30 May 2019
Norman Ellis Trophy for individuals
Tom Leah is the outright winner of this year’s Norman Ellis Trophy with 5 straight wins in the 5-round Leeds-wide competition.
To gain the title he beat David Pedro, Peter Braham, Robert Starley, Clive Davies and Peter Mason.
A fine achievement! Heartiest congratulations, Tom!
Tom is reigning champion of Limewood’s annual Blitz competition. But he will not be able to defend his title on 12 June this year as he will be away in Norway, so the title is well and truly up for grabs.
Tom was also runner-up in the Gambit Trophy competition. (The Gambit is awarded to the player with most points across the various LCA competitions.) Tom actually had a success rate a shade higher than the winner, Robert Starley, but didn’t play as many games.
What about the Ken Appleby Trophy? click here to find out
Arjay Trophy
Limewood are winners of the 2018-19 Arjay Trophy – the Leeds CA’s annual knockout competition.
Here is the winning team who all played in the last 3 rounds (Holi Siefaldin replaced Tom Leah in the match played in December):
Tom Leah, Paul May (Captain) and Paul Johnson
In earlier rounds they beat Leeds 2 (2 – 1), West Leeds (3 – 0), Leeds 1 ( 2 – 1) and Leeds University (2 – 1).
Alas, in this final round Moortown 1 fielded an ineligible player at board 2, contrary to the established rule forbidding the parachuting-in of a higher-graded player in the final round. (The effect cascaded downstream with the player at board 3 also becoming ineligible – it even affected Moortown’s other team in their Arjay Plate final.)
The match was actually played and Tom Leah secured a draw against Moortown’s one eligible player. But then, on “Stewards’ Enquiry”, Moortown were declared in default and the match awarded to Limewood.
It was an unfortunate end to the competition – we didn’t want to win that way – but it should not overshadow the fact that Limewood were very worthy finalists, having reached there on their own substantial merits.
Ken Appleby Trophy (the Ellis’s kid sibling)
As regular readers of these reports will be aware, our Limewood entrants in this U135s competition have not exactly covered themselves in glory this season. But John Light produced a storming finish to his Appleby campaign by beating Neil Griffiths, graded some 42 points higher. John was also our leading scorer, ending with 3 points from the 5 rounds.
You can play through John’s game here: John Light v Neil Griffiths