Worcester & District Chess League

Ashley Davis is 2011-12 Winner

Final

The final was played 21 August. Ashley (Headless Cross) fought "back from the dead" in a tense match according to the losing finalist Jim Friar (Kidderminster).

Jim Friar (Kidderminster) - Ashley Davis (Headless Cross). The controller has decreed that If the total number of goals scored in the England-France match in Euro 2012 on 11 June is even (including zero), Jim Friar will have White in the final. The match finished 1-1 so Jim has white.

Semi-final draw

Player named first has white. Please complete games by 30 April. If the first standard play game is drawn, there is a reply with colours reversed. If that fails to produce a winner then there should be an Armageddon decider where players toss for colours.

James Friar (jnr) Jim Friar (snr). The first game was drawn and Jim snr won the second.
Ashley Davis - Robert Mitchell

Quarter Final draw

Ray Collett ½ - ½, ½ - ½ Ashley Davis. After the standard play games, the first blitz game was drawn and Ashley won the second. Neither player faced Armageddon.
James Friar (Jr) 1 - 0 Rob Bricknell
Robert Mitchell 1 - 0 Brian Turner
Jim Friar (Sr) 1- 0 Andrew Farthing

Qualifying Stages

The draw for the qualifying groups was carried out by ranking the players in grade order and then ‘slicing’ the list into three pools of four. A name was drawn at random from each of these three pools and placed in each qualifying group. In this way, the strength of the three groups should be roughly similar, but the spirit of a Cup competition (the “luck of the draw”) was retained. The tables were completed by drawing for colour for each game.

Remarkably, not a single top seed came first in his group.