It was the 31st of June, 2024, the last day before the first half of the year is officially over. It was a Sunday and was remarkably sunny, in what is supposed to be the wettest summer in over a century in England.
For those of you who are aware of my shudderingly preposterous skills in chess, let me warn you that this post is about a chess tournament titled "Essex Team Blitz and Lightning 2024" which was hosted by the Ilford Chess Club which has unwittingly accepted me as a player over the past couple of years, during my stay, here in Essex, England.
This year the event had a with a time-control of 7 minutes per-player with no increments, I'm not sure about it's past but in 2023 it had the same time controls as well. It has been organised since 1993 and we are in the 28th edition (there we no events in 2020-2022) in 2024. The winners list (pre-COVID) can be found here: https://www.essexchess.org.uk/archive/team-blitz/ and the winners in 2023 were "Barking A", referenced from "https://www.essexchess.org.uk/activities-archive/activities-2022-23/essex-team-blitz-2023/".
Barking A won it this time around too, but it was a close fight between them and Wanstead Dynamos with tie-breaks deciding the championship. The team standings for this year follows.
