Chairman's Review of 2021-22 Season
With the 19-20 season interrupted and eventually cancelled due to CoVID-19, and the 20-21 season replaced with online tournaments, Leamington chess club were please to return for 21-22.
While not all our pre-CoVID players have returned, there were enough new faces that we felt able to enter two teams in the relaunched Leamington and District Chess League, and we fulfilled all our fixtures without any problems. The A team competed in Division 2, finishing with 7 wins, 3 draws and only 2 losses. While that was only enough for 2nd place (two points behind Straford A), we felt confident enough to take a shot at Division 1 next season. Andy Collins had a particularly outstanding campaign, his record of 10 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss including a seven-game winning streak to end the season.
Our B team in Division 3, had an extremely balanced season: 4 wins, 4 draws, 4 losses, finishing in 5th place out of 7 teams. Their captain Alex Kagkalis was the leading performer with 6 points from 10; he also finished with a winning streak, taking four games in a row. Of particular note was the home match against Stratford B, who had easily beaten our team earlier in the season. Owen Alex, Omar and Charlie all won for a 4-0 victory, despite being outgraded by at least 100 points on every board and by 811 in total.
We found winners for all seven of our club trophies. Omar beat Andy, John and Mike Nevin despite being heavily outgraded in two of those matches to take the Club KO, while Alex won the Plate after a rapidplay playoff with John. Alex also picked up the George Boots Shield for greatest grading gap overcome to win, beating Oliver Harrison in the aforementioned win against Stratford (1492 vs 1874, a gap of 382). Mohammed Ben Rashed won the handicapped Christmas event with a score of 4 points from 5. The rapidplay event saw few games played. It won by Tom, while Omar took the U1600 prize; in future seasons, we'll be switching to scheduled rapidplay events played on a single evening to boost engagement. Tom also beat Omar for the club championship.
Looking ahead, we've gained numerous new players during the course of the season, including two juniors. We'll be entering one extra team in the league next season, and the club looks to be moving in the right direction.