National Club Championship 2005-2006

The national club finals were held on 9th July, with the Minor events at Syston and the Major and Open at Golden Lane Community Centre (courtesy of London Chess League and Brian Smith). The date clashed with the World Cup Final, life was made even more difficult for Maidstone by the fact that they had to field three teams on the same day. The Golden Lane half of the event was controlled by Scott Freeman, who has little to do.

In the Open, Wood Green fielded an impressive array of GMs and IMs and perhaps not surprisingly triumphed fairly easily. Wood Green have now won the Open twelve times, eclipsing even Cambridge University who have won it eleven times.

On paper the Major, was going to be a close contest. In fact Bedford ran out winners fairly easily.

In the Major Plate, Maidstone were forced by the afore-mentioned circumstances to field a weakened team and outgraded by a massive 66 points per board appeared to have no chance. When Michael Turner somehow contrived to win after a dubious piece sacrifice, Maidstone were suddenly 2-1 up. However, Milton Keynes allowed them no chances at all on the two remaining games and emerged victorious 3-2. Still the Maidstone team deserve every-praise for their determined effort to discredit the grading system.

In the Minor, Maidstone showed tactical player placement (their Minor team was stronger than the corresponding team in the Major Plate) and duly reaped the benefits with a narrow victory. Finally, in the Minor Plate there was again a close contest with Ashfield edging out Westcliff.