Worcester & District Chess League

Jim Friar wins 2015 Bennett Cup

Tournament format

The format of the 2014-5 competition was two groups of six or seven players followed by a knock out phase. Games were graded, and the time control is identical to that used in the Worcester & District League.

The knock-out stage

Final Jim Friar (white, Hagley) - Ian Clarke (black, Malvern). Colours were determined by the number of wickets taken on the second day of play in the Worcestershire-New Zealand match played at New Road. The first game was a draw and Jim Friar won the second game to become the 2015 Bennett Cup winner. Ian Clarke wrote: "[Jim was] a deserving winner on the night but I was also lucky to be offered a draw last time [with] only a few seconds left".

Semi-finals Jim Friar (Hagley) ½-½, replay 1-0 Matthew Jordan (Malvern). In the second semi-final: Ian Clarke (Malvern) 1-0 David L Roberts (Worcester City).

26 Mar, Andrew Farthing, controller, reports. Both groups saw a clear winner, followed by a tie for second place, necessitating use of the tiebreak methods set out in the competition rules.  Any tie-break method - apart from a play-off - is inevitably arbitrary to some degree, so particular sympathies go out to those who were unfortunate enough to lose out in this instance.

The group stage

12 Mar. Andrew Farthing, controller reports. In Group A, Jim Friar is guaranteed a place in the semi-finals. The second place is a battle between John Wrench (who will need to win his remaining three games), David Roberts and Ray Collett. In Group B, Ian Clarke's dominant performance assures him of first place. The destination of the second qualifying place is still very much up for grabs, although a win by James Friar in his remaining game would leave him certain of second place.

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