A reminder to renew our membership subscriptions for 2022 for our venue, the Chandler’s Ford Central Club. Central Club Membership Renewals subscriptions run January to December each year. Renewals at the rates shown below are available from 4th January to 31st January. Any Membership renewals after then will be subject to a Late Renewals Fee of £5.

To renew your Membership, see the Central Club’s website Subscriptions Page 2022 which gives details on how to pay online – their preferred method, although other ways are available.

Chandler’s Ford Central Club Membership Renewals 2022

See the Subscriptions 2022 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 (can be collected from the Main Bar).

New Membership at the Central Club

If you haven’t joined the Chandler’s Ford Central Club yet, and would like to, please see their website’s ‘Join Us’ Page. There you will find a link to the Application Form. This is completed by you, plus Proposer and Seconder. Two passport photos, the form, and the fee should then be passed to the Club Secretary during normal Club hours (see the Club’s Home page for details).

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.

The 2022 League Season starts – with a win for Chandler’s Ford. Match captain Rob Sims reports on Chandler’s Ford Chess Club’s first fixture of the new 2022 short season. Photo by Hanna Dunleavy.

MATCH REPORT

Tuesday 18th January 2022 saw the return of over the board Southampton Chess League games when the first match of this 3 month season took place at Chandler’s Ford Central Club as the Chandler’s Ford B team took on Andover B.  It felt really good to get back to league chess again following a gap of nearly 2 years due to the Covid19 pandemic. The Chandler’s Ford team consisted of Sam Murphy, Dick Meredith, Keven Lamb and Nobby George on boards 1-4 respectively.  Starting a little after 7.30 to allow a pre match photo of the 8 players, the club room returned to a hushed silence level last heard in March 2020!

Nobby was the first to finish with a win against Andrew Dinkele, followed by Keven who astounded his opponent Graham Payne with a sudden win against the run of play. This put Chandlers Ford 2-0 up with the two top boards still to finish. Tension mounted when Sam resigned against his ungraded but strong opponent Steve Jones, so with the score at 2-1 in our favour it came down to a close tussle between Dick Meredith for Chandler’s Ford and Gavin Stonham for Andover. Dick had two bishops against knight and bishop with 5 pawns a piece. This very close match played on for at least an hour after the other 3 games had been completed and it did not finish until 10.25pm when a draw was offered and accepted, giving Chandler’s Ford a 2.5-1.5  win propelling them to the top of Division 4 after one match.

Match individual results

Chandler’s Ford B		Andover B
Sam Murphy	0-1	Steven Jones
Dick Meredith	0.5-0.5	Gavin Stonham
Keven Lamb	1-0	Graham Payne
Nobby George	1-0	Andrew Dinkele
–score–	2.5-1.5

The Andover B match captain is Kevin Steele. Kevin kindly submitted the results to the Southampton Chess League Website. See his Scorecard and kind comments on the SCL Website. Andover B are a friendly team and it was a pleasure to host them.

It was a great evening, with Southampton Chess League match play returning for our club, and the chess club was very well attended too, with several new players coming along.

The Chandler’s Ford B team’s next match is on Thursday 3rd February, away against Southampton University B.

Links

The Book Prize Tournament 2021 Round 4 begins. Tournament organiser Peter Przybycin announces the pairings and gives the scores so far.

Pairings for Book Prize Tournament Round 4 are as follows:

Minor:

• John Kooner v Rose Saunders
• Steve Saunders v Geoff Parish
• Nobby George v Steve Dunleavy
• Ian Parker v Rob Strachan
• Lee Mundy v Maha Chandar

Major:

• Peter Przybycin v Rob Sims
• Keven Lamb v Manoj Chandar
• Graham Stuart v Eric Jones
• Keith Gregory v Mike Henbury
• Dick Meredith v Sam Murphy

All games in round 4 to be completed by January 29th 2022.

