Hampshire Juniors in huge online Team Battle Event

This week, updates on various online tournaments and matches, plus the Hampshire Juniors in a huge online event.

Hampshire Juniors in huge online Team Battle Event

News from Chandler’s Ford Junior Chess Club organiser Maha Chandar that the Hampshire Juniors took part in the Under 11 Association Zone Team Battle yesterday 20th March, scoring 62 points. The event was massive: an astonishing 304 players in 15 teams participated in the online event on lichess.org. 1,956 games were played in the 2 hour rapid-play tournament. The games had a time control of 10 minutes per player plus 5 seconds per move. The event ran for two hours, 14:00 – 16:00. The Barnet Under 11 Team won the event, with 428 points, whilst Hampshire were 15th.

Statistics for the Under 11 Team Battle on 20th March 2021

Results of regular club tournaments

Tuesday Arena: 16 of us participated in this week’s Arena on 16th March, a great turnout. Congratulations to this week’s winner John Zastpilo. Well done too Sam Murphy , who came second, and Ted Black (‘MagnusPolgar’ on lichess) who came 3rd.

Thursday 5-round Swiss: 9 of us played in the Chandler’s Ford Swiss on 18th March. Congratulations to Kev Byard who won this week. Well done too Don Creasey (‘carouselman’ on lichess.org) 2nd, and David Culliford (‘djc202’ on lichess) 3rd.

Lichess Ladder Latest

Chandler’s Ford Chess Club Lichess Ladder organiser Nobby George reports 3 results this week:

  • Michael Duffy  0 – Rob Strachan 
  • Patrick Pavey  1 –  Andrew Vagg  0
  • John Kooner  0  –  Manoj Chandar  1

See the Ladder Page for the latest standings.

Book Prize Tournament

Book Prize Tournament organiser Peter Przybycin reports three Round 9 results this week:

Rose Saunders 1 – Suzan Dunleavy 0

Keven Lamb ½ – Steve Saunders ½

Steve had Keven on the ropes in this game, but let him off the hook by allowing a perpetual check situation to develop.

John Kooner 1- Geoffrey Parish 0

Geoff gave John a hard time in this game and was a clear piece ahead at one stage, but John dug in and fought back, managing to win a rook and ultimately the game.

All the best,

Peter

Second online match against Wimborne

Chandler’s Ford Chess Club played the return match against Wimborne Chess Club on Friday 19th March, online on lichess.org. Wimborne won the match 5-2, our two points being from Sam Murphy and Mike Henbury. A match report will follow soon.

Chandler’s Ford Central Club Membership Renewals and Fees 2021

Chandlers Ford Central Club
Our venue is the Chandler’s Ford Central Club, membership subscriptions January to December

A reminder to renew our membership subscriptions for 2021 for our venue, the Chandler’s Ford Central Club. Central Club Membership Renewals subscriptions run January to December each year.

Whilst it is not currently open, we all look forward to the time when we can return to our venue: to be able to meet again to see chess friends over the board for games in a sociable setting.

To renew your Membership, see the Central Club’s website Chandler’s Ford Central Club which gives details on how to pay online.

Chandler’s Ford Central Club Membership Renewals 2021

Fees for 2021 will be kept at 2020 levels – see Subscriptions Page of the Central Club website, and the table below. Membership fees are an important part of the Central Club’s income.

The cost of renewal will be:

MEMBERWithout Pass Card *With Pass Card *
MALE/FEMALE£20.00£23.50
OAP£ 8.50£12.00
LIFENot available£ 3.50
Chandler’s Ford Central Club Membership renewal 2021

* Note: Pass card enables entry to all other Club and Institute Union (CIU)

Fees can now be paid electronically to the venue’s Bank Account – see Website Chandler’s Ford Central Club for account details.

membership card example

When sending the money please ensure you put your Member Number which can be seen on your Yellow Membership Card and Surname into the Payment Reference, to enable the details to be matched on the system to enable 2021 Cards to be available when the Club opens.

If you want a CIU Pass card, please remember to add £3.50 for each Card. All Membership Cards will be prepared and will then be available for collection on re-opening.

