Last Sunday was the annual Wrexham Rapid tournament, held at their club venue. Limited to around 30 players it has a more relaxed atmosphere than a typical weekender.
Chester entered 6 players. Newish member Graham Dobson playing his first tournament in Chester colours had the standout result reaching 4.5/5 but didn’t have the chance to play the runaway winner on 5/5.
Mike McDonagh, Colm Buckley and I had more mixed performances, eventually finishing well enough to tie for 3rd place. Jixin and Jack Yang were effectively playing an open tournament and followed closely behind with Jixin coming closest to a podium finish.
A nice touch was that the winners could also choose a second hand book as part of their prizes, so be warned that we are all now armed with books like Trends in the Caro Kann or New Ideas in the French Tarrasch from a few decades ago. These ideas could be dangerous…
All in all an enjoyable tournament well recommended for future years.