Your correspondent, Adam Raoof, took part in the majority of the 1st Athenaeum Chess Club blitz tournament, held on a hot and humid Monday 6th July 2009 in Endell Street London WC2.
I say the ‘majority’, because the tournament was scheduled to be 7pm to 10pm and 10 rounds of five minute chess; I left at 10.10pm after round seven!
The organisers decided to use pairing cards instead of a laptop, and without a board to display the pairings this slowed proceedings up. Nevertheless, this did not spoil my enjoyment of what was a well organised and hopefully regular fixture on the calendar.
How did I do? Well, I lost my first game in a random line against Morgan Daniels, then had four good wins including back-to-back Ruy Lopez victories against Robin Haldane and pre-tournament favourite Tim Chesters (‘a mauling’), then a dull draw against Justin Hadi, and was quietly thrashed by Phil Tozer. I knew that they had already decided to cut the number of rounds, but I made a run for it during a quiet moment.
Paul McKeown did an admirable job controlling, with just the right sense of humour to keep spirits up.
Though I haven’t been sent any results, I do believe that Phil Tozer won – congratulations!
follow-up: Blogger Tom Chivers also played and has a brief report on the excellent Streatham & Brixton Blog