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!
Mike Henbury at St Albans Chess Congress 2018
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 3rd 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.
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’.
Close-up of wooden chess set. Kev Lamb.
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.
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 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
Rose loses to husband Steve in the Book Prize Tournament
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
Cheers! Steve Dunleavy won his Round 7 game against Suzan.
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.
Chandler’s Ford Chess Club player Dave Holmes is currently in the Devon Chess Winter Grand Prix online tournament and is in the play-offs tomorrow 3rd March!
As reported in a previous Post, Dave Holmes had made it to Devon’s Autumn Grand Prix. How did he fare in theGrand Prix Finals? David Culliford reports.
Dave Holmes at Chess Club Curry 2018
Report on the graded section final of the Devon online chess Grand Prix
Friday 18th December 2020
Below is a match report on our fellow club-mate Dave Holmes’ appearance in the final of the U160 graded section of the Devon online chess Grand Prix. Dave was playing under his usual chess handle of “gashead4” (FYI: ‘gashead’ is a nickname for Bristol Rovers supporters). He was slightly outgraded, playing against Devon regular Steve Dean (handle ‘cash_only’) who plays for Seaton. Note that games 1 and 2 were played at the move rate of 9 minutes plus 3 seconds per move (9+3) whereas games 3 and 4 were at a 5+2 time control. Note that the wall-clock times (in the format hh:mm:ss) given in my report relate to the time in the live stream, so that you can skip the bits where the commentators are focusing on the open final, which was running in parallel to the graded final.
Game 1:
Dave started solidly as Black in Game 1, against his opponent’s trendy London System. At approximately 0:16:00 into the live stream, Steve Dean offered a Greek gift on h7. Dave accepted the bishop, after which the queen on a4 swings across to check from h4, followed up with Ng5, which looks terminal but can be wriggled out of. This sacrifice is a common theme of this line, but looked to have been played slightly too early, but was a good punt under the circumstances. Dave was short on time, and even though the 3 second increment renders such endgames easily manageable, Steve Dean won through in the endgame at 0:27:30, with a material pawn advantage but with opposite coloured bishops to lessen the advantage. One-down for Dave after Game 1.
Game 2:
This game began at 29:50, with Dave playing White against a Caro-Kann Defence. True to Dave’s attacking style, he played 5. f3, which as Don (‘carouselman’) will tell you, is the Fantasy variation of the C-K. In this line, Dave benefits from very active pieces (especially his bishops on f4 and c4), in exchange for his pawn sacrifice. The live stream coverage of Dave’s game continues until about 0:38:30 until 0:47:50, during which the commentators switch their live analysis to the other game, which is the Open (i.e. no grading limit) final between Jack Rudd (an international master, graded at a staggering ECF 228!) and Jon Underwood (a “mere” 189). Dave’s game reaches a fascinating position from 0:49:00 where Steve counters with a check but Steve runs out of time at 0:50:00. Some commentator analysis then ensues for half a minute or so.
Game 3:
Dave’s third game (now at the reduced time control of 5+2) begins at 1:06:00, with a Caro-Kann again, and with identical positions to Game 1 until Steve (Black) deviates at move 16 with Qc7. The commentators make the point that this line is “preparation”, which to me kind of elevates Dave and Steve into the GM league – praise indeed! Clearly the two have played each other several times during the spring and autumn Devon online tournaments, so they know each other’s opening predilections! The game then moves into a lively middlegame but then bizarrely ends with a draw offer by Dave on move 24, but this proves to be an inspired tactical move by Dave, with Steve a full pawn up in a good position but very short on time (7.7 seconds). Definitely a half-point gained for Dave, I’d say. The post-game analysis ends at 1:12:50, after which commentary of the Open event continues.
Game 4:
And so to the decider! All tied at 1.5-1.5 with the last 5+2 to play. The commentary begins at 1:17:15 and it’s another London System. This is definitely worth listening to, with helpful advice for Black players who play 1. … d5 to White’s 1. d4 and then find themselves playing against the early bishop development of the London. This game is quite different from Game 1 (same opening), but judging by the commentators’ comments, is a more standard variant of the London. The two queens (on b3 and b6) face off with each other and then exchange, with White having his a- and h-file semi-open. The commentary then leaves Dave’s game at 1:22:40 but returns at 1:24:00 with Dave very, very short of time. A really tough position for Dave who runs out of time shortly afterwards. From 1:27:10, after the other final finishes, the commentary team generously devote a couple of minutes to Dave’s final game where we see a really nice example of late-middlegame dominance of two knights in a semi-locked-up position. Had this been a standardplay game then a very long endgame would have ensued, and Dave may have had some drawing chances, but Black (Steve) was definitely slightly better.
Well done to Dave’s opponent, Steve Dean, but congratulations to Dave for a magnificent performance in making the finals with his consistent performance throughout the autumn on Mondays and Fridays in the Devon online Grand Prix events.
