Horsham's KO Jinx Continues!

The Horsham KO team began, and ended, its 2018 / 19 campaign with an away match against Sussex University last night (3rd December). Robert drew on board 5 against an opponent 32 points his junior. Alas, that was the high point of the evening for us.
Whilst this was our first match of the season, the University had already played a preliminary round match, fielding a strong team to defeat The Args. Anticipating a similar team to play against us, we would have been very closely matched in aggregate grading. However, the home team were missing a couple of their stronger players this time, giving us an aggregate grading advantage of 52 points and a requirement to score at least 3 points to win on handicap. Prior to Robert's result, Alex had conceded defeat on board 3 following a progressive loss of material.
The KO competition is played to a default time rule of all moves in 80 minutes, with 10 seconds / move increments. Peter Harbott on board 2 and Ian on 4 had conceded some material, Peter a pawn and Ian 2 knights for a rook, and 2 further defeats ensued as each approached the time scramble stage. This left just Anthony on board 1 playing against a grading deficit of 15 points. In the late stages of the game Anthony had been the exchange down at one stage, but seemed to have good compensation from a strong pawn formation and, with queens and remaining rooks on the board, there was still scope for much active play. This game descended into a complete increments time scramble, with each player's clock down to just a few seconds on several occasions. Anthony was the first to slip up, giving the home team a well deserved, if disheartening, 4.5 - 0.5 victory. I have to say this situation did nothing to change my view that 10 second increments are incompatible with a satisfying standardplay game of chess - but no doubt others will disagree.

Full results, with gradings, were:-

1. Max Muskath (192) 1 - 0 Anthony Higgs (177)
2. Jake Hung (152) 1 - 0 Peter Harbott (160)
3. Alex Von Hoof 1 - 0 Alex Taylor (157)
4. Seb Taylor 1 - 0 Ian Comley (152)
5. Will Ellinger (115) 0.5 - 0.5 Robert Lanzer (147)