Chandler’s Ford Chess Club’s Book Prize Tournament Round 9 has been completed. Tournament organiser Peter Przybycin gives an update and results from Round 9, and he announces the pairings for Round 10.

Round 9 is now complete.

With the top three all winning their games, Mike Henbury continues to hold a half point lead over Rob Sims, and a full point lead over John Kooner.

The book prize will be won by one of these top three, as with only two rounds to play nobody else can overtake the leader. Rob Strachan could equal Mike’s score but he would be eliminated on tie break, having lost his individual game with him.

Round 9 Results:

• Keven Lamb ½ – Steve Saunders ½
• John Kooner 1- Geoffrey Parish 0
• Rose Saunders 1 – Suzan Dunleavy 0
• Steve Dunleavy 0 – Rob Strachan 1
• Rob Sims 1 – Don Creasey 0
• Mike Henbury 1 – Nobby George 0

Scores to date:

• Mike Henbury 8
• Rob Sims 7½
• John Kooner 7
• Rob Strachan 6
• Keven Lamb 5½
• Rose Saunders 5
• Don Creasey 4½
• Geoffrey Parish 3
• Steve Dunleavy 3
• Steve Saunders 2½
• Nobby George 2
• Suzan Dunleavy 0

Round 10 pairings:

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

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

Deadline for finishing round 10 is Saturday 17th 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.

This week, results of our regular online tournaments, on 23 and 25 March, and the latest standings of the Lichess Ladder. But first, Malcolm Clarke, chess columnist for the Hampshire Chronicle, with his chess news summary.

Malcolm Clarke’s Chess News Summary

Having drawn the first match between the clubs last match Chandlers Ford lost a return match to Wimborne 5-2.  However whereas in the previous encounter the teams were evenly matched in terms of grading, on this occasion Wimborne were on average 20 points higher graded than Chandlers Ford over the seven boards, so the defeat was no disgrace.

Graham Stuart and Rob Sims who respectively won and drew on the first occasion, did not play this time, but Sam Murphy and Mike Henbury were victorious for the second successive occasion and both won their matches with good tactical combinations.

Henbury who really seems to be taking to online chess won the exchange and two pawns in a game that was even to that point and that was sufficient to win the game, while Murphy was able to launch a discovered attack on his opponent’s queen which he could not move to a safe square and keep his knight protected at the same time and Murphy was able to win the knight and gain a decisive advantage.

All of the other games were lost, although the majority of the games were closely contested.

Malcolm Clarke

Results of regular club tournaments

Two regular club tournaments online at lichess.org.

Tuesday Arena: 15 of us participated in this week’s Arena on 23rd March, a great turnout. Congratulations to this week’s winner Ted Black (‘MagnusPolgar’ on lichess.org). Well done too Sam Murphy , who came second, and Rob Sims who came 3rd. A closely-fought tournament, the top 3 on the ‘podium’ scoring 10, 9, and 8 points respectively.

Thursday 5-round Swiss: 12 of us played in the Chandler’s Ford Swiss on 25th March. Congratulations to David Culliford (‘djc202’ on lichess.org) who won this week. Well done too Rob Sims 2nd, and Graham Stuart (‘WillHeSac’ on lichess.org) 3rd. A closely-fought tournament, the top 3 having 4.5, 4, and 3.5 points respectively.

Bye

There was also a fascinating example of the 2 types of byes you can get in the Swiss tournaments in the first round on Thursday, as one player had a full-point bye being the player left over from an odd number of players – at that moment. But another player joined just one minute too late for the Round, was given a half-point bye. The difference is, like in over-the-board tournaments, a bye imposed upon the player (odd number of players) is given a full point, whilst a bye from the player’s ‘choice’ (such as being late or choosing to miss a Round) is awarded half a point.

Lichess Ladder Latest

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

• Steve Dunleavy  1  Steve Saunders  0
• Andrew Vagg  ½  John Kooner  ½
• Peter Przybycin  1  Nobby George  0.

See the Ladder Page for the latest standings.

Chandler’s Ford Chess Club had recently played Wimborne Chess Club online on lichess.org, and the return match was played on Friday 19th March. Graham Stuart reports.

Online match Wimborne v Chandler’s Ford

The return match against Wimborne Chess Club was held Friday 19^th March. Going into the return fixture we were always the underdogs, as we were out graded on every board.

After having my Covid Vaccine I was pleased to be just watching and there were some very interesting games being played.

All games were played as 45 minutes + 15 seconds per move, although Mike Henbury was playing at 30 minutes plus 20 seconds, as his opponent had selected a different time control. Something for me to make sure I correct for future matches to make clear you can just reject the game and contact your opponent. This was still classical chess and I don’t think it made any difference in the match.

First to finish was Steve Saunders. Both he and his opponent played extremely quickly. Steve slipped into a worse position and never recovered and his opponent check mated him on move 44. As mentioned the moves were being played at a rapid pace and Steve ended up with 49 minutes left on his clock and his opponent 46 minutes!

Next to finish was Rose, who was playing the quickly improving junior GW60, who beat Steve Dunleavy in our previous match. This was a well balanced game from the opening, but Rose’s opponent pawns suddenly sprung to life, advancing in a very dangerous way. These distracted Rose it seems as there was a quick check mate from the Queen on g2.

Mike’s game was even until Mike found a really great tactical combination.

Nxd4, ed, bxd4+, Be3 and Qxc5 won two pawns and the exchange. From here it was plain sailing for Mike and brought us our first win of the night.

Nobby’s game was even, but he fell to a combination from his opponent and despite causing some issues, could not stop the break through which was going to lead to mate.

On top board Sam showed his experience and also keen eye for a tactic as he managed to take advantage of his opponent leaving his queen on a5 too long from the Scandinavian open. Maybe black should have played the Qd6 line as David Culliford does to great effect! From the position below Sam played Nd5, Qd8, Nxe7+, Qxe7, allowing the errant Knight on e5 to be taken. Soon after Sam won the Queen for Rook and Bishop and soon brought our second point.

This left the score at 3 – 2 to Wimborne with two matches still in play. We were therefore in with a shout, but unfortunately it was not to be.

Steve Dunleavy was holding his own against their almost 40 points higher graded opponent. All was looking even, but his opponent seemed to really know how to play endings and slowly outplayed Steve to win. But this was valuable experience for Steve and certainly held his own for 90% of the game.

The last game to finish was Pat’s. This was a real humdinger of a match, with both players standing better at different times in the game. Near the end this was Rook, Bishop and 6 pawns against Rook, Knight and 6 pawns. This can often favour the player with the Bishop, but Pat managed to win a pawn whilst also swapping off the rooks. But with pawns on both sides and an active Black King this was not over. Unfortunately time was short for both players and Pat miscalculated a Knight sacrifice. Despite being 2 pawns for a Bishop down there were still some drawing chances, but incredibly difficult with four minutes on the clock! His opponent managed to win the pawns one by one, whilst keeping his own two pawns, and Pat finally lost on move 70 after almost 2 hours after the start. An extra 15 seconds per move can soon mount up in long games, so not as much free time for Pat on Friday night that would normally be the case!

A 5 – 2 loss at the end, but well done to Wimborne for their win, but a huge thanks to our players for their great effort.

Cheers

Graham

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.

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.

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:

MEMBER	Without Pass Card *	With Pass Card *
MALE/FEMALE	£20.00	£23.50
OAP	£ 8.50	£12.00
LIFE	Not available	£ 3.50

* 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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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 3^rd 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.

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.

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’.

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.

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

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

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.