As described last night, the Game of the Season chosen by from the membership was Nick Collacott‘s double-rook sacrificial victory over John Harbour to secure the Division 2 Championship.
Mike Botteley‘s fine win over Graham Smith was second, eliciting the following comment from one voter – “..the beating was done with such precision that it was as close to a religious experience as you can get in the OU canteen”.
Joe received a special commendation for failing to draw a B v N+P endgame, the young Cox’s both drew praise for their aggressive tendencies in duffing up far more experienced opponents, Nigel’s endgame technique was described as “simply brilliant” and Gerry’s tenacity in drawing with Chris Ross was commended.
The full results for all scoring games were as follows:-
| Game | Points | Anonymised comments |
| 2. E Basham v Ravi Arulnandhy | 8 | Slow positional grind well-handled won the day |
| 4. Gerry Nolan v John Harbour | 3 | … not for the quality of play (abysmal on both sides), but for the fabulous position reached on move 17, where it looks like Black has made no development moves at all. |
| 5. Jeremy Burrows v Nigel Staddon | 4 | |
| 6. Peter Gill v Danny Rosenbaum | 5 | I like to see to see this kind of thing played |
| 8. Chris Ross v Gerry Nolan | 5 | Gerry’s tenacity in adversity – Black pieces v one of the strongest players in the league. |
| Gerry does something important in not being overawed by the opposition. | ||
| 9. Richard Bodily v A Tinker | 8 | |
| 10. Steve Ledger v Tupetov” | 1 | |
| 12. Graham Smith v Mike Botteley | 16 | It was done with such precision that I felt it was as close to a religious experience as you can get in the OU canteen. |
| Mike’s wacky opening and generally taking opponent out of his comfort zone. | ||
| Very smooth and slightly aggressive performance – typical Mike! | ||
| 14. John Harbour v Qais Karimi | 4 | |
| 16. Nigel Staddon v Rodrigo Fernandez | 2 | |
| 17. John Mckeon v Ben Pike | 5 | |
| 18. Eva Ressel v Qais Karimi | 2 | |
| 20. Richard Bodily v Eric Meichel | 2 | |
| 21. Steve Pike v Steve Law | 1 | |
| 22. Peter Montgomery v Ben Cox | 7 | I just love to see a junior (Ben) play a move like 25…Nc6?! even though it’s apparently not best. |
| Shows nice aggressive instinct. Worth a vote | ||
| 23. Richard Freeman v Mindaugas Beinoras | 5 | |
| 24. Richard Bodily v Steve Ledger | 3 | Difficult choice but Steve’s game just edges it as a difficult game under pressure. |
| 25. Steve Ledger v Zaki Harari | 3 | I thought this was very neat |
| 26. Nick Collacott v John Harbour | 22 | Three rook sacrifices in a quick succession has to be special! |
| Quite pretty, and piece after piece throws itself against the king. Worthy of number 1 in my opinion. | ||
| I thought Nick’s first R sac was imaginative (I only saw it after being prompted by NIck’s note) and actually playing it was brave | ||
| You can’t beat a speculative rook sacrifice! | ||
| 27. Toby Cox v David Collyer | 5 | And one has to applaud non-stop aggression such as Toby displayed. |
| This promises well for times to come | ||
| 28. Dave Wells v Nigel Staddon | 3 | Nigel’s endgame technique is cool, unhurried, and just simply brilliant… |