CCC

As every year, the South Lakes Congress was held in the Cumbria Grand Hotel in Grange-over-Sands during the second week-end of June. Cockermouth Chess Club was well represented this year with 7 members of the club playing in the top four sections of the tournament:
- Open: John Jarmany
- Major: David Jarmany and Neil Jones
- Intermediate: Philippe Gleizon, Bill Henderson and
Ian Stone
- Minor I: Peter Blackmore

All participants had a very enjoyable week-end. There was no outstanding performance this year. The best performance came again from David Jarmany who finished third of his section. It was bad luck considering that he finished with 4 points but two other players finished with 4.5 points. Overall, only three members of Cockermouth Chess Club won prizes:
- David Jarmany won the third prize of the Major section,
- John Jarmany and Peter Blackmore won the grading prizes of their respective section.

All results can be found on the Cumbria Chess Association web site .

Ironically, for the second year that John plays the South Lakes congress, he received the Cumbria grading prize without winning a game! The first year was because he was the only Cumbrian player to play in the open, and got the prize with only half-point draw. This year, another Cumbrian player, Mathew McKenzie from Barrow, played the open. At the end, John and Mathew had the same number of points but John, being the lowest graded, got the prize with only two half-point draw! John is still laughing of his good luck...

Similarly, in the Minor II section, only two Cumbrian players entered: Peter Blackmore (Cockermouth) and Richard Farrall (Penrith). Peter finished with 2.5 points, ahead of Richard by only half-point, and therefore got the grading prize.

Not an outstanding chess week-end for Cockermouth then, but we all enjoyed the sunny week-end in a good atmosphere, which was only shadowed by England's disappointing performance against USA in the football world cup!...