2024-25 Rapid Champion: David Spearman
2024-25 Dragon Plate: Ashwin GopiKrishna (highest placed Junior entrant)
Date: 31 March 2026 and 7 April 2026, 7.30-10.40pm
6 round Swiss, all moves in 20 minutes plus 10 seconds added per move (G20+10).
Rapid Championship Vega tournament pages | on ECF LMS
Paul Barclay Rapid Champion
What must be a record entry of 48 members contested at least one half of the two-evenings over which the Rapid Championship was held. This is way beyond the maximum entry when the Rapid was held as a one-day event on a Saturday. Two evenings, with the three options to play one or the other, or both, proves most popular.
Playing off a Rapid Rating of 1698, Paul Barclay turned in a rating performance of 1953 to take the Rapid Championship for the first time, with 5½/6. Paul’s results included a Round 2 draw with David Spearman, a Round 5 defeat of Ashley Freeman and a final round victory over Terry Whitton. Congratulations, Paul, on a fine performance and your first Rapid Championship.
Elsewhere, results among the galacticos got interesting as ealy as Round 2 with John Cawdery losing to Hirak Modi in Round 2, while David Spearman dropped a half to Paul Barclay (as above). Then the point was shared between John and David which threw the issue wide open. Ashley beat Steve Rix in Round 4. In Round 5, Steve dropped a further half to Mark Murrell. And the final round toll was David ½-½ Ashwin GopiKrishna and Steve and John sharing the point, allowing Paul to slip through to win by half a point.
Leading scores:
1st Paul Barclay, 5½/6;
2nd Ashley Freeman, 5/6;
=3rd David Spearman, Ashwin GopiKrishna, 4½/6
…followed by no fewer than eight players on 4/6 – including Steve, Terry, Modi and John.
48 entries.
Rapid Championship Vega tournament pages | on ECF LMS