For any of our club members wanting to benefit from the instructive, insightful and entertaining commentary from Tim Paulden and Tom Thorpe (both heavily involved in chess tournament organisation and arbiting), please check out Tom’s twitch TV channel at https://www.twitch.tv/chesster1883 . The specific recording of the live stream from Friday night’s Grand Prix finals is at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/841892120
If you have any problems with viewing the twitch recordings through your usual browser, then perhaps check out the YouTube videos of the same events, which Tom usually posts on his YouTube channel ( youtube.com/chesster1883 ) within a few days of the events taking place.
With best wishes,
David Culliford
Social Secretary, Chandler’s Ford Chess Club
Dave Holmes adds his insider’s view of the Finals:
Some background: Steve Dean apparently has a reputation of being very solid and a bit of an endgame expert. He plays the London system as white – always – and we have played down this road many times over the last year, down one particular line, and virtually all the games ended in draws. Rather foolishly I decided to try a couple of different lines to try and surprise him. This backfired – in Game 1 he had the great Bxh7+ shot which I completely missed. Although David is correct in that I can probably wriggle out with best play, it is very difficult to handle over the board when your time is limited – a great practical decision by Steve. In Game 4, I played into his hands by going into a line where the queens are exchanged and then I suffered – not my finest game. Games 2 and 3 transposed into a variation of the Blackmar-Diemer gambit (Ziegler defence) which Steve and myself have been ‘investigating’ over many games. I got a bit lucky in both of these games if I am honest, and overall Steve was a deserved winner on the night.
Dave Holmes
Devon Chess Winter Grand Prix
Dave Holmes is in Devon Chess‘s Winter Grand Prix. At the time of this Post he is 5th out of 36 players, with 21.5 points: see Latest Standings on the Devon Chess website. The six players achieving the highest Grand-Prix scores will compete in a blitz playoff to decide the overall winner, and there will also be a “graded” playoff between the top four players with ECF grades below 160 (or 1900 new-style ECF rating).
The latest, David Culliford reports: it appears that Dave H has yet again made the play-offs of the Devon online Grand Prix, but this time he is mixing it with the elite (e.g. Jack Rudd IM, graded 228 on the last ECF list) rather than in the grading-limited section. He plays in the quarter-finals this Wednesday evening at 7:30pm, and I thought you might like to tune in to Tom Thorpe’s Twitch TV channel.
This week’s tournament results, plus the latest in the Lichess Ladder.
Results of club tournaments
Tuesday Arena: 16 of us participated in this week’s Arena on 23rd February, won by new player Ted Black (‘MagnusPolgar’) who won all 6 of his games. Whilst Rob Sims also won all of his games, he played 5, so came second. Well done too Joseph Henbury, 3rd.
Thursday 5-round Swiss: 9 of us played in the Chandler’s Ford Swiss on 25th February. Congratulations to David Culliford with 5 straight wins. Kev Lamb came 2nd; and in a good week for Rob Sims he won another podium position, coming 3rd on Thursday.
Lichess Ladder 28th February
Nobby George organises the club Ladder tournament, played on lichess.org. He reports 5 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
Patrick Pavey ½ Rob Sims ½
Steve Dunleavy 1 Rose Saunders 0
Steve Saunders 0 Andrew Vagg 1
Manoj Chandar ½ Nobby George ½
Andrew Vagg 1 John Kooner 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.
This week: chess news round-up by Malcolm Clarke who writes for the Hampshire Chronicle newspaper; online weekly tournaments; the Ladder latest. A great week for Manoj: he won Tuesday’s Tournament, he’s won a Ladder game, and it was his 18th birthday! What a great week!
Chess News – Malcolm Clarke
Chandlers Ford chess club played an online match with Wimborne chess club and drew 3.5-3.5 with their winners being Graham Stuart, who was instrumental in setting up the match, Sam Murphy and Mike Henbury being their winners and Rob Sims drawing his game. The two teams were evenly matched in terms of grading, so the result was about right. Wimborne have 36 players listed with grades on the English Chess grading database as opposed to 29 for Chandlers Ford so from that point of view are the slightly bigger of the two clubs.
Chandlers Ford’s next match is against Ringwood chess club who joined the Southampton chess league during the 1990’s and have come a long way since the days when they just operated with just one team competing in the lowest division of the Southampton chess league, and in their first season their A team played in the Southampton Chess League which was 2001/02 they finished bottom of the table and were whitewashed by the Eastleigh (BR) team who had just been relegated from Division 1. Nowadays they operate with three teams in the Southampton Chess League and in the last completed season 2018/19 their teams won divisions 1, 3 and 5 and the division 5 cup and were losing finalists in the Robertson Cup. Chandlers Ford teams have struggled to get results against Ringwood in over the board matches in recent seasons, but online matches where the teams might be of a more equal grading strength could be a different matter.
Results of club tournaments: Manoj 100%
Tuesday Arena: 18 of us participated in this week’s Arena on 16th February – our best ‘attendance’ yet. The winner of Tuesday’s Arena tournament (16th February) was Manoj Chandar with an impressive win rate of 100%!
Manoj Chandar, not only a virtual winner online, wins a real trophy.
Thursday’s 5-Round Swiss on the 18th February was won by New Zealand-based Kev Byard, with 4 points out of a possible 5. Keith Gregory also had 4 wins, but came second with the online system’s tie-break function. Joe Henbury was 3rd.
