Dear Friends
A little later than intended, but here's the issue promised in the stop press.
Cardigan end Monmouth Dream
Yet Another Shock Result
Cardiff Win Cup and Qualify for Europe
Monmouth's Dream in Tatters
Monmouth's dream of representing Wales for the third successive time in Europe was in tatters last Sunday as fine play by Cardigan resulted in a surprise 4 - 2 win for the West Wales champions.
After their magnificent win over Cardiff a few days earlier Monmouth were expected to defeat Cardigan and claim a place in Europe. There was even talk of a 4.5 - 1.5 win enabling them to go as champions. Cardigan had other ideas, overturning the form book and giving themselves an excellent chance of qualifying in second place.
Monmouth's plan was quite simple. They expected hard games on the top two boards, but hoped to pile up the points on the bottom four, where they outgraded their opponents. They were right about the top boards which were both drawn, but it was cardigan who won the bottom boards 3 - 1 to claim the victory. It might even have been 4 - 0 as both Nigel Beveridge and Dai James were a little lucky to draw, although in fairness Monmouth lost board 3 on a blunder in a won position, while the wheel of fortune was spinning so fast that it's axel was smoking.
The final match takes place next Sunday (Cardigan v Nidum, not sure who'd at home) with a place in Europe waiting for the winner. I'm not even going to try and pick a winner. there have been too many upsets in the Challenge Cup this year.
Congratulations to Cardiff. Whatever happens they will represent us in Europe as champions.
Could players who have taken part in
this years Challenge Cup please send copies of their games to Paul
Orton
porton@cix.co.uk
who would like to put them on his website.
I'll try and get the rest of this issue out tomorrow if I can find some free time. In the meantime why not visit the msn community I'm setting up
http://groups.msn.com/WinterButterfly
Not much there yet, but eventually it will contain photographs and longer articles that I can't really send by email (they would clog up too many mailboxes). Why not join and leave a message or a photo or anything you think relevant. Memories of welsh chess in earlier times would be interesting. In particular, if you have a chess website please leave a link.
This site will supplement the ezine which will continue to be published in the normal way. Paul Orton is the official Butterfly archivist and posts current and back issues on his excellent web site. Some issues of WB appear on other sites such as the Barry site which is also regularly updated and well worth a visit. more about that in a future issue.
Best wishes
Dai James.