Current scores:

Major section:

• Keith Gregory 3
• Graham Stuart 2.5
• Eric Jones 2.5
• Peter Przybycin 1.5
• Manoj Chandar 1 (from 2)
• Keven Lamb 1
• Dick Meredith 1
• Sam Murphy 1
• Mike Henbury 0.5 (from 2)
• Rob Sims 0

Minor Section:

• John Kooner 3
• Nobby George 3
• Maha Chandar 2 (from2)
• Geoff Parish 2
• Ian Parker 1 (from 2)
• Steve Saunders 1 (from 2)
• Rob Strachan 1
• Lee Mundy 0 (from 2)
• Rose Saunders 0
• Steve Dunleavy 0

All the best,

Peter.

Rules Reminder

(for full list see the Tournament’s Page) :

• Rate of play – 90 minutes each for the whole game.
• The first named player has the white pieces.
• Games will (preferably) be played over-the-board at chess club, or at the home of the player with the white pieces. Score sheets and clocks should be used.
• Games may alternatively be played online, using Lichess, by mutual consent. Score sheets are not needed for online games.
• Online games will not be sent for grading.

Links

The New Southampton Chess League Season starts this month! Chandler’s Ford B have their first match on Tuesday 18th January 2022. In this article we look back at the Southampton Chess League EGM which discussed the format for the forthcoming semi-season – and look forward as the League Fixtures are announced.

League EGM

The Southampton Chess League met for its Extraordinary General Meeting at our Club’s venue in Chandler’s Ford on Wednesday 13th October 2021.

Fixtures Secretary Malcolm Clarke Awarded for long service by League and Chess Club

Chandler’s Ford’s Malcolm Clarke received recognition for his long service to the Southampton Chess League as its Fixtures Secretary and as Club Secretary of Chandler’s Ford (previously Eastleigh). He has served 31 years as a principal member of the Southampton League. Malcolm Clarke was awarded a special Trophy and engraved Tankard from the League and Chandler’s Ford Chess Club. The video and pictures below capture Malcolm’s delight at the Awards.

Click on any of the photos in the gallery below for full picture, and scroll from there.

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New Season 2021-22

Following the EGM the League consulted with the chess clubs as to what form the 2021-22 season would take, given the effects of Covid. Three format options were proposed:

• Option 1 – League format with 3 divisions of 6 teams, 5 matches playing each team once only
• Option 2 – League format with 5 divisions of 4 teams, 6 matches playing each team home and away
• Option 3 – Team Swiss format with 5 or 6 rounds, each match to be played within a 3-week period. Either all teams together in one Swiss or, to avoid mismatches, there could be a Swiss A and a Swiss B

In all cases, teams have 4 players only as agreed at the EGM.

The consultation process has now crystallised into the League format of Option 2. The League has a 5-Division structure.

Club Fixtures 2022

We now have the dates for the Chandler’s Ford fixtures. See the fixture table below.

Southampton Chess League Fixtures for Chandler’s Ford Chess Club

Day	Date	Home Team	Away Team	Division
Tuesday	18 January 2022	Chandlers Ford B	Andover B	4
Tuesday	25 January 2022	Chandlers Ford A	Salisbury B	3
Tuesday	01 February 2022	Chandlers Ford C	Winchester C	5
Thursday	03 February 2022	University B	Chandlers Ford B	4
Wednesday	09 February 2022	Basingstoke C	Chandlers Ford C	5
Wednesday	16 February 2022	Basingstoke A	Chandlers Ford A	3
Tuesday	22 February 2022	Chandlers Ford A	Winchester B	3
Tuesday	01 March 2022	Chandlers Ford C	Basingstoke C	5
Tuesday	08 March 2022	Chandlers Ford A	Basingstoke A	3
Wednesday	09 March 2022	Winchester C	Chandlers Ford C	5
Tuesday	22 March 2022	Chandlers Ford B	Fareham B	4
Wednesday	23 March 2022	Winchester B	Chandlers Ford A	3
Thursday	24 March 2022	Salisbury C	Chandlers Ford C	5
Thursday	07 April 2022	Salisbury B	Chandlers Ford A	3
Wednesday	20 April 2022	Basingstoke B	Chandlers Ford B	4
Tuesday	26 April 2022	Chandlers Ford C	Salisbury C	5

