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2009 Border Battle
South Carolina Chess Champion Philipp Lamby won the second annual Border Battle against North Carolina Chess Champion Ron Simpson. The four game match between the neighboring state champions was played in Asheboro, North Carolina April 18-19. Lamby obtained convincing wins in the first and third games to seal the match. Simpson obtained his lone win in the final game, thus losing the match 2.5 to 1.5.
Ron Simpson v. Phillip Lamby
This was the second annual Border Battle. Last year South Carolina's champion Timur Aliyev defeated North Carolina's Chris Mabe in the inaugural Border Battle.
Click here to replay the games, three with annotations by Chris Mabe.
The High School champions of the two states also squared off in a four round G90 contest: David High (NC, 1864) vs. Daniel Dodds (SC, 1827). David High won the match 2.5 to 1.5.
Daniel Dodds v. David High
Along with the two matches between champions, a four round G90 NC vs. SC Team Match was also played. The North Carolina team cruised to victory 29.5 to 18.5. While the North Carolina team may have dominated the team competition, our champion won the crown jewel of the event for the second year in a row.
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From the President's Desk:
By SCCA President David Grimaud 
I acted as TD of the Border Battle of Carolina Champions matches (Lamby - Simpson; Dodds - High) while Tom Hales (on my right in photo) acted as TD for the NC - SC team matches. Tom also handled the tedium involved in running the larger, complex match play. (My part was easy in comparison.) Gary Newsom (immediate left), NCCA V.P., and Victor Beaman (left of Gary), NCCA President, brought the NCCA support to the tournament. Gary was essentially my counterpart, handling the player logistics, while Tom ran the tournament. I can't say enough about both Gary and Tom. Gary is a great chess promoter and chess benefactor, and Tom extremely organized and good with details. They give selflessly both time and money to these events. The new Florence and Greenwood Clubs had good showings. Greenwood sent Joerge Lohse (Class C, who was MVP for SC, scoring 3.5 points out of a possible 4.0) and Blake Neal (Class E, scored 2.0). James Baxley (Class E) was the sole participant from Florence, the other having to drop out for last minute business reasons. He did well, garnering 2.5 points.
Team North Carolina
Two Augusta area residents, but members of S.C. clubs, drove 250 miles to get to Asheboro: Dan Quigley (Class A) of the Aiken Chess Club and Steve Boshears (Class B) of the Columbia Chess Club. Amazingly, Steve drives from Augusta every week to play at Columbia!
Two Charleston Club members drove 250 miles as well: Ian Morton (Class B) and Stephen Welt (Class A).
Birney Blind (Class E, alternate) was a real trooper, driving to Columbia from Clinton first to pick up Richard Watts (Class D), James MacDougall (Class A), and Keith Eubanks (Expert).
Team South Carolina
There were some challenges we had to overcome. The two N.C. Experts dropped out at the last minute. One of them, Peter Giannatos, could not play because his father was involved in a bad car wreck. Gary Newsom came up with a great solution. Two of the NC alternates (Gary Newsom/Expert & Josh Lawson/A) substituted in the NC "Expert" section, but since that would leave two of our alternates without players (Keith Eubanks/Expert and James MacDougall/A) in the alternate match, Keith and James were moved up into the SC "Expert" section with Wayne Christensen/Expert and Kevin Kane/Expert. Gary and Josh then played one game against each of SC's four "Experts," with the two "leftover" SC players playing a rated game between each other, but obviously not counting toward the score. Good work to Gary to come up with this idea, which allowed James and Keith the opportunity contribute to the team score, and still allowed everyone to get in four games against worthy opponents.
Kudos to Birney Blind/E and Geoff Grimaud/D for their support. They only got to play three games, since only one of the lower class alternates showed, making for odd pairings.
I can't leave out Wayne Christensen (Expert) and Marvin Davenport (Class D) who represented Greenville, or Lendel Robinson (Class C) of Columbia who was able to fill the slot when the Florence Class C player dropped out.
And again, I can't say enough about Gary Newsom for his leadership and Tom Hales for his dedication. |
Elmer B. Hallman of Spartanburg. A resolution adopted at the association's 1926 organizational meeting noted that Mr. Hallman "by the exercise of his energy, tact, enthusiasm and zeal, brought about such interest, in South Carolina, in the game of chess as to make a State Chess Association a possibility. . . ."
