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.