Chandler’s Ford Lichess Ladder: new player
The club’s Lichess Ladder organiser Nobby George reports that we have a new player in the Ladder, Michael Duffy – welcome Michael! But one player (Andy Mills) has dropped out. There were 4 games this week:
Andrew Vagg: 0 Maha Chandar: 1
Steve Dunleavy: 0 Rob Strachan: 1
Steve Saunders: 0 Rob Sims: 1
John Kooner: 0 Manoj Chandar: 1
See the Ladder Page for the most recent standings.
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.
Details of the next two online tournaments for club members at lichess.org.
On Tuesday 23rd February our weekly Arena Tournament for club members, and on Thursday 25th our regular 5-Round Swiss. Both tournaments use rapid-play time limits, one without increments, one with.
This week, Malcolm Clarke’s regular news item (he writes for the weekly newspaper the Hampshire Chronicle); Junior chess Team Battle; online tournaments; the Ladder.
News summary – Malcolm Clarke
It has been a busy week in the Chandlers Ford chess club ladder competition with seven games played and twelve different players involved in these games, which produced seven different winners, but it is gratifying to see the likes of Patrick Pavey and Andrew Vagg have returned to competition having not played league chess for a few years.
The chess club is also in the process of writing account of its’ history. The current club first played in the Southampton Chess League in 1984 as Cricketers Arms, then played at Eastleigh Unity Club before spending one year at the Stoneham Park venue, before relocating to the Eastleigh Rail club where it played at until 2015 when it relocated to Chandlers Ford.
However it should also be mentioned that chess has been played at the Eastleigh Rail club almost continuously from the 1950’s to 2015 and A C Delco, Fair and Eastleigh Working Men’s club have also had teams in the Southampton Chess League with A C Delco also playing at the former Stoneham Park venue.
Junior Chess: Hampshire Girls in online Team Battle 14th February 2021
Thursday’s 5-Round Swiss on the 11th was won by Graham Stuart (‘WillHeSac’ on lichess), with 4.5 points out of a possible 5.
Forthcoming club tournaments
Chandler’s Ford Chess Club will be participating in an invitational Team Battle hosted by Ringwood Chess club tomorrow 15th February. Eight local teams are competing.
The club’s Ladder Tournament, played online on lichess.org, remains unchanged, organiser Nobby George reports. There was one game this week – a draw.
Nobby George 0.5, Sam Murphy 0.5
If the challenger doesn’t win (a draw or if the Challenger loses), the players stay where they are, if the Challenging player wins, the two players exchange places.
To see the current Ladder Standings, see our Ladder Page.
News from Juniors Chess team leader Maha Chandar that there is an online inter-County Team Battle for the Girls under-11s tomorrow, Sunday 14th February 2021.
Weekly chess news round-up. A welcome return to print for Malcolm Clarke in the Hampshire Chronicle weekly newspaper. Also, the Lichess Ladder latest, and links to this week’s regular club tournaments.
Malcolm Clarke’s Chess news round-up
Chandlers Ford chess club continue to play chess online and have weekly chess tournaments. The most recent winner has been John Zastapilo a former member of the club who now lives in Belgium, with Keven Lamb who has worked hard to organise these tournaments second, and Joseph Henbury (son of Mike Henbury who is known by some people for playing an Ewok in Star Wars) 3rd.
There was also a rapid-play tournament this week in which Keith Gregory won with 5 points out of 5, with Kev Byard currently resident in New Zealand second and Graham Stuart third.
There is also an all play all tournament in which 12 players all play each other. After six of the eleven rounds John Kooner leads with a 100% record, but he plays his nearest challenger Mike Henbury who is one point behind in the next round.
Chandlers Ford are intending to play an online chess match against Wimborne on Friday 12th February and are currently in the process of compiling an account of the club’s history.
Malcolm Clarke inspects trophy. He writes chess and football articles for the Hampshire Chronicle.
Chandler’s Ford Lichess Ladder latest
The club’s Lichess Ladder organiser Nobby George reports that it was a busy week in the Ladder, with 7 games played:
Steve Saunders: 0 Maha Chandar: 1
Steve Dunleavy: 0 Rose Saunders: 1
John Kooner: 0 Sam Murphy: 1
Peter Pryzybycin: 1 Rob Sims: 0
Nobby George: 1 John Kooner: 0
Andrew Vagg: 1 Steve Saunders: O
Patrick Pavey: 1 Rob Strachan: 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 Ladder will be updated every Sunday. See the Ladder Page for the most recent standings.
Forthcoming online tournaments
Details of the next two online tournaments for club members at lichess.org.
Tuesday Arena, 9th February 2021, 8pm
This is our regular weekly rapid play online tournament in which players have ten minutes each per game in the one-hour tournament. 8pm start. It’s already set up, click on the button below to go to the Tournament.
Our next 5-round online Swiss Tournament is on Thursday 11th February 2021. This starts at 8pm at lichess.org. Players have an initial 7 minutes each per game plus a 3-second increment per move (that is, about ten minutes each). Click on the button below to go to the Tournament.
