The fifth and final round of the Gladstone Trophy 2022 was upon us. On this evening William Ewert Gladstone would once more decide who he would anoint as his favourite son.
Mister Chamberlain had enjoyed this privilege since 2019, but the mantle of NLC Chess Champion would pass to another after this round of matches. Three players had a shot – Doctor Kirby, Mister Jacobs and Mister Giffin KC MA (Oxon) could all be crowned champ at the end of the evening, depending upon the results between them and the tie-break scores.
Tense stuff…and the evening did not disappoint.
In order to maintain the narrative and sporting tension (so familiar to regular readers), the results will be dealt with in reverse Board order so as to build up to the dramatic denouement.
Board 5
Mister Sharland took on Mister Ioannou. A tough tie for Mister Sharland, as Mister Ioannou through various twists of fate has only managed to secure a series of draw in earlier rounds where the form book would suggest he should have won, and consequently was down the rankings when the draw was made. Mister Ioannou played good solid chess, took his chances, and saw the game home fairly comfortably.
Board 4
Mister Widdicombe battled with Senor Odriozola. Remarkably, for the second Gladstone game in a row, Mister Widdicombe faced 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6, with 3.Nxe5 fxe5 and 4.Qh5+. He still had work to do to convert the opening advantage and Senor Odriozola put up some stiff resistance, but there’s no coming back from the suspect 2…f6.
Board 3
A humdinger on Board 3. Two pillars of NLC Chess sized each other up and played a fascinating strategic game, with White pushing an intimidating phalanx of queenside pawns against Blacks King’s Indian set up. White eventually pushed on a little too hard and his Queen got caught in No Man’s Land, allowing Black to overrun White’s position and win through.
Said Doctor Saldanha: “It was a real ding-dong battle with plenty of errors on both sides that (a) added much to the tension and (b) meant we both had chances to win. White definitely had an opportunity to win a piece early on and advantages later on in the middle game. We could have also headed for some sort of draw, in which case White would have likely won on time. I fully appreciate how lucky I was with White’s move 39. Qc6 and I’m not in any way gloating, honestly – I was pretty drained by the end”.
Honour rests with both parties.
Board 2
On to the contenders. Mister Giffin KC MA (Oxon) was still in the running. He needed Mister Jacobs to beat Doctor Kirby (a very plausible possibility) and then he had a chance to slip through on the tie-breaks. But first he needed to secure the full point against Our Good Friend Mister Taylor. Not an easy task – Our Good Friend has been having a very good tournament and taking full points from some unexpected places. King’s Counsel would have to be careful.
So in the end, Mister Giffin KC MA (Oxon) managed to see the game through, and his fate now rested with the events on the adjacent Board…
Board 1
It came down to this. With Doctor Kirby on four points and Mister Jacobs on three the advantage was with Doctor Kirby. A half point would secure outright victory, but Mister Jacobs had no reason to settle for the draw and is a tough and improving competitor. Would this be the moment he takes Doctor Kirby down?
The game was finely balanced from the start, and remained so right through to the end. With the pieces coming off it was a King, Queen and pawn ending, with a slightly worse pawn structure for White. Might Mister Jacobs be able to find a chink in the White position? Would Kirby – suspecting the tie-break scores would be against him in a three way tie – push too hard and make an error? The tension was thick. (And the possibility of a Mister Jacobs victory leading to a three-way tiebreak sent Mister Widdicombe scurrying to abacus to work out who would win through…).
It went down to wire, the last game to finish, the clocks ticking down. Who would win out? Who was to be Gladstone’s favourite son?
The players sparred for a while, some more pawns coming off and Queens shadow boxing each other. Once the queens came off the draw was offered by White and agreed by Black – surely the right outcome to the game.
And with that, Doctor Kirby had become the 2022 NLC Chess Champion.
The final standings
| Position | Name | Score | Tiebreak |
| 1 | Doctor Kirby | 4.5 | 14.0 |
| 2 | Mister Giffin KC MA (Oxon) | 4 | 15.0 |
| 3 | Mister Jacobs | 3.5 | 16.5 |
| 4 | Doctor Saldanha | 3 | 13.0 |
| 5 | Mister Jackson | 3 | 11.5 |
| 6 | Mister Widdicombe | 3 | 10.5 |
| 7 | Our Good Friend Mister Taylor | 2.5 | 14.0 |
| 8 | Mister Barnett | 2.5 | 12.5 |
| 9 | Mister Ioannou | 2.5 | 10.5 |
| 10 | Mister Dias | 2 | 14.5 |
| 11 | Senor Odriozola | 1.5 | 10.5 |
| 12 | Mister Rosenbaum | 1 | 14.0 |
| 13 | Mister Sharland | 0.5 | 12.5 |
| 14 | Mister Ali | 0 | 7.5 |
| 15 | Mister Macrory | 0 | 2.5 |
So Doctor Kirby wins by a half point margin, and Mister Giffin KC MA (Oxon) comes a clear second. How different things could have been if Doctor Saldanha had taken Doctor Kirby’s round 3 draw offer, or Mister Giffin KC MA (Oxon) had worked down to an even endgame against him in round 4. But good players get the luck, and Doctor Kirby is a fighter. What is clear is that the gap between Doctor Kirby and some of the other Lib chessers is closing. Doctor Kirby’s crown is not quite so secure as it once was…
Other players deserve special mention. Doctor Saldanha’s very clear improvement over the last year shows through in the final standings with his fourth place. Thoroughly deserved and surely he will climb up the HR team board rankings during the coming season? And Mister Jackson, in his first Gladstone Trophy, did very well to rank fifth. Let’s hope we can convince him to turn out to some of the inter-club matches to bolster the middle order.
And honourable mentions go to Messers Jacobs, Dias, and Rosenbaum who, as the tie-break scores show, did things the hard way. (The tie-break method is the Buchholz method, which means that the scores of each player’s five opponents over the course of the competition are aggregated, and the player with the highest aggregate placing highest). They scored their points against the toughest of opponents, and so their final rankings need to be seen in that context – they had no easy games.
Dinner
With the conclusion of the Gladstone Trophy all that was left was to have dinner. The delightful addition of Mrs Giffin KC MA (Oxon) served only to make the dinner even more enjoyable than usual.
Congratulations Doctor Kirby – NLC Chess Champion 2022!