FIDE CANDIDATES TOURNAMENT 22 – Update rounds 11 & 12!
TAFCA NEWS (League, Allegro Championships, J.R.Chalmers GP and more!)
Well just one more competition to go (The TAFCA Team Battle) before the 2021-22 TAFCA season is completed. It was a challenging year again with us having to play on line. It was also a good year in many respects for Castlehill Chess Club Dundee with 8 teams entered in total, all be it with a struggle to find enough players sometimes! Having six teams in the premier 1st division of 10 teams was an unbelievable achievement for us, if not so good for the other teams for traveling (not a problem this season as online)!
But with all six teams staying out of the relegation zone it might be next season! Can`t believe we did that and congratulations to Castlehill E & F for punching well above their weight in the division, especially with Castlehill F taking the scalp of Dundee B!
Anyway more of that further down the post as two of the major events came to and end on Thursday 7th April with a climatic finish!
TAFCA ALLEGRO CHAMPIONSHIPS SERIES 2021-22
The St.Andrews leg of this 6 event series was played on Thursday 7th April 22, 7:30pm on lichess.org. Boy was it a humdinger of a night! Congratulations go to that Dundee Stalwart, Ed Spencer (2016) on becoming the TAFCA St.Andrews Uni Allegro Champion 2021-22 on the night with a perfect 5 out of 5! Well played Ed! He even beat the number one seed Richard Polaczek IM (Castlehill) who had won the last event at Castlehill. Richard did finish runner-up.
But it did not end there oh no? Going into this last event Ed Spencer was in second place in the overall table 3 points behind long time leader, Richard Kynoch (Castlehill). Unbelievably Richard Kynoch had his worst tournament so far and did not finish in the medal positions. With Ed Spencer taking full points he managed to jump ahead of Richard by 2 points to take the title of, TAFCA Allegro Overall Champion 2021-22! Well done Ed and commiserations Richard, so close, yet so far!
For more info, results and standings click “HERE”
J.R.CHALMERS GRAND PRIX MEMORIAL CUP 2021-22
This event in memory of TAFCA`s late President and long time chess organiser, Jim Chalmers was looking good for Richard Kynoch (Castlehill) who before Thursdays event was looking odds on for the double! He lost the TAFCA Allegro to Ed Spencer but with a 4½ points lead over Ed Spencer (Dundee), Richard managed to hang on by the skin of his teeth (½ a point!) to become the J.R.Chalmers Grand Prix Memorial Cup Champion 2021-22! Brilliant performance over the TAFCA 2021-22 season, well done Richard!
For more info, results and standings click “HERE”
TAFCA LEAGUES
Division One
Congratulations to Dundee A for winning the TAFCA division one title for the 8th time in a row! Class act! Class team! Class players! Is there no stopping this juggernaut? Well done Dundee A team and it`s players!
Also well done all 6 Castlehill teams for battling performances which ensured we will still have six teams in division one barring any unforeseen circumstances we don`t know about!
The shock of the division was Dundee B finishing in 9th place (Relegation zone) along with Perth (A) in 10th place. Perth look down and out and in the 2nd division, while Dundee B will need a change in the league structure or more likely a Dundee team getting promotion from division two to save their backsides in division one (depends on Dundee`s rules on this?).
Division Two
Congratulations to Kirkcaldy A who won the division two title in a close race with Dundee C! Well played Kirkcaldy who will now play their chess in division one! Also congratulations (baring a change in league structure next year) to Dundee C who on finishing runners-up should get promoted to division one (Dundee`s rule book might have something to say about that!). Well done indeed!
All that is left is the TAFCA Team Battle (end of the show, show) on Tuesday 12th April 22, 7:30pm to 9:pm on lichess.org. This is a league team event, time-control – 5 minutes + 3 seconds increments. Come on and support this last TAFCA Competition!
For more on this event click “HERE”
Thank you to all the players and chess clubs, plus the organisers for making this season run as smoothly as possible. Also a big thank you to our captains who had an impossible job sometimes (Is that right Ed & Peter!)! It has not always been easy or gone to plan but it all came good in the end! Hopefully, or should I say indeed we “MUST” if possible be back to playing the TAFCA League OTB again! I miss meeting and playing “face to face” all the players and visiting the other chess clubs. It will be good to be on the road again!
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