Francis makes right moves
Francis Best was the winner of the rapidplay tournament held to round off the week-long Darwin chess festival at the Darwin shopping centre in Shrewsbury. Best won five of the six games in the tournament in which players had a maximum of ten minutes on the clock to complete all the moves.
The trophy was presented by centre director Victoria Gibson.
Three players finished on four points, and their respective positions were decided by organiser Alan Shaw by the sum-of-scores tiebreak system, which revealed Iain Wilson to be runner up, Colin Roberts third, and Toby Neal fourth.
Positions from fifth place downwards were: Keith Tabner, John Westhead, Peter Crean, Malachi Stead-Jones, John Bashall, Alex Taylor, Ian Davies, and Matthew Best.
Turnout for the event was rather disappointing, but it did succeed in attracting a lot of interest from the public, which was the primary aim.
The league season gets under way this week, with promoted Church Stretton's prospects in the first division being boosted by the news that Trevor Brotherton, who for a long time has been among the county's strongest players, is "defecting" from Shrewsbury to join their ranks.
With Stretton already having acquired the services of the strong father and son duo of Nick and Louis Graham at the very end of last season, they will be able to field a very competitive team.
Shifnal & Telford have lost two Jims - Jim Copley and Jim Wilkinson. Although not their strongest players, they were part of the club's "strength in depth" and their loss could leave the team having a tough time if they are unable to turn out their top players consistently.
By Toby Neal
Popular stories:
- Chaos fears on new car law
- Three extra CCTV cameras
- Find bargains with StarBidz
- Daily news blog
- Rare guitar stolen from shop