The BCA Summer Cup is a five round Swiss event, with games played remotely and two weeks allowed for each round. After experimenting with various formats for remote events during the Covid pandemic, we settled on this one in 2022 and the Summer Cup has now become an established event in the BCA calendar.
The 2024 BCA Summer Cup officially kicked off on the 13th of July. Twenty-four members from six countries took part. We were delighted to welcome Paul Inglis to his first ever BCA event! It was also great to have Olivier Deville (France), Philip Doyle (Ireland), Ben Fletcher-Harris and Brandan Read taking part in the Summer Cup for the first time. Games were played on Zoom, Skype, Lichess and over the telephone. The tournament was run as a single group. There was also an integrated Ladies’ tournament because a majority of the female participants were in favour of having one.
Congratulations to Brandan Read (Weston-super-Mare), who achieved a perfect score of five points from five games! He was awarded a trophy by Summer Cup arbiter, Julie Leonard, at our Autumn Tournament in Milton Keynes.
In the Challengers section, Ben Fletcher-Harris (Sheffield) and Paul Inglis (Isle of Man) were neck and neck throughout the event. In the end they tied on 3 points and Paul won the trophy on tie-break. (We hope to have an opportunity to present Paul’s trophy to him in the not too distant future!)
In the Ladies section, Neda Koohnavard (Erith) won with 2.5 points. Neda received her trophy from Summer Cup arbiter, Gerry Walsh, at our Autumn Tournament in Milton Keynes.
In addition to the arbiters, special thanks go to Voldi Gailans who set up Zoom sessions for many of the games, to Bittor Ibanez who compiled a database of games from the event, to all those who volunteered as timekeepers and to each and every competitor for always keeping to the friendly spirit of this event!
Final scores and placings
1st with 5 points Brandan Read
2nd with 4 points Steve Burnell
Joint 3rd with 3.5 points Philip Doyle, Eamonn Casey, Olivier Deville and Paul Baldwin
On 3 points Steve Bailey, Paul Inglis, Ben Fletcher-Harris and Norman Wragg
On 2.5 points Neda Koohnavard, Mahendra Galani, Stan Lovell and Teresa Codina
On 2 points Malcolm Jones, Mark Hague, Marilyn Bland and Abi Baker
On 1.5 points Lea Ryan, Voldi Gailans, Gill Smith and Eleanor Tew
On 1 point John Ramm
On 0 points Richard Harrington