Chandler’s Ford Team Captains

• Chandler’s Ford A Team: Malcolm Clarke
• Chandler’s Ford B Team: Rob Sims
• Chandler’s Ford C Team: Steve Dunleavy

Happy New Year everyone! Much like a year ago, Covid dominates the news. But 2021 still saw a fair amount of chess at Club and beyond. We take a brief look back at the year.

Chandler’s Ford Chess Club Review of 2021

Club Tournaments

All the club tournaments Chandler’s Ford Chess Club players normally enjoy did run this year – even if games had to be played online for much of the year.

The Knock-out Tournament. Steve Dunleavy organised this again, and this year the tournament attracted 20 players. Peter Przybycin won the Knock-out, and Steve Dunleavy presented him with its weighty Trophy at the Autumn Curry.

Peter Przybycin organises the newest of the club tournaments, the Book Prize. 12 players participated in the first all-play-all 11 Round event, 2020-21. Mike Henbury won the Book Prize – Bronstein Move By Move by Steve Giddins. The new 2021-22 Book Prize is divided into Major and Minor Sections so that an all-play-all format can be retained for the increased number of players in this popular event (20 players in all).

The Summer Tournament, organised by our Club Secretary Malcolm Clarke, had 19 players this year. The 2021 winner is Keith Gregory.

Nobby George originally set up the The Ladder Tournament. When the Coronavirus led to lockdown, Nobby ran an online version of the Ladder on lichess.org. Sam Murphy was the winner of the 2021 Ladder. Sam has set up and got the the 2021-22 Ladder started, whilst Rob Sims will run the Tournament going forward.

Online Tournaments. During lockdown we kept in touch as a club by playing chess online, in the standard long-play games of the established club tournaments, plus the ‘virtual club-nights’ of our regular weekly rapid-play online tournaments. Our online games are played on lichess.org.

Junior Chess Club

The Chandler’s Ford Junior Chess Club is organised by Maha Chandar, and this year has seen some major tournaments, both online and over the board. The coronavirus has limited the numbers that could safely attend the over-the-board tournaments – but these were successful and popular events. See photo below.

A rising star of the Junior Club is Iwan Cave: in October he played in the Major Section of the Castle Chess Fareham Congress against players of all ages – and won the Major Section Grading Prize!

Club Secretary Honoured at League EGM

Malcolm Clarke, Club Secretary of Chandler’s Ford Chess Club and Southampton Chess League Fixture Secretary, was honoured for his long service to the local chess scene by both League and Club, receiving trophies on behalf of both at the Southampton Chess League Extraordinary General Meeting on 13th October from League President Gillian Moore.

Club AGM

Malcolm Clarke presided over the Club’s own AGM on Tuesday 26th October, attended by 15 of the club’s members. It was quite a jolly meeting, everyone just so glad to meet in person after the long lockdown.

The Autumn Curry

The next evening, Wednesday 27th October saw the chess club’s Autumn Curry, organised by David Culliford. This was a great social gathering – and as it turned out – the main social event of the year. One of our former players, John Zastapilo, who has lived in Belgium for many years now, has renewed his link with the club by participating in our online weekly tournaments. John Z was visiting the UK at the time, seeing family and friends – and he came to the Autumn Curry at the Sunrise Balti & Tandoori Restaurant in Chandler’s Ford. It was great to see him after such a long time.

County matches

Chandler’s Ford Chess Club players have taken part in Over The Board County matches when these resumed in the Autumn, including the home match against Kent, and the away match against Oxford. Click on the pictures below to see more information.

Vishy Anand wishes Steve season’s greetings

2021 ended with Festive wishes and some good advice from former World Champion Viswanathan Anand to our own club’s Steve Dunleavy. Read our recent Post here.