Ladder Latest: change at the top as challenger Dick Meredith takes top rung from John Pellegrini. John had enjoyed top perch for many weeks. The Ladder Tournament is a very popular club contest, with 32 players. Tournament Organiser Rob Sims gives an overview of the week’s action.

After a couple of quiet weeks, Tuesday of this week saw a total of 4 ladder games. In three of them the challengers lost: Sam lost to Philip, Steve D lost to Theo and Alikhan lost to Christian. A definite pattern in the results of these matches!

In the fourth game, there was a top of the ladder challenge  when Dick Meredith challenged and beat John Pellegrini. This was a long and well fought battle that attracted cluster of spectators late in the evening. Dick becomes top player on the ladder and John moves down to second place.

Ladder Rules Recap

• Initial positions on the ladder are determined in order of grade.
• All games to be played on the clock, which will be set at 80 minutes each with 10 second increments per move.
• You may challenge anyone who is one, two, three, or four places above you on the Ladder.
• A challenge cannot be made more than 7 days ahead of a game. Once a challenge is accepted neither the challenger nor the player being challenged may make or accept another challenge.
• The decision as to who plays white is made at the start of the game by one of the players choosing a black or white pawn from a closed hand.
• You can email challenges to your eligible opponents in advance, but it won’t count as a loss if your opponent is unable to play for any reason. 
• If the lower ranked player wins, the lower ranked player takes the higher ranked player’s position on the Ladder, and the higher ranked player moves down one place.
• If the higher ranked player wins, there is no change in the players’ rankings.
  If the game ends in a draw, the lower ranked player takes the position just below the higher ranked player.
• After a Ladder game is played, at least one of the players must play a Ladder game against someone else before they can play each other again.
• Please report all results of games to me and I will  submit them to ECF for grading purposes.
• The top three players on Tuesday 3rd September 2024 will play off to decide the eventual winner. Players in second and third place play each other and the winner plays the player in first place.

The results are entered on LMS: see the LMS Page: