Opening Night Event - Tuesday September 14th 2004  

The re-opening of Wanstead and Woodford Chess Club for the 2004/05 season took the form of the now traditional Caterpillar Simultaneous in which the winners of the major trophies from the previous season were opposed by no less than twenty-two of their Club colleagues. This year the three legs of the “Caterpillar” consisted of Club Champion Steve Gilmour, David Wood winner Laurie Burtt and, deputising for Wagstaff Shield winner Terry Whitton who was on holiday, Chairman Ian Hunnable.

The opposition turned out to be one of the strongest line-ups in recent years, and the trio were fully occupied as they made their alternate moves until well after 11.00pm. The only game to finish quickly was won by John Duggan making a welcome return to the Club after a lay-off of no less than fifteen years. A whole hour then elapsed before another new member Joel Curtis was forced to concede at 9.55pm, although the Club’s lead was restored shortly afterwards thanks to Larry Marden.  

However, it was not until well after 10.30pm that the well co-ordinated chess played by the Trio started to show dividends when a number of decisive results were recorded in their favour. The only other Club members able to achieve the full point were Paul Barclay and David Gibbs, whilst the Trio continued to pile up the points to record a final impressive tally in their favour of 15 points to 7.  

Altogether a most entertaining and instructive start to the season, in which the skill and determination shown by some of the lower graded members augurs well for the new season. This does not however detract in any way from an excellent performance by the “Caterpillar” which gave an impressive display of controlled and accurate chess throughout the evening and the membership both thanks and congratulates them most sincerely for their efforts.  

Detailed results, in no particular order, were as follows:-  

John Duggan 1                       Mark Murrell 0.5
Larry Marden 1                       Ian Refalo 0
Fin O’Regan 0                         Philip Staniland 0
Geoff Lane 0                           Ken Murray 0.5
Robert Hamilton 0                  Terry Dixon 0
Sid Burns 0.5                          Arie Niewerf 0
Bob Heyman 0.5                     John Langford 0
Wim de Jong 0.5                     Tony Norcaro 0
Joel Curtis 0                            David Smith 0.5
David Gibbs 1                         Paul Barclay 1
Nayeem Syed 0                      Michael Owen  0

David Smith
Hon. Secretary