Tim writes:
All, the first half of the SPLIT weekend for rounds 7 & 8 has just completed for Divisions 1 & 2. Oxfiord 1 lost to Barbican 2 2-6, bouncing back on Sunday by beating South Wales Dragons by the same score.
Barbican 2 agreed with me that the 2-6 scoreline flattered them somewhat: there were full-point swings on a couple of boards, skip’s being one of them. Sitting in his glass house, skip isn’t going to criticise the other one! [but will say in his defence that he had ONE clear winning chance, at move 51. You might like to work out what skip missed. My opp David Coleman saw half of it but not the other half; skip missed all of it and his choice 51. … Qc6 was the losing move – I’d missed 54. Rc7 which was a killer, 54. Rd6 was a draw.]
Marcus Harvey leads the “mentions in dispatches” with his 2/2 weekend; Joris played a la Marcus in pressing for victory in probably-drawn endings but ended with only two draws to show for his extended effort. Well done also to Mike T on his debut for Ox1, last to finish today and winning quite convincingly.
Div 1 safety requirements: one more match win against anyone. Next up are Kings’ Head in round 9, Blackthorne Russia in round 10 and Celtic Tigers in round 11.
Saturday
| Barbican 4NCL 2 | 2237 | Oxford 1 | 2310 | |||||
| w | Rogers, Jonathan W | f | 2308 | 1 – 0 | Martins, David Pires Tavares | f | 2393 | |
| b | Sowray, Peter J | f | 2312 | ½ – ½ | Tan, Justin | i | 2453 | |
| w | Franklin, Samuel G A | f | 2308 | 1 – 0 | Zakarian, David | f | 2378 | |
| b | Navarro Cia, Miguel | f | 2261 | 1 – 0 | Asenov, Pavel | 2335 | ||
| w | Chapman, Terry P D | f | 2251 | 0 – 1 | Harvey, Marcus R | f | 2275 | |
| b | Moss, Guy | 2082 | ½ – ½ | Gerlagh, Joris | 2266 | |||
| w | Coleman, David J | c | 2143 | 1 – 0 | Dickinson, Tim R | 2072 | ||
| b | Regan, Natasha K | wi | 1995 | 1 – 0 | Varney, Zoe | w | 1988 | |
| 6 – 2 | ||||||||
Sunday
| Oxford 1 | 2326 | South Wales Dragons | 2190 | |||||
| w | Martins, David Pires Tavares | f | 2393 | 1 – 0 | Toma, Katarzyna | wg | 2242 | |
| b | Tan, Justin | i | 2453 | ½ – ½ | Cooper, John G | i | 2263 | |
| w | Zakarian, David | f | 2378 | 0 – 1 | Kett, Tim | 2193 | ||
| b | Asenov, Pavel | 2335 | 1 – 0 | Redmond, John P. | 2209 | |||
| w | Harvey, Marcus R | f | 2275 | 1 – 0 | Zeidler, Sven P. | f | 2190 | |
| b | Gerlagh, Joris | 2266 | ½ – ½ | James, David J | f | 2123 | ||
| w | Truran, Michael C | 2188 | 1 – 0 | Jameson, David | 2116 | |||
| b | Varney, Zoe | w | 1988 | 1 – 0 | Wilson, Julie | w | 1870 | |
| 6 – 2 | ||||||||