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Results of Cup and Plate Finals

The new Cup and Plate Competition has ended with wins for Ipswich A and Saxmundham in the Cup and Plate respectively.

The Cup Final was between Ipswich A and Ipswich B, with the former winning impressively by 3½-½.   There were wins for Steve Gregory, Shaun Munson and Michael Clapham, with Nick Savage drawing.

The Plate Final was won on tie-break by Saxmundham, against Ipswich F.   The outstanding individual result was Alex Sheerin‘s Board 1 win against Saxmundham’s David Brown, graded 41 points higher.   Alex has enjoyed an excellent season, which included a win against Phil Hopkins (173) in the League.

The full results can be viewed here for the Cup and here for the Plate.

The rules for this competition may need to be reviewed if it is to continue next season.   The initial pairings threw up some odd matches, with four 4-0 whitewashes and several matches where one team was outgraded by more than 50 points per board.   There was also a problem with the rule that states that participants in the Final must have played before in at least one of the previous rounds.   Where a team used the same four players throughout the competition and then faced a situation where one of these players was unavailable for the Final, this had the potential of an enforced default.   Fortunately, the problem was solved by the generosity of the opposing captain, but this rule certainly needs to be amended for next season.

2 thoughts on “Results of Cup and Plate Finals
  1. Hello All,
    I think Bob has highlighted the main issues that have come to light within the Cup and Plate competition. I would suggest that we discuss these matters at the AGM when we deal with the Comp Sec's report or under any other business. The Cup competition was very unbalanced with Ipswich vastly outgrading their opposition due to the unavoidable absence of Bury's big hitters but the Plate seemed rather more competitive. However such were the numbers that we had teams that lost heavily in the initial round being given a bye into the semi final. I just feel that was not how it ought to be so maybe we need to look at the entry numbers and then adapt the format in some way to avoid byes into the semis.
    50 grade points per board differences in grade strength between teams matched together is probably the biggest concern with the present format. I and most of Stowmarket's members simply see no joy in playing such grossly one sided matches. I appreciate that others hold differing views but if we want all clubs to continue to participate in the future then we need to address the issues that have arisen.
    I look forward to hearing some other points of view on this forum.

    Regards
    David Green

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