For those who do not have Online Banking capability, Fees will need to be paid within one month of re-opening.

Annual subscriptions for the venue is one of three financial costs if you want to fully engage with playing chess and the chess club, the other two outlays being annual subs to the Chess Club itself, and the other, annual membership of the English Chess Federation – so that you can participate in ECF-graded League matches and chess tournaments. See our What does it cost Page.

Weekly roundup 14th March

This week: Malcolm Clarke’s chess news round-up; Juniors in Under 9 Team Battle; tournament results and the Ladder latest.

Malcolm Clarke writes a chess column for the Hampshire Chronicle, and the article below was written just before the Creasey v Henbury game of the Book Prize Tournament.

Chess News – Malcolm Clarke

In the Chandlers Ford chess club tournament former Star Wars actor Mike Henbury ended John Kooner’s 100% record by beating him in round 7 of this 11 round tournament, and Kooner suffered  a second successive reverse when he lost to Rob Sims.  Sims now leads the tournament being half a point ahead of Kooner and Mike Henbury with 6.5 points from 8 matches, however Henbury has a match in hand in which he faces Don Creasey who is currently 5th in this 12 player tournament.

Photo of D Team 2009
Mike Henbury (centre front) ended John Kooner’s (front right) 100% record. (Old photo from 2009).

A former member of the club Mark Brooke-Smith was married to Julie Styles-Cooper last week.  Mark was a very enthusiastic member of the  club when it met at the Eastleigh Railway Institute…

Chandlers Ford chess club took part in a seven team on line chess tournament organised by Ringwood chess club and came in fifth place overall despite having the lowest average grade of all the teams taking part.  The other teams were Southbourne, West Dorset, Ringwood. Poole, Highcliffe and New Milton with Southbourne comfortably winning the competition.  Chandlers Ford’s team consisted of Keith Gregory, Graham Stuart, Patrick Pavey, Keven Lamb and the husband and wife team of Steve and Rose Saunders.  Gregory who plays in the National Chess League was Chandlers Ford’s best performer at  the event followed by captain Graham Stuart, but all of their players played an important part in ensuring an enjoyable evening, and no doubt as over chess not likely to return for a while yet online matches are likely to play a more prominent part in proceedings.

Malcolm Clarke

Hampshire Juniors in online Team Battle

News from Junior Club organiser Maha Chandar that the Juniors took part in the Under 9 Association Team Battle yesterday 13th March. 14 teams participated in the online event on lichess.org. The games had a time control of 10 minutes per player plus 5 seconds per move. The Barnet Under 9 Team won the event, whilst Hampshire were 13th.

Results of regular club tournaments

Tuesday Arena: 14 of us participated in this week’s Arena on 9th March. Congratulations to this week’s winner Graham Stuart. Well done too Ted Black, who came second, and John Zastpilo who came 3rd.

Thursday 5-round Swiss: 9 of us played in the Chandler’s Ford Swiss on 11th March. Congratulations to Don Creasey (‘carouselman’ on lichess.org) who won top place on a well-contested podium this week – in the last round. It was Don’s birthday this week too, so a good week for him. Well done too John Zastapilo 2nd, and Rob Sims 3rd.

Ladder Latest

Chandler’s Ford Chess Club Lichess Ladder organiser Nobby George reports 5 results this week:

  • Andrew Vagg  0  Joseph Henbury  1
  • John Kooner  0  Maha  Chandar  1
  • Peter Pryzbycin  1  Manoj Chandar  0
  • Steve Dunleavy  0  Patrick Pavey  1
  • Steve Saunders  0  Patrick Pavey  1

The Lichess Ladder Rules summary

All games to be played online at lichess.org. The Time control is 90 minutes per player. Players may challenge up to four places above their own step. If the challenger wins he will exchange places with the loser, for all other results then the positions remain the same. The Challenger has the white Pieces.

The Lichess Ladder will be updated every Sunday.

Book Prize Tournament Round 9

Chandler’s Ford Chess Club’s Book Prize Tournament Round 8 has been completed. Tournament organiser Peter Przybycin gives an update and results from Round 8, and he announces the pairings for Round 9.

Book Prize Tournament Round 8

Round 8 is now complete.

Mike Henbury wins again!

Mike Henbury at St Albans Chess Congress 2018
Mike Henbury at St Albans Chess Congress 2018

With John Kooner losing his round 8 game, it puts Mike into a half point lead over Rob Sims with just three rounds to go.

Round 8 Results

  • Rob Sims 1 – John Kooner 0
  • Steve Saunders 0 – Steve Dunleavy 1
  • Nobby George 0 – Keven Lamb 1
  • Don Creasey 0 – Mike Henbury 1
  • Rose Saunders 1 – Rob Strachan 0
  • Suzan Dunleavy 0 – Geoffrey Parish 1

Scores to date:

  • Mike Henbury 7
  • Rob Sims 6½
  • John Kooner 6
  • Rob Strachan 5
  • Keven Lamb 5
  • Don Creasey 4½
  • Rose Saunders 4
  • Geoffrey Parish 3
  • Steve Dunleavy 3
  • Nobby George 2
  • Steve Saunders 2
  • Suzan Dunleavy 0

Round 9 Pairings:

  • Keven Lamb v Steve Saunders
  • John Kooner v Geoffrey Parish
  • Rose Saunders v Suzan Dunleavy
  • Steve Dunleavy v Rob Strachan
  • Rob Sims v Don Creasey
  • Mike Henbury v Nobby George

As ever, the player named first has the white pieces.

Deadline for finishing round 9 is Saturday 3rd April 2021.

All the best,

Peter.

Rules Recap

  • The Book Prize Tournament is an all-play-all contest, so with 12 players that makes 11 Rounds.
  • Although players will sometimes play consecutive games with the same colour, each player will end up having played at least 4 games as white.
  • Each Round should be completed within 3 weeks, but there can be some flexibility.
  • The games are to be played online – on lichess.org.
  • The time control is 90 minutes each per game.
  • The winner (or white if drawn) should notify Peter of the result.

Juniors: Online Events in place of EPSCA Championships

News from Chandler’s Ford Junior Chess Club Leader Maha Chandar about online events taking the place of over-the-board Championships which understandably will not be running this year.

Juniors Online Events 2021

The English Primary Schools Chess Association Championships are not able to run this year over the board so Barnet Junior chess Charity will run a fun online alternative this year, keeping to the original dates, with a change to the timings.

Event dates

All events will start at 2pm and run continuously:

  • All teams – Practice Date – 6 March
  • U9  Zone – 13 March
  • U11 Zone – 20 March
  • U11 Girls Finals – 27 March
  • U9 Finals – 24 April
  • U9 Finals – 8 May

How it will work:

The event will run on lichess.org using the team facility.

The Zone stage will run on the traditional split of North, South and East and will consist of a team battle lasting 2 hours. Time control is 10 mins + 5 seconds.

Battles on Lichess run as continuous pairings. We have enclosed some further information for any Managers who are not familiar with how it works.

The top 50% of teams will qualify to the Finals and the remaining teams will be invited to a Plate Finals competition running at the same time as the Finals with the same format.

The Finals and Plate Finals competitions will run differently to the Zone stage as individual board swiss tournaments with 5 rounds and time control of 10 mins + 5 seconds. There will be 5 mins between rounds. No substitutions will be allowed for the Finals. Reserves will play their own tournament.

Online Team Battle

This week, various online tournament results: our weekly online rapid-play events, plus the Book prize Tournament progress this week; the latest Ladder. And the ‘Ringwood Invitational’.

Wooden chess set
Close-up of wooden chess set. Kev Lamb.

Ringwood Invitational: Team Battle online tournament 1st March

The Ringwood Invitational was an online tournament on 1st March in which we participated as a Team. Graham Stuart organises our team, and our club had been invited to take part in this week’s 8-team event on lichess.org. Our individual scores combined to form the Team total. Eight local teams participated and we came 7th. The blitz tournament was good fun, with a time control of 5 minutes per player per game plus 3 seconds per move.

Results of regular club tournaments

Tuesday Arena: 16 of us participated in this week’s Arena on 2nd March, a great turnout. This week’s winner was John Zastpilo who won all 4 of his games, scoring 14 points. Whilst Graham Stuart also won all of his games, he played only 3, so came second with 11 points. Well done too David Culliford, who came 3rd this week.

Thursday 5-round Swiss: 12 of us played in the Chandler’s Ford Swiss on 4th March. Congratulations to Keith Gregory with 5 straight wins. Kev Byard and Graham Stuart both had 3.5 games out of five, but the systems tie-break gave Kev 2nd place and Graham 3rd.

Book Prize Tournament update

The Book Prize Tournament organiser Peter Przybycin reports four results this week.

Rob Sims won against John Kooner and became the new tournament leader, but Mike Henbury is only half a point behind with his round 8 game still to come.

  • Rob Sims 1 – John Kooner 0
  • Steve Saunders 0 – Steve Dunleavy 1
  • Nobby George 0 – Keven Lamb 1
  • Suzan Dunleavy 0 – Geoffrey Parish 1

All the best,

Peter

Lichess Ladder 28th February

Nobby George organises the club Ladder tournament, played online on lichess.org. He reports 2 new results this week. See our Ladder Page for current standings. Players may challenge up to 4 places above their own position. See below for a recap of the rules.

Ladder Games played this week 

  • Steve Saunders  0  Rob Sims  1
  • Peter Przybycin 1  Andrew Vagg  0

The Lichess Ladder Rules summary.

All games to be played online at lichess.org. The Time control is 90 minutes per player. Players may challenge up to four places above their own step. If the challenger wins he will exchange places with the loser, for all other results then the positions remain the same. The Challenger has the white Pieces.

The Lichess Ladder will be updated every Sunday.

Book Prize Tournament Round 8

The club’s Book Prize Tournament Round 7 has been completed. Tournament organiser Peter Przybycin gives an update and results from Round 7, and he announces the pairings for Round 8.

Book Prize Tournament Round 7

Will Geoffrey make it three wins in a row?

Will Mike end John’s run of victories in their top  of the table clash?

Rob is back to his winning ways after a hard-fought game against the rapidly improving Geoffrey.

Round 7 Results

Round 7 is now complete.

Mike Henbury brought John Kooner’s run of success to an end in this round, which puts the pair of them equal first on six points.

Mike leads on tie-break, as the winner of their individual game. However, it could be that neither of them will win the tournament, as Rob Sims is now close on their heels, half a point behind with four rounds still to play.

  • Suzan Dunleavy 0 – Steve Dunleavy 1
  • Nobby George 0 –  Rob Sims 1
  • Geoffrey Parish 0 – Rob Strachan 1
  • Rose Saunders 0 – Steve Saunders 1
  • Mike Henbury 1 – John Kooner 0
  • Don Creasey 1 – Keven Lamb 0
Rose loses to husband Steve in Book Prize Tournament
Rose loses to husband Steve in the Book Prize Tournament

Scores to date:

  • Mike Henbury 6
  • John Kooner 6
  • Rob Sims 5½
  • Rob Strachan 5
  • Don Creasey 4½
  • Keven Lamb 4
  • Rose Saunders 3
  • Nobby George 2
  • Geoffrey Parish 2
  • Steve Dunleavy 2
  • Steve Saunders 2
  • Suzan Dunleavy 0
Cheers! Steve Dunleavy raises a glass
Cheers! Steve Dunleavy won his Round 7 game against Suzan.

Book Prize Tournament Round 8 pairings:

  • Rob Sims v John Kooner
  • Steve Saunders v Steve Dunleavy
  • Nobby George v Keven Lamb
  • Don Creasey v Mike Henbury
  • Rose Saunders v Rob Strachan
  • Suzan Dunleavy v Geoffrey Parish

As ever, the player named first has the white pieces.

Deadline for finishing round 8 is Saturday 20th March 2021.

All the best,

Peter.

Rules Recap

  • The Book Prize Tournament is an all-play-all contest, so with 12 players that makes 11 Rounds.
  • Although players will sometimes play consecutive games with the same colour, each player will end up having played at least 4 games as white.
  • Each Round should be completed within 3 weeks, but there can be some flexibility.
  • The games are to be played online – on lichess.org.
  • The time control is 90 minutes each per game.
  • The winner (or white if drawn) should notify Peter of the result.

Dave Holmes in Winter Grand Prix

Chandler’s Ford Chess Club player Dave Holmes is currently in the Devon Chess Winter Grand Prix online tournament and is in the play-offs tomorrow 3rd March!

As reported in a previous Post, Dave Holmes had made it to Devon’s Autumn Grand Prix. How did he fare in the Grand Prix Finals? David Culliford reports.

Dave Holmes at Chess Club Curry 2018
Dave Holmes at Chess Club Curry 2018

Report on the graded section final of the Devon online chess Grand Prix

Friday 18th December 2020

Below is a match report on our fellow club-mate Dave Holmes’ appearance in the final of the U160 graded section of the Devon online chess Grand Prix. Dave was playing under his usual chess handle of “gashead4” (FYI: ‘gashead’ is a nickname for Bristol Rovers supporters). He was slightly outgraded, playing against Devon regular Steve Dean (handle ‘cash_only’) who plays for Seaton. Note that games 1 and 2 were played at the move rate of 9 minutes plus 3 seconds per move (9+3) whereas games 3 and 4 were at a 5+2 time control. Note that the wall-clock times (in the format hh:mm:ss) given in my report relate to the time in the live stream, so that you can skip the bits where the commentators are focusing on the open final, which was running in parallel to the graded final.

Game 1:

Dave started solidly as Black in Game 1, against his opponent’s trendy London System. At approximately 0:16:00 into the live stream, Steve Dean offered a Greek gift on h7. Dave accepted the bishop, after which the queen on a4 swings across to check from h4, followed up with Ng5, which looks terminal but can be wriggled out of. This sacrifice is a common theme of this line, but looked to have been played slightly too early, but was a good punt under the circumstances. Dave was short on time, and even though the 3 second increment renders such endgames easily manageable, Steve Dean won through in the endgame at 0:27:30, with a material pawn advantage but with opposite coloured bishops to lessen the advantage. One-down for Dave after Game 1.

Game 2:

This game began at 29:50, with Dave playing White against a Caro-Kann Defence. True to Dave’s attacking style, he played 5. f3, which as Don (‘carouselman’) will tell you, is the Fantasy variation of the C-K. In this line, Dave benefits from very active pieces (especially his bishops on f4 and c4), in exchange for his pawn sacrifice. The live stream coverage of Dave’s game continues until about 0:38:30 until 0:47:50, during which the commentators switch their live analysis to the other game, which is the Open (i.e. no grading limit) final between Jack Rudd (an international master, graded at a staggering ECF 228!) and Jon Underwood (a “mere” 189). Dave’s game reaches a fascinating position from 0:49:00 where Steve counters with a check but Steve runs out of time at 0:50:00. Some commentator analysis then ensues for half a minute or so. 

Game 3:

Dave’s third game (now at the reduced time control of 5+2) begins at 1:06:00, with a Caro-Kann again, and with identical positions to Game 1 until Steve (Black) deviates at move 16 with Qc7. The commentators make the point that this line is “preparation”, which to me kind of elevates Dave and Steve into the GM league – praise indeed! Clearly the two have played each other several times during the spring and autumn Devon online tournaments, so they know each other’s opening predilections! The game then moves into a lively middlegame but then bizarrely ends with a draw offer by Dave on move 24, but this proves to be an inspired tactical move by Dave, with Steve a full pawn up in a good position but very short on time (7.7 seconds). Definitely a half-point gained for Dave, I’d say. The post-game analysis ends at 1:12:50, after which commentary of the Open event continues.

Game 4:

And so to the decider! All tied at 1.5-1.5 with the last 5+2 to play. The commentary begins at 1:17:15 and it’s another London System. This is definitely worth listening to, with helpful advice for Black players who play 1. … d5 to White’s 1. d4 and then find themselves playing against the early bishop development of the London. This game is quite different from Game 1 (same opening), but judging by the commentators’ comments, is a more standard variant of the London. The two queens (on b3 and b6) face off with each other and then exchange, with White having his a- and h-file semi-open. The commentary then leaves Dave’s game at 1:22:40 but returns at 1:24:00 with Dave very, very short of time. A really tough position for Dave who runs out of time shortly afterwards. From 1:27:10, after the other final finishes, the commentary team generously devote a couple of minutes to Dave’s final game where we see a really nice example of late-middlegame dominance of two knights in a semi-locked-up position. Had this been a standardplay game then a very long endgame would have ensued, and Dave may have had some drawing chances, but Black (Steve) was definitely slightly better.

Well done to Dave’s opponent, Steve Dean, but congratulations to Dave for a magnificent performance in making the finals with his consistent performance throughout the autumn on Mondays and Fridays in the Devon online Grand Prix events.

For any of our club members wanting to benefit from the instructive, insightful and entertaining commentary from Tim Paulden and Tom Thorpe (both heavily involved in chess tournament organisation and arbiting), please check out Tom’s twitch TV channel at https://www.twitch.tv/chesster1883 . The specific recording of the live stream from Friday night’s Grand Prix finals is at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/841892120

If you have any problems with viewing the twitch recordings through your usual browser, then perhaps check out the YouTube videos of the same events, which Tom usually posts on his YouTube channel ( youtube.com/chesster1883 ) within a few days of the events taking place.

With best wishes,

David Culliford

Social Secretary, Chandler’s Ford Chess Club

Dave Holmes adds his insider’s view of the Finals:

Some background: Steve Dean apparently has a reputation of being very solid and a bit of an endgame expert. He plays the London system as white – always – and we have played down this road many times over the last year, down one particular line, and virtually all the games ended in draws. Rather foolishly I decided to try a couple of different lines to try and surprise him. This backfired – in Game 1 he had the great Bxh7+ shot which I completely missed. Although David is correct in that I can probably wriggle out with best play, it is very difficult to handle over the board when your time is limited – a great practical decision by Steve. In Game 4, I played into his hands by going into a line where the queens are exchanged and then I suffered – not my finest game. Games 2 and 3 transposed into a variation of the Blackmar-Diemer gambit (Ziegler defence) which Steve and myself have been ‘investigating’ over many games. I got a bit lucky in both of these games if I am honest, and overall Steve was a deserved winner on the night.

Dave Holmes

Devon Chess Winter Grand Prix

Dave Holmes is in Devon Chess‘s Winter Grand Prix. At the time of this Post he is 5th out of 36 players, with 21.5 points: see Latest Standings on the Devon Chess website. The six players achieving the highest Grand-Prix scores will compete in a blitz playoff to decide the overall winner, and there will also be a “graded” playoff between the top four players with ECF grades below 160 (or 1900 new-style ECF rating). 

The latest, David Culliford reports: it appears that Dave H has yet again made the play-offs of the Devon online Grand Prix, but this time he is mixing it with the elite (e.g. Jack Rudd IM, graded 228 on the last ECF list) rather than in the grading-limited section. He plays in the quarter-finals this Wednesday evening at 7:30pm, and I thought you might like to tune in to Tom Thorpe’s Twitch TV channel.

28th February Roundup

This week’s tournament results, plus the latest in the Lichess Ladder.

Results of club tournaments

Tuesday Arena: 16 of us participated in this week’s Arena on 23rd February, won by new player Ted Black (‘MagnusPolgar’) who won all 6 of his games. Whilst Rob Sims also won all of his games, he played 5, so came second. Well done too Joseph Henbury, 3rd.

Thursday 5-round Swiss: 9 of us played in the Chandler’s Ford Swiss on 25th February. Congratulations to David Culliford with 5 straight wins. Kev Lamb came 2nd; and in a good week for Rob Sims he won another podium position, coming 3rd on Thursday.

Lichess Ladder 28th February

Nobby George organises the club Ladder tournament, played on lichess.org. He reports 5 new results this week. See our Ladder Page for current standings. Players may challenge up to 4 places above their own position. See below for a recap of the rules.

Ladder Games played this week 

  • Patrick Pavey ½ Rob Sims ½
  • Steve Dunleavy 1 Rose Saunders 0
  • Steve Saunders 0 Andrew Vagg 1
  • Manoj Chandar ½ Nobby George ½
  • Andrew Vagg 1 John Kooner 0.

The Lichess Ladder Rules summary.

All games to be played online at lichess.org. The Time control is 90 minutes per player. Players may challenge up to four places above their own step. If the challenger wins he will exchange places with the loser, for all other results then the positions remain the same. The Challenger has the white Pieces.

The Lichess Ladder will be updated every Sunday.

A great week for Manoj

This week: chess news round-up by Malcolm Clarke who writes for the Hampshire Chronicle newspaper; online weekly tournaments; the Ladder latest. A great week for Manoj: he won Tuesday’s Tournament, he’s won a Ladder game, and it was his 18th birthday! What a great week!

Chess News – Malcolm Clarke

Chandlers Ford chess club played an online match with Wimborne chess club and drew 3.5-3.5 with their winners being Graham Stuart, who was instrumental in setting up the match, Sam Murphy and Mike Henbury being their winners and Rob Sims drawing his game.  The two teams were evenly matched in terms of grading, so the result was about right.  Wimborne have 36 players listed with grades on the English Chess grading database as opposed to 29 for Chandlers Ford so from that point of view are the slightly bigger of the two clubs.

Chandlers Ford’s next match is against Ringwood chess club who joined the Southampton chess league during the 1990’s and have come a long way since the days when they just operated with just one team competing in the lowest division of the Southampton chess league, and in their first season their A team played in the Southampton Chess League which was 2001/02 they finished bottom of the table and were whitewashed by the Eastleigh (BR) team who had just been relegated from Division 1.  Nowadays they operate with three teams in the Southampton Chess League and in the last completed season 2018/19 their teams won divisions 1, 3 and 5 and the division 5 cup and were losing finalists in the Robertson Cup.  Chandlers Ford teams have struggled to get results against Ringwood in over the board matches in recent seasons, but online matches where the teams might be of a more equal grading strength could be a different matter.

Results of club tournaments: Manoj 100%

Tuesday Arena: 18 of us participated in this week’s Arena on 16th February – our best ‘attendance’ yet. The winner of Tuesday’s Arena tournament (16th February) was Manoj Chandar with an impressive win rate of 100%!

Manoj Chandar, joint winner of the Kooner Cup 2018
Manoj Chandar, not only a virtual winner online, wins a real trophy.

Thursday’s 5-Round Swiss on the 18th February was won by New Zealand-based Kev Byard, with 4 points out of a possible 5. Keith Gregory also had 4 wins, but came second with the online system’s tie-break function. Joe Henbury was 3rd.

Chandler’s Ford Lichess Ladder: new player

The club’s Lichess Ladder organiser Nobby George reports that we have a new player in the Ladder, Michael Duffy – welcome Michael! But one player (Andy Mills) has dropped out. There were 4 games this week:

  • Andrew Vagg:  0  Maha Chandar:  1
  • Steve Dunleavy:  0  Rob Strachan:  1
  • Steve Saunders:  0  Rob Sims:  1
  • John Kooner:  0  Manoj Chandar:  1

See the Ladder Page for the most recent standings.

The Lichess Ladder Rules summary.

All games to be played online at lichess.org. The Time control is 90 minutes per player. Players may challenge up to four places above their own step. If the challenger wins he will exchange places with the loser, for all other results then the positions remain the same. The Challenger has the white Pieces.

The Lichess Ladder will be updated every Sunday.

Forthcoming online tournaments

Details of the next two online tournaments for club members at lichess.org.

On Tuesday 23rd February our weekly Arena Tournament for club members, and on Thursday 25th our regular 5-Round Swiss. Both tournaments use rapid-play time limits, one without increments, one with.