The Hampshire Rapid and Blitz Championships will be held at Barton Peveril College on Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th September 2025. The Rapid tournament will be on the Saturday, with 6 Rounds of games at 15+10 rate of play, and the Blitz will be on the Sunday, 12 games with a time control of 5+3.

The organiser is Iwan Cave.

Players can enter one, or both tournaments.

The tournaments are open to all players regardless of county.

Entry Fees

• For one of the tournaments: Adult £18, Junior £15.
• If entering both tournaments, then £32 for adults, £27 for Juniors.

Note: the rates above are for English Chess Federation membership at Gold or above, otherwise add £16 (adults) or £6.50 (Juniors).

The venue

The venue is the Barton Peveril 6th Form College, Chestnut Avenue, Eastleigh, Hampshire SO50 5ZA.

The Rapid Tournament, Saturday 6th September

Sections

• Open
• Major (Under 1650)

Rate of play

15+10: that is, 15 minutes plus a 10 seconds increment per move.

Schedule:

• Round 1 – 09:30
• Round 2 – 10:40
• Round 3 – 11:50
  Lunch – 13:00-13:40
• Round 4 – 13:40
• Round 5 – 14:50
• Round 6 – 16:00

Prizes

• 1ˢᵗ  – £100
• 2ⁿᵈ – £70
• 3ʳᵈ  – £50
• Quickplay Champion – £50
• U1650 Quickplay Champion – £50

The above prizes are the minimum per section.

The Hampshire Blitz Tournament Sunday 7th September

Time control for the blitz event

5+3: five minutes, plus a 3-second increment added after each move.

Blitz tournament Schedule Sunday 7th September

• Round 1 – 10:00
• Round 2 – 10:30
• Round 3 – 11:00
• Round 4 – 11:30
• Round 5 – 12:00
• Round 6 – 12:30
  Lunch – 13:00-14:00
• Round 7 – 14:00
• Round 8 – 14:30
• Round 9 – 15:00
• Round 10 – 15:30
• Round 11 – 16:00
• Round 12 – 16:30

Tournaments Terms and Conditions

See Terms and Conditions for the Rapid & Blitz tournaments here

Coming soon: the weekend after the Hampshire Rapid and Blitz Championship will be the UK Open Blitz local event, also at Barton Peveril College. Saturday 13th September 2025.

Other Links

See Theo Horne’s report on the 2nd Hampshire Rapidplay.

The Hampshire Chess Association Website Rapid & Blitz page which has links for the entry forms.

The HCA’s latest article (21st August) showing the Rapid & blitz entrants so far.

The Knockout 2025 organiser Steve Dunleavy announces the draw for Round 3: the Semi Finals. This year 30 players entered the tournament. Four remain. Who will make it through to the Final?

Draw for the Knockout 2025 Semi Finals

• Rob Strachan v William Purkiss
• Eric Jones v Rob Sims

Organiser’s rules recap

Please take note of the following:
1.      The player named first plays with white
2.      Both clocks to be set at 80 +10
3.      The deadline date for completing this round(INCLUDING ANY REPLAYS) is the 26th August; whilst this gives 3 club nights (12/8,19/8 and 26/8) the games can be played at any venue on any night if both players are in agreement. Please let me know if any extension of time is required and I will do my very best to accommodate you. Sorry for the comparatively short deadline date but this competition has for various reasons fallen way behind programme and I would like to maintain momentum to a conclusion.
4.      In the event of a draw colours will be reversed for the rematch.
5.      Please email me the date that you have agreed to play (to help me
monitor progress) and the result (to send to Graham Stuart for grading).
6.      Well done for getting this far! Enjoy your Semi Final and do your best to get into the Final.
 
Kind Regards
 
Steve

See other Knockout 2025 articles:

The New Knockout 2025 Tournament

Knockout 2025: Round 1

Chandler’s Ford Chess Club were well-represented at the 2nd Hampshire Rapidplay at Eastleigh back in April. It was organised and run by CF’s Iwan Cave. And our newest player, Ivan Georgiev, won the Open! Theo Horne reports.

I will premise it by saying it was really well run and enjoyable, all rounds on schedule with no trouble, somewhat helped by myself, Peter and Gillian helping out between rounds.

Now on to the good bit. All CF members gave a great demonstration of their skills, with everyone finishing with pretty respectable points.

Chandler’s Ford Players in the Major

• Myself, 6th place in the major on 4/6, winning £50 for best U1450. I was on board 1 in the last round, and if I won I got shared first, but unfortunately lost to a strong Jack McBurnie, the eventual winner.
• Stephen on 4/6 as well, shared best U1200, 9th place, performing way above his rating. He too had an excellent tournament, and will be gaining about 60 points, similar to myself, even without the doubled rating gain!
• Peter Eales on 3.5, having recovered from a rough start of 0/2 to score 3.5/4, which means he too is gaining rating!
• Kev on 3/6 to round off our contingent in the major, giving a very respectable performance although unfortunately losing a little rating, but he enjoyed himself and gave as good as he got. Having spoken to his opponents, his aggressive play is terrifying in the shorter time controls!

The Open

We were somehow even more successful in the Open, with:

• Our newest player, Ivan, winning the whole thing with 5/6! He beat 1st seed Paul Northcott, and this performance is very promising in regards of what he could bring to the club!
• Eric came next in 10th with 3.5/6, a great score considering the strength of the event. His first rapid rating will be high!
• Dave Holmes in 12th with 3/6, narrowly losing to Harry Vernon from the IOW at the end in a drawn game. His first rapid rating will also be pretty high, but it may be lower than his strength as he was winning several of games he lost, just struggling to convert.
• Straight after is Bill Purkiss in 13th also with 3, getting a provisional rating from this event. I don’t know too much about how the tournament went for him, but he was in good spirits through the day.
• Finally, Phillip came in 20th with 2/6, having a tough event, but he is focusing on his A level preparation over his chess at the moment, a more important preoccupation I would say!

— Theo Horne, Chandler’s Ford Chess Club

Results can be viewed via the links below:

Chess-Results Server Chess-results.com – 2nd Hampshire Rapidplay Open

Chess-Results Server Chess-results.com – 2nd Hampshire Rapidplay Major (U1650)

Some photos of the event

Click on any image and scroll through.

Other stories

Iwan Cave assisted with the 1^st Eastleigh FIDE Congress at Barton Peveril College 28^th to 29^th June – 1st Eastleigh FIDE Congress – English Chess Federation

Coming up: Iwan is organising the Hampshire Rapidplay and Blitz Championships 6-7th September 2025.

And the week after he will be assisting in running the local event of the UK Open Blitz 2025, Saturday 13th September.

The Chandler’s Ford Chess Club Summer Barbeque 2025 at Steve and Suzan’s. Photos of the very pleasant social gathering. Thanks to Steve and Suzan for being such excellent hosts, and to Rob Strachan for his role as barbeque chef, and to Theo who helped them.

Photo Gallery

Click on any image to open a full size image and scroll through the photos.