Mrs Randall sweeps all before her

It was a glorious summer evening. The sun beamed down on the congregation of Liberal chessers, drawn together on Wednesday July 16, all of them keen to battle it out to become the 2025 NLC Blitz Chess Champion. At stake was the fabled Kennedy Cup.

Fully 18 Liberal chessers were in attendance. The Editorial Committee sent the office boy to the Liberal Chess archives with instructions to check for when the last time so many Liberal chessers were together. After two weeks of research the poor lad emerged to confirm that this was, in fact, the biggest collection of Liberal chess players in one place in recorded history.

But that was not, remarkably, the biggest story of the evening. Rather, the story of the evening was the manner in which the Kennedy Cup was won.

Now, we’ve had many an odd way to win an NLC title. There was Mister Khan, in 2024, who broke all the rules of Liberal chess by playing a queen sacrifice that was actually sound. Or Doctor Kirby won the Lightning in 2020 with two glasses of club red and a dodgy knight fork. Or even – the most unbelievable of all – Doctor Widdicombe winning the very first ever Gladstone Trophy (an utterly unexplainable occurance that foxes the Liberal chess cognoscenti to this very day).

But no NLC chess Champion has won a Cup in quite the way Mrs Randall did. She took a novel and highly effective approach of not in fact playing herself, but instead entering a player into the competition as her chess-playing representative. Whilst this was a somewhat unorthodox approach, there is nothing in the Laws of Liberal Chess Play that forbids it. And so the Organising Committee duly authorised the entry of Mrs. Randall’s representative (a player reportedly related to Mrs. Randall in some way).

Here’s the story transpired.

It was a nine round tournament, with the 5 minutes-per-side games coming thick and fast. The top players were quickly drawn together on the top boards and no quarter was given.

Mister Khan was the defending champion, and very definitely had his game-head on. He was brooking no nonsense.

But Mister Corrigan is a fearsome blitz player. Would he perhaps win through?

But a dark horse stalked the field. Mrs Randall’s chess representative turned out to be a very decent woodpusher…

At the half-way point the field was pretty bunched. Mister Khan and Mrs Randell’s representative were a point ahead of the field, but being chased by a strong mid-order pack of Corrigan, Saldanha, Jacobs, Barton and Giffin.

What would the final four rounds bring?

Mister Corrigan was employing a stealthy and long-sighted approach. He lurked just out of the limelight on boards 3 and 4, quietly picking up the points, before launching his final rounds push onto board 1 for the final match.

And what a final round match. Mrs. Randall’s representative was a half point ahead of Mister Khan going into the final game, and so a victory for him would lead to Mrs. Randall taking the trophy.

But wait! Mister Corrigan was not having any of it, and forced the draw after some nerve-wracking final few seconds of play.

Word was passed to Mister Khan on board 2 that a draw on board 1 meant he could tie for first. Having perhaps given the cause up for dead, the news acted as a shock to his core and he dug in, delivered the victory, and then all eyes turned to the scoreboard. What would it all mean for the Cup?

It meant it was an absolute dead-level tie. The tie-break system was that used for every NLC competition – (1) points scored, then (2) head-to-head, then (3) the ‘Buchholz’ method (in which the score of one’s opponents over the evening are aggregated and the player with the higher Buchholz score winning out).

This approach has never let us down. Here you can see the remarkable situation – absolutely dead-level. A first in the annals of Liberal Chess.

What now? We were in unknown waters here. Captain Saldanha and the Organising Committee quickly conferred, and it was decided that the destination of the Cup must be settled in a sporting manner – a play off at 3 minutes per side.

And so it was. Mrs. Randall’s representative vs Mister Khan.

An incredible game, with both sides having distinct chances, but with Mrs. Randall’s representative spying a nasty little back-rank threat that meant Mister Khan’s rooks were tied to the defence. Having spied the threat, and struggling to find a way to maintain the position without exposing himself to the knockout blow, Mister Khan ran low on time and eventually had to admit defeat.

Mrs. Randall had done it!

And with that, we had only to present the Kennedy Cup to the worthy and rightful winner – Mrs. Randall, who is now the 2025 NLC Blitz Champion!

The final word goes to the new NLC Blitz Champion: “I’m so pleased to have won the Cup. By next year I’m going to try to learn how the pieces move.”

The final crosstable and the full round-by-round results can be found here: https://swisssystem.org/tournament/a3db02be116947b591e4d94c0af4db9f/rounds#allRounds