The Chandler’s Ford Chess Club Christmas Swiss on Christmas Eve Thursday 24th. Also, the results of Tuesday’s regular Arena online tournament on 22nd December. Next tournament details. And of course, seasons greetings to you!

Tuesday Arena, 22nd December 2020

13 of us participated in this week’s Arena Tournament on Tuesday 22nd December, online at lichess.org. Congratulations to Rob Sims, who came first. Well done too John Kooner 2nd, and Sam Murphy 3rd.

Christmas Swiss

Thursday’s 5-round Swiss online rapid play tournament was on Christmas Eve. Five of us played, so each had a bye in one of the rounds, and was an all-play-all. Congratulations to winner John Zastapilo (John-zed’). Well done too Kev Lamb 2nd and Steve Saunders third. Whilst fewer players could make playing in the tournament, several chess friends who couldn’t play were able to pop in virtually to wish us all a happy Christmas.

Next online Tournament: Tuesday Arena, 8pm on 29th December 2020

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.

Merry Christmas!

A different one this year – like most of this year. December is usually the time we like to meet up for our Chandler’s Ford Chess Club Christmas Curry (the ‘CFCCCC’) social gathering, which of course was not possible this year due to the COVID-19 situation. The photos in the picture gallery below are from last year, at the Christmas Curry 2019. Click on a picture for full images.

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Looking forward to when we can meet in person again. Merry Christmas everyone!

Results of the week’s online club tournaments on 15th and 17th December, and links to join the forthcoming tournament on 22nd December. Plus the latest Lichess Ladder standings.

Online Tournament results 15th ,17th December

Tuesday Arena, 15th December 2020

15 of us participated in this week’s Arena Tournament on Tuesday 15th December, online at lichess.org, a great turnout. Congratulations to Keith Gregory (‘KeithDFG’), who came first – with a wide margin. Well done too David Culliford (‘djc202’) 2nd, and Mike Henbury (‘Ewokmike’) 3rd.

5-Round Swiss, 17th December: tight at the top

Eleven of us played in the 5-round Swiss on 17th December. Congratulations to Graham Stuart (‘WillHeSac’) for winning a tightly-contested tournament. Patrick Pavey who was second, had won as many games as Graham, and so had the same number of points – and the same ‘Tie Break’ scores . The system had to delve deeper to distinguish their podium positions: Graham had a tournament grade performance of 1978 compared to Patrick’s 1950. Close at the top! Well done too Joe Henbury who came third.

Forthcoming online club tournament: 22nd December

Our regular weekly online Tuesday Arena is at 8pm on 22nd December 2020. Players have ten minutes each per game in the one-hour tournament. It’s already set up, click on the button below to go to the Tournament.

No tournament yet for Thursday 24th – but if enough players are available and keen to play one can be set up quickly.

The Lichess Ladder: Patrick top at Christmas

The club’s Lichess Ladder organiser, Nobby George, reports three results this week:

• Maha Chandar  1  Steve Dunleavy  0
• John Kooner 1  Andrew Vagg  0
• Manoj Chandar  1  Keven Lamb  0

The club’s Lichess Ladder Tournament is updated each week on Sunday. This means we can tell who is top of the Ladder this Christmas: well done Patrick Pavey!

David Culliford reports on victory for Dave Holmes in the semi-finals of the Devon Chess Autumn Grand Prix. He also gives details of the Finals, which can be seen live on Friday 18th December at 7.30pm.

Dave beat Charlie Keen 3-1 in the semis, and all four of his games feature in an analysis by Tom Thorpe and Paul Hampton (both graded in the 180s). Excellent to see these games played through and discussed.

I see that Dave had two Smith-Morra Gambits and also a couple of Nimsowitsch Defences, with both the pairs being in no way similar. I admired Dave’s excellent swashbuckling style, and the tactical nuances associated with the Nimsowitsch in Dave’s two games were totally unexpected, for me at least!

Just a quick heads-up about the date for Dave Holmes’ final in the graded section of the Devon Chess Autumn Grand-Prix. As you know, Dave triumphed in last week’s semi-finals which were replayed on Tom Thorpe’s twitch TV channel, and some spectacular games they were. The final will be on Friday 18th December, from 19:30 GMT. See details from Tim Paulden, DCCA President, below:

Autumn Grand-Prix Finals – 7:30pm this Friday (18 Dec)

After nearly two months of competition, the Finals of our Autumn Grand-Prix will be taking place this Friday (18 Dec) starting at 7:30pm, with JackRudd (IM Jack Rudd) and JUDevon (Jon Underwood) playing off for the Championship, and gashead4 (David Holmes) and cash-only (Steve Dean) battling it out for the Graded title. As always, we’ll be running live commentary on the event via Tom Thorpe’s Twitch channel, which can be accessed free of charge by going to https://www.twitch.tv/chesster1883 in your web browser. It promises to be another great evening of chess – hope you are able to join us!

Links

The Semi Finals coverage video can also be seen on YouTube: DCCA Autumn Grand Prix Semi-Finals – YouTube

See David’s previous recent article Dave Holmes in Devon Chess Autumn Grand Prix.

Results of the week’s online club tournament on 8th and 10th December, and links to join the forthcoming tournaments on 15th and 17th. Plus the latest Lichess Ladder standings.

Online Tournament results 8th ,10th December

Tuesday Arena, 8th December 2020

13 of us participated in this week’s Arena Tournament on Tuesday 8th December, online at lichess.org. Congratulations to Keith Gregory (‘KeithDFG’), who came first. Well done too Rob Sims 2nd, and John Zastapilo (‘john_zed’) 3rd.

5-Round Swiss, 10th December: Sportsmanship

Eight of us played in the 5-round Swiss on 10th December. A good week for our overseas-based club players as Kev Byard in New Zealand enjoyed a breakfast of victory, and John Zastapilo (‘john_zed’) in Belgium came third. David Culliford came second this week. John Z showed great gamesmanship in offering a draw to David after David had a technical issue during their game.

Forthcoming online club tournaments

Forthcoming Chandler’s