In his latest report Malcolm Clarke highlights the rise of promising young player James Daas following his impressive Summer Tournament results.

James Daas has been confirming his promise in the Chandlers Ford chess tournament by beating former champion David Culliford.  After being given a half point bye in the first round he has won all three games since then and in the final round will play the only other player with 3.5 points or over who will be either Phil Overton or Peter Przybycin.  Also in the tournament Dick Meredith moved on to 3 points with victory against Keven Lamb.

The AGM of the Chandlers Ford Chess club is expected to be held on the 17th September and the club’s first match of the new season is expected to be played in the following week.

Summer Tournament organiser Malcolm Clarke gives an update on this year’s contest.

Phil Overton is the only player with 3 points after 3 rounds of the Chandlers Ford chess tournament.  In the next round he plays Peter Przybycin who has 2.5 points after agreeing a quick draw with David Culliford who also has 2.5  points.

One round 3 game has yet to be completed, but six of the nine round 4 pairings have been made, with the other three depending on the result of the remaining games.

It is expected that the Southampton Chess League fixture list for season 2019/20 will be compiled in a couple of weeks time.

The English Chess Federation six-monthly Chess Grades for July 2019 were published recently. Regular contributor Malcolm Clarke has been crunching the numbers.

Rob Bird (Chandlers Ford) and Graham Payne (Winchester) have both seen their gradings go up by 10 or more points.  Bird’s has gone up from 93 to 103, while Winchester secretary Graham Payne has seen his grading go up from 101 to 112.  However the top graded Winchester player is Jose Jimenez-Capilla who has gone up from 182 to 186.  David Holmes remains the highest graded Chandlers Ford player, but his grade has gone down from 157 to 153.  Steve Saunders (Chandlers Ford) up from 56 to 64 after achieving good results in the Southampton Chess League and David Green (Winchester) up from 68 to 75 are other increases of note.

However all of these local players have a long way to go if they want to compete with Giuildford’s team in the National Chess League which has seven players graded 250 and above and twelve players graded 230 and above in it’s squad.

Steve from Chandler’s Ford Chess Club visited Australia recently on a 3-week family visit, and made time to visit Brisbane Chess Club.

Steve played two of the club’s members, Chris and youngster Austin (ten years old). Steve says that Austin was “tactically brilliant and wiped the floor with me – twice!”