Surbiton
A team in the
Season
2010-2011 review
I thought I
would write a little summary of the TV Divison 1
team’s season 2010-11.
Firstly,
let’s have a look at the Division 1
League table:
|
|
P |
W |
D |
L |
U |
BD |
De |
Pts |
|
Ealing A |
14 |
11 |
1 |
2 |
0 |
25 |
0 |
11½ |
|
Harrow A |
14 |
9 |
1 |
4 |
0 |
27 |
0 |
9½ |
|
|
14 |
9 |
1 |
4 |
0 |
14 |
1 |
9½ |
|
Surbiton A |
14 |
7 |
1 |
6 |
0 |
17 |
0 |
7½ |
|
|
14 |
6 |
2 |
6 |
0 |
3 |
0 |
7 |
|
Maidenhead A |
14 |
5 |
2 |
7 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
6 |
|
|
14 |
3 |
2 |
9 |
0 |
-27 |
0 |
4 |
|
|
14 |
1 |
0 |
13 |
0 |
-61 |
3 |
1 |
So we
finished fourth, in mid-table. I think this was a very respectable performance
by the team as my impression was that the strength of the league has increased
over the last year or so and there are few easy matches between the top six
sides. Relative to last year, when we also finished fourth, we ended up with
half a match point more.
As well as
the league we also competed in the
I thought I
would show you how we all got on individually and so have produced a results summary for each player who
played for my team as follows:-
|
|
Board |
Played |
Won |
Drew |
Lost |
Points |
Percentage |
Opponents' avg
grade |
Grading Performance |
|
Chris
Briscoe |
1.1 |
9 |
2 |
5 |
2 |
4.5 |
50% |
192 |
192 |
|
Mark Josse |
1.5 |
11 |
4 |
4 |
3 |
6 |
55% |
192 |
197 |
|
Nick Pelling |
2.4 |
13 |
7 |
4 |
2 |
9 |
69% |
181 |
200 |
|
Edgar Flacker |
3.4 |
8 |
5 |
2 |
1 |
6 |
75% |
175 |
200 |
|
Stef Bruzzi |
3.7 |
14 |
3 |
8 |
3 |
7 |
50% |
177 |
177 |
|
Paul
Shepherd |
4.8 |
13 |
5 |
2 |
6 |
6 |
46% |
173 |
169 |
|
Ian
Henderson |
5.3 |
12 |
7 |
2 |
3 |
8 |
67% |
166 |
183 |
|
Angus
James |
6.3 |
13 |
4 |
5 |
4 |
6.5 |
50% |
158 |
160 |
|
Heiko Cassens |
6.5 |
4 |
2 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
50% |
144 |
155 |
|
Michael
Nightingale |
7.0 |
4 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
2.5 |
63% |
165 |
177 |
|
Malcolm
Groom |
7.3 |
4 |
0 |
3 |
1 |
1.5 |
38% |
135 |
122 |
|
Paul Durrant |
7.5 |
2 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
100% |
154 |
204 |
|
Rob
Harrison |
7.6 |
7 |
1 |
2 |
4 |
2 |
29% |
157 |
136 |
|
Martin Durrant |
8.0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0% |
152 |
102 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total |
|
115 |
44 |
38 |
33 |
63 |
55% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Figures
include THAMES VALLEY DIVISION 1 |
|
||||||||
As with all
such analyses one has to be a little careful in drawing conclusions where the
sample size is small however I will use a little bit of captain’s licence to
suggest a few “awards”
Most loyal player award goes to Stef Bruzzi for playing in 14 matches. Thanks
to Stef for his fantastic support!
Player with most wins award goes jointly to Nick Pelling and Ian Henderson with seven each. Great effort guys!
Player with most losses award would go to your captain with six! When he handed over the captaincy to me last
year Paul Durrant told me it would be worth minus 10
rating points and he was about right. Graded 181, I produced a 169 performance
for my team!
Mr Solid award goes to Stef Bruzzi who drew eight games out of his fourteen. Do not
mess with Stef’s French Defence!
Highest % scorer award goes to the former captain, Paul Durrant,
with 100% who clearly enjoyed being unburdened by passing me the armband!
Recalling my earlier point about small sample sizes, and the fact that Paul’s
100% was over two games, I would like to give a seriously honourable mention to
Edgar Flacker for
a great 75% in his first season for the club. Well done Paul and Edgar!
Highest grading performance award again goes to Paul Durrant for his 204 in two games!
You will see I have included in the table a statement of our opponent’s average
grades to put the performances in context. Given this and the sample size
issues I would like to give seriously honourable mentions to both Nick Pelling
and Edgar Flacker
who each produced a 200 performance. Well done Paul, Nick and Edgar!
Finally,
the Punched Above
His Weight award goes to Michael Nightingale who, graded 151,
produced a 177 performance for my team as well as an Immortal Game! Well done
Michael!
I haven’t
mentioned everyone yet and that would be remiss of me. I would like to thank
each and every one of you for your loyalty and support last season, which I
really appreciated. Playing as well as you can and in as many matches as we have,
while trying to lead very busy lives, is not easy and you all deserve huge
credit for your efforts.
I am also
proud that we did not default a single game and would like to acknowledge the
efforts that you all put in to communicate issues early to me and especially to
thank those who were kind enough to volunteer to be reserves for some matches
so that I always had someone to call upon if unexpected issues arose late in
the day.
What of the future?
My feeling
is that we have the potential to improve our league position and our individual
performances. This applies especially to your captain of course but there were
a few green shoots of recovery towards the end of the season that make me feel
optimistic about my own situation!
If each of
us could improve, say, 10 points and we were able to consistently field our best
players then I think we would be a strong outfit. Whether we could challenge
the powerhouse of Ealing on a consistent basis, I don’t know, as we have a
relatively small pool of players but I would love us to try!
I think
there are two things to think about if we want to climb that league:
1. Get the best players out as often as
possible.
That’s
really up to us all and I recognize that life has a tendency of disrupting great
plans but I will try my very best as captain to facilitate this aim, with your assistance.
2. Improvement.
Whether
it’s improving your clock handling, the way you manage psychologically when you
are faced with something unexpected, the way you calculate tactics, your positional
judgement or your knowledge of certain opening(s),
ending(s), your approach to draw offers etc, etc I
would suggest that there are areas we all can get better at (my own list is
extensive of course!).
My
suggestion is to figure out how much time you have available, identify your top
priority improvement item(s) and work on them over
the summer for next season (and then keep working through the season – try to
learn something meaningful from every game). I would also strongly encourage
you to collaborate with other players at the club. There is a serious knowledge
base amongst us all and we ought to be sharing this amongst each other where it
makes sense to do so. It’s a team as well as an individual game!
Practice to
avoid rust is also very important and I am really impressed that many of us are
competing in tournaments over the summer which I hope will pay dividends at the
start of next season.
By the way,
if you have ideas about how I can improve my performance as your captain or
comments on any of the above I would welcome hearing those very much.
Finally,
when all is said and done, we are playing to enjoy ourselves and so we should
never lose sight of that.
Conclusion
Once again,
thanks to each and every one of you for your efforts last season. I look
forward to us doing even better next season and wish you all a great summer
until then!
Paul
Shepherd