Tuesday 2 February 2021

2021 ACT Lightning Championship

 The 2021 ACT Lightning Championship had an exciting finish, with FM Michael Kethro and Fred Litchfield tied for 1st on 8/9. Both Litchfield and Kethro trailed Harry Press for most of the event, until Litchfield defeated Press in their individual game to leave him half a point behind the leading pair. All 3 won their last round games to leave the final rankings unchanged.

Lachlan Ho won the Under 1900 prize on 6/9, Larry Cheng and Mathew Maltman tied for the Under 1500 prize on 5, and Joshua Liang was the best Under 1000 on 4.5.

The tournament was played in good spirits, with no disputes or major problems. The most interesting ruling I had to make (I was the arbiter), was when one player promoted, but placed the wrong coloured queen on the board. This initially went unnoticed, and the opponent played their next move. It was only when the first player went to move 'his' queen, that he realised what he had done. Technically the second player could insist on keeping the queen as is, but the laws of chess do allow the players to agree to have the illegality corrected (A.4.2 FIDE LOC). They were happy to do this, especially as  the player with the (corrected) queen only had 1 second on the clock. Amazingly, he then managed to play two moves after the restart, capturing the last of his opponents material, and drawing the game.


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