team Championships
This is one competition the club has always taken very seriously, named as it is after Patrick, its founder and former Linton member. The result was the same as last year, a tie between Linton Tigers and Norfolk rivals Broadland for the Open title. This is the sixth consecutive year the club has either won outright or tied for East Anglia’s premier club competition.
In the two supporting rating-limited events Linton finished mid-table in the U7200 tournament, and the ALCA Foxes (our junior side) shared first place with Bury B in the U6400 tournament. This was a remarkable success, playing against seasoned club players to a standard time limit (rather than rapidplay) often for the first time.
Cambridgeshire Competitions
Although we are a Cambridgeshire club Linton has not played in Cambs competitions (other than the Jamboree) because of the distance to Peterborough and the northern fens. However this year we entered a team in the Fenland Knockout as Cambridge kindly offered to host our home matches. In the event we played all of our three matches away, to Cambridge, St Neots and St Ives. The final was really tough but eventually we won 2.5-1.5 with Simeon Bott playing well into the night to eke out a win in a R+P ending.
Linton also won the Cambridgeshire Jamboree, held on 20 May, with a joint club/academy team of Paul Kemp, Paolo Di Fruscia, Ethen Liu and Antonio Di Fruscia. Ten teams competed with Linton scoring 9.5/12, closely followed by Peterborough on 9 points.
Internal Competition
Last summer Konrad Scheffler organised and ran our summer programme which usually involved two rapidplay (25+10) games a night, or sometimes one game and a presentation or puzzles. We invited the stronger Chess Academy players to join in, and the winner was Thomas Sha who received the Patrick Ribbands trophy to hold for a year. We shall do the same this year, starting on 27 May.
The club championship was efficiently organised by Simon Marsden, helped by some gentle prodding to stick to the timetable. Konrad Scheffler was the deserved winner scoring 5/5 and will hold the Jim Carr trophy, whilst Nate Weersing was the best placed player from the lower half of the draw, receiving the John Dawson trophy.
Looking Ahead
Firstly my thanks to all of you who have played this season, and particular thanks to the captains, some of whom have struggled to raise teams on occasion. I’m thinking especially of Paul M (Lions) who has suffered for most of the season, and Oded (Llamas) toward the end of the season as exams restricted juniors’ availability. But we have all been affected to some extent and many players will welcome the summer break after a lengthy season.
Two of our captains are standing down: Chris Davison, who is taking a sabbatical from chess, and Alan Wadsworth. Both have been members of the club and have served it admirably over a long period. We thank them for their service and expect to see them again: Alan next season and Chris perhaps the season after.
Our playing resources have been stretched this season, sometimes beyond that which can be sensibly managed. The changes in personnel and captains will need a careful review of the team squads so some switching of players around teams will be inevitable. I will be discussing this with captains and senior players and report more fully to the AGM, but at this stage I am expecting to maintain two first division, two second division and one third division team in the Bury League.
Finally, the most pleasing aspect for me has been the progress of our Academy players (see separate report). Part of my role is to introduce them to local external tournaments when they are ready, and an increasing number are playing in rapidplays and some standard play tournaments. Thomas has played regularly this season for the Llamas and I hope and expect to see a few more appearing regularly in the Bury League next season.
PAUL KEMP
