This competition has not been held since that for 2019 but as noted in our earlier website announcement we are now catching up with the award of four trophies for games played in 2020-21 (combining the two Covid years), 2022, 2023 and 2024. The detailed rules can be found here but briefly to qualify for consideration a game must be a win or a draw by a player qualified to represent Wales in a FIDE competition at the time the game was played against a non-Welsh opponent graded over 2250 and FIDE-rated at least 150 points above the entrant at that time.
No additional games beyond the fifty-eight identified by judges Stuart Hutchings and Howard Williams (both FMs) as meeting the above criteria came to light (see earlier announcement for scores). But there were plenty among them to make awarding the trophies a far from straightforward exercise. And many thanks to those who submitted notes on their games.
To summarise the 58:
| Played in: | Number | Draws | Wins |
| 2020 or 2021 | 14 | 9 | 5 |
| 2022 | 14 | 9 | 5 |
| 2023 | 12 | 6 | 6 |
| 2024 | 18 | 12 | 6 |
The number of qualifying games is rather down on pre-Covid years (2019: 30) but the number of wins less so (2018: 7).
Turning now to the awards themselves:
2020 and 2021
Six of the 14 qualifying games were played either by Allan Pleasants or Jon Blackburn. Among them Allan’s resounding king-hunt from the European Team Championship, a notoriously difficult event for us, brightened up the immediate post-Covid period while Jon’s win against the Irish IM Tom O’Gorman was a nice game too. But the clear winner of the award for this period goes to Jon for his classic and already much publicised miniature against GM Matthew Turner.
2022
Tim Kett’s win with Black against IM Hogni Neilsen is a fine example of seizing an opportunity, in this case leading to a crushing kingside attack but Tom Brown’s fine positional victory against GM Oleg Romanishin from the Minorca Open takes the black dragon. Romanishin obtained his GM title in 1976 and was a member of the Soviet team in the 1978 Olympiad (defeating incidentally Iolo Jones in the USSR’s hesitant victory over Wales). But in this game it is hard to tell who is the grandmaster as Tom ensures that Black never obtains the slightest glimmer of play in the centre or on the kingside and slowly succumbs on the other side of the board.
2023
Jon Blackburn’s positional pawn sacrifice against the English IM (and WGM) Harriet Hunt was an instructive game and John Cooper’s crushing win against the French IM Rajat Makkar also drew the judges’ attention. But a third game from the 4NCL, John’s other win, this time with Black against the English IM Ezra Kirk, takes the prize. John has stayed faithful to his opening repertoire which goes back many years, reflecting much study and original thinking, and here with Black in a sharp line of the Scheveningen Sicilian he sacrifices a piece to launch a protracted attack against an exposed white king.
2024
In Rathbone-Jones against Hobson Ifan is rewarded for taking chances when his queen sacrifice, initially for two minor pieces, leads to complexities which floor his opponent. And in the European Club Cup Lee Davis outplays his Serbian opponent in the sort of unbalanced rook endgame at which GMs usually excel. Well done both but the trophy goes to Olivia Smith for her sustained attack against GM Keith Arkell in the Guernsey Open. In this game Black barricaded his king-side against Olivia’s clearly intended sacrifices but still they came, culminating in a winning rook offer.
It is hoped to award the trophy for 2025 early next year in line with the pre Covid timetable.
The four winning games can be accessed in pgn. format here. The notes to Jon Blackburn’s game and Olivia Smith’s are by the winners and to the other two by the judges.
