FRIENDS OF CHESS: JUNE

The June friends of chess rapid play took place at the Lafiagi community centre on the 9th of June, 2007.

53 chess players registered for the event, 19 masters , 5 female and the remaining 24 being opens players. However not all the registered players turned up as usual. On this particular day , there was an accident on the lagos-ibadan expressway which caused a number of participants, from out of town, to miss the first round. Others arrived after the second round was over and had to be withdrawn.

From the start it was obvious that it was going to be a very open competition as none of the “big guns” were around. (this gave me the “liver” to venture into the field of play but it vanished on being defeated in the very first round! By Dara Adegbayi).On the friends of chess rating list only 2 players in the top 10 were around namely Femi olape and Bimbo Fajemirokun and they were seeded 1 and 2 respectively. Seeds 3, 4 were Leonard Akpan and Ajibowo Olamide . 3rd seed Leonard was one of those who came from Ibadan, he came late but still had enough time to polish off his opponent in the first round. Other than my defeat (which can’t be considered an upset parse), results went according to rating.

In the second round Tunji Rojugbokan defeated Femi Olape on the top board while veteran Fash had some trouble with Mustapha Mohammed but managed to came out on top, to which an onlooker quipped “A fish will always be a fish!”

Round 3 saw another veteran, Rahmon Agusto on top board but he lost to Bimbo Fajemirokun. Emeka Nwosu held Leonard Akpan to a draw on 2nd board while Olamide with the black pieces defeated Tunji Rojugbokan. Fash lost to Jegede Toyin on board 4  with the white pieces and dafe Efemuai also lost to Nathan aka 'flow' with the same colour on board 5.

Round 4 saw 6 players with 3/3 on the top 3 boards and the pairings were:
Fajemirokun-Amosu, Olamide-Jegede and Sumbo-Nathan.Board 4 had the top seed Femi Olape on 2 points against leonard the 3rd seed with 2 ½ points. Fajemirokun won unsurprisingly but there were shocks of some sort as Jegede defeated Olamide and Nathan defeated Sumbo. Femi Olape topped Leonard as well.

At the start of round 5 only 3 players had a perfect score and Jegede was paired against Fajemirokun and made short work of him, Nathan was paired against Emeka Nwosu who had nailed Fash in the previous round, prompting Fash to withdraw from the tournament! And in the process had moved to 3 ½, but this time Nwosu was at the wrong end of the result. Femi Olape was playing catch up and was made to sweat for his point by Ojo John. Ademola Dada aka 'Tromposki' who was making his first appearance at a friends of chess rapid event had sneaked up to the top boards but was sent back into the doldroms by Olamide. All in all there were 11 players on 3 points going into round 5. Other notable winners on 3 points out of 4 were Dafe, Dara, Tunji and Robert Hezekiah.

In round 6 Toyin Jjegede was paired against Nathan and with both being a clear point ahead of the rest of the field it was no surprise that they agreed a quick draw. No such luck for Robert Hezekiah who was gradually squeezed to death by Femi Olape on 2nd board. On 3rd board Bimbo did not have to sweat against Dafe as the latter was too intrested in playing “blood” with a non participant! Olamide also won against my 1st round conqueror, Dara, while Tunji Rogugbokan also ended up with 5 points courtesy of his last round win over Emeka Nwosu.

In the end Toyin Jegede and Nathan tied for 1st with 5 ½ while there was a 4 way tie for 3rd with Bimbo Fajemirokun,Olamide Ajibowo,Femi Olape and Tunji Rojugbokan with 5 points.