Evening Press reporter

Martin Cook, from York University, won the open section of the one-day rapidplay tournament held at the Railway Institute last Sunday.

He scored an impressive five points from six games and won on the tie break rule of 'sum-of-progressive scores' ahead of Paul Johnson and Eric Key who both also finished on five points.

Martin Cook started like an express train winning his first four games to take the outright lead before drawing his last two games to ensure first place.

The under-111 competition was run in conjunction with the open and was won by Steve Monoghan from Hull with a score of 31/2 points from six games.

Lee Pilich, from York University , and Patrick Gower, from Milthorpe School, played extremely well and were both unlucky not to win.

They both finished on 31/2 points but lost out on the tie break.

The event was well organised, successfully run and proved a to be a success.

Among the entrants were an encouraging eight juniors, two of whom, Tom Anderson and Katie Smowton, won junior prizes.

York RI Whippersnappers won their final game of the season 41/2 points to 11/2 points against Shepherds 3 and so won the second division.

Both York RI Whippersnappers and University B finished on 17 points but Whippersnappers had 31/2 more game points.

In their final game York RI Whippersnappers had a win by Fahad Yousif, a draw by Peter Cloudsdale and 3 default wins when opponents failed to turn up.

University B can consider themselves very unfortunate not to win the second division as on two occasions York RI Whippersnappers received six-nil wins when opponents failed to turn up, so inflating their game score.

York University B received no default wins.

Overall the number of defaulted games in the second division was unacceptably high this season and it is a problem that the league committee should address before next season.

Two possible options are to either penalise teams who default games or look at reducing the number of players in the second division teams from the current six to four.

The finalists of the League Team Knock-out Cup are the top two in the league, Cavaliers A and Minster Inn.

In the first semi-final Cavaliers A had a very close win by 31/2 points to 21/2 against surprise semi-finalists University B.

Cavaliers A's wins came from Leon Wooldridge on top board, Paul Hopwood on board four and Peter Cloudsdale on board five, whilst Sean O'Neill won on board three and K Dave won on board six for University B.

Board two between Steve Huxley and Keith Kuan ended as a draw.

Minster Inn won the second semi-final at a canter by defeating Cavaliers B 5-1.

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