Bury League Jamboree

Last evening saw the start of the season for the Bury Area Chess League.   The annual ‘Jamboree’ took place at Moreton Hall Community Centre, the home of the Bury St Edmunds Chess Club.

All clubs in the League send teams to play in this event, where entrants play three Rapidplay games against members of other clubs.   Unfortunately, the five clubs other than Bury were only able to form six teams between them.   So the six Bury St Edmunds teams played against the remaining six teams.

One problem with this arrangement is that whilst Bury distribute their stronger players amongst all six teams, Cambridge and Linton (for example), are able to bring one strong team.   The winners were Linton Chess Club, whose Board 3, Paul Kemp (graded 192), was at least 89 points higher than his three Bury opponents!

Scores (out of 12) were:

1     Linton     11½
2=   Cambridge     10
       Ely     10
4    Stowmarket     8
5    ‘Odds & Sods’     6½
6=   Bury St Edmunds B     4½
      Bury St Edmunds D     4½
8    Bury St Edmunds A       4
9=   Bury St Edmunds C     3½
      ‘NewStow’     3½
11=  Bury St Edmunds E     3
       Bury St Edmunds F     3

10 players won all three games: Ashley Stewart, Paul Kemp, Patrick Ribbands (Linton); David Redman, David Cattermole, Ole Bay-Petersen (Cambridge); Marcus Misson, Steve Ashworth (Ely); Richard Lamont, Mark Bettley (Stowmarket).   Bury’s highest scorer was new member (formerly of Ipswich) Terry Beard, on 2½ points.

Photo shows Linton’s winning team.