Mutual Circle V Sutton Coldfield

Press / Admin Comment

Sutton Coldfield club intend to seek clarification with the BDCL rules committee with reference to the BDCL rule no.7.2, board order, where Mutual Circle fielded a player (grade 154) on board 2 with a 21 point ECF January grade difference to player on board 3.(grade 175)

Robert Marks

Mutual's Board Order

Whilst I think that our Eduardo Sanchez (aged 17) has been improving very quickly (as shown by his most recent results on LMS) and is now of a similar strength to Luke Boynton, I have to say that the order in which the two of them played in this match was not that intended by our main team organiser/captain, Matt Trigg! Unfortunately Matt has rarely been able to actually play himself and was unavailable on this particular evening. Normally in this situation he emails our players details of the team and board order and appoints an acting team captain. However, on this occasion work distractions meant that he forgot to send out his usual team email and also overlooked that he hadn't actually asked his chosen delegate, Saket Singhal, to take on the role of team captain! When Saket arrived (rather late at 7.25 p.m.) he found that none of the other players was expecting to be captain and that noone was sure who was supposed to be in the team that night (or whether we even had a full team - as only five players seemed to have turned up). In the absence of anyone else, Saket agreed to act as the team captain and to default on Board 6. However, Saket is normally captain of our Division 5 team and so was unfamiliar with the gradings and usual board order of our Div 2 players. He therefore asked the players for advice and it would appear that Eduardo and Luke thought that it would be acceptable for them to reverse their habitual board order - Eduardo was keen both to play the Black pieces and to play against as strong opposition as possible. (Incidentally, the players did attempt to text me to check on the team and board order but unfortunately I was playing in another match and had turned off my phone). So the board order actually played was not decided by advance design but as the result of a series of regrettable accidents. We apologise to Sutton Coldfield and the BDCL for this unfortunate mishap.

Chris Evans