Report by Nigel Birtwistle
On Sunday 3rd July Cleethorpes Leisure Centre was the venue for the first ever Cleethorpes Rapidplay Tournament. Cleethorpes used to be well known as a regular weekend Congress venue many years ago, but the last tournament took place almost 40 years ago back in 1983. The idea of holding a new tournament in Cleethorpes originally came from Grimsby Chess Club member Gavin Johnstone who found the venue at the Leisure Centre and subsequently got myself and Kevin Mccarthy involved with helping to organise the event. On the day Gavin and Kevin played a huge part in assisting the tournament Controller NA Douglas Vleeshhouver and NA John Grasham with the smooth running of the event.
Thanks to generous sponsorship we were able to offer some very good prize money. A total of 86 players took part in three sections and there were some Lincolnshire players amongst the prize winners. The results were as follows:
1st GM Matthew Turner (Ex Scunthorpe, now Chess.com Manx Liberty 4NCL) 5/6 £200.00
=2nd IM Gedimas Sarakauskas (Gonzaga 4NCL) & Samuel Milson (Louth) 4½/6 £100.00 each
Grading prize U2200: Paul Hutchinson (Scarborough) 3½/6 £40.00
=1st Alex Royle (Louth) & Ionel Dragan (Worksop) 5½/6 £125.00 each
3rd John Cawston (Undercliffe) 4½/6 £60.00
Grading Prize U1800: Andrew Wainwright (The Chess Centre), Paul Salisbury (Wetherby) & Andrew Allen (Worksop) 4/6 £13.33 each
Grading Prize U1700: Peter Sherlock (Lincoln) & Lindsay Pyun (Leicestershire Juniors) 3½/6 £20.00 each
1st Eldars Gulijevs (West Nottingham) 5½/6 £150.00
=2nd Andrew Watson (Skegness) & Neil Milson (Louth) 5/6 £80.00 each
Grading Prize U1500: Jacob Smith (The Chess Centre) £40.00
Grading Prize U1300: Jason Golding (Lincoln), Paul Davies (Darnell & Handsworth) & Zack McDonnell (Lincoln) 3/6 £13.33 each
Best Ungraded Player: Joseph Madeo (Appleby Frodingham) £40.00
Full results can be found at: Chess-Results Server Chess-results.com - Cleethorpes Rapidplay 2022 - Open
All our sponsors were Lincolnshire Chess players. Many thanks to Andrew Dyce of Martin Atkinson Cars, Scunthorpe, Andrew Watson of Photo Genius, Skegness and Keith May Accounting Services Skegness. Without their help this tournament would not have been possible. We are already planning for the next Cleethorpes Rapidplay in 2023 and we hope to see you there!
Below are some photos from the event:
Round 1 gets underway...
Open winner GM Matthew Turner (left) vs Paul Hutchinson
Joint winners of the Major U1900 section Alex Royle (left) & Ionel Dragan deep in thought during their round 4 encounter
The youngest competitor 9-year-old Zak Mcdonnell (right) from Lincoln, joint winner of the U1300 grading prize
Winner of the Minor U1600 section Eldars Gulijevs from West Nottingham