CHESS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2951, 11 December 1916, Page 3

CHESS

.WORKING MEN' V S CLUB

Tho ninety-ono games of tho abovo club's annual handicap chess tourney have now been played off, tho tallies of those who have won over half their games being as follows :—

Class. Wins. Losses. Douglas, H 11l 11 2 Peake, A. T I 10 .3 Larking, A. J. ... V 9} • 3} Featonby, W. ... I 9 4 Wild, D I S 5 Hicks, E. E II3C Reid, 0 IV 8 5 Messrs. Hennessey, Mayne, and Alatejka also scored well. Mi-. Hugh Douglas thus wins the first prize, and also holds the Staples trophy for the ensuing year. Ho is a rapidly-improv-ing player, and has evidently profited by tho good practice that he got when competing in the Wellington South Club's tourneys. Mr. Peake, the 1915 winner, takes second prize, while the third goes to Mr. A. J. Larking, a popular Crimean veteran, who led at the-end of the first ten weeks, but fell back, when the strain of the contest told on him. Mr. Featonby, the 1914 winner, fell back from tho leading position in the last month's play owiug to staleness, and has to be content with fourth prize. Messrs. Wild, Hicks, and C. Reid are playing off their triple tie, in order to decide the 'fifth prize, and also the special prize for the best score against the prizewinners.

The oft-quoted absent-minded player, who put a pawn in his coffee and lump of sugar on King's fourth, evidently has a rival in Australia. An Adelaide player recently picked his rook off the board, and commenced filling the top of it with tobacco I His opponent promptly claimed a penalty, under the law of "touch and move," but tho umpire, on being appealed to, disallowed the claim, on the ground that the rook had been touched accidentally.

The attention, of the Mayor of Hastings, being drawn to a, (report appearing in The Dominion on Thursday, in which it was stated that at a meeting of tho Hastings' Patriotic Society held on November 24 it was decided to support tho proposed gift of a Holt tractor to the Imperial Government, the Mayor states that the insertion of this report without any mention ot tho mimitos passed on November 24, and also of a subsequent'resolution on Decombor 4, is.likely to mislead tho publie, unless these latter resolutions were published to remove that danger. On November 30, iho Hastings Patriotio Society resolved that no further action be taken pending inquiries, and on December 4 it was unanimously carried that the Wellington Patriotic Society bo informed that the Hastings Society cannot see its way to take any part in the purchase for presentation' to the Imperial Government of the Holt tractor by the people of Hawko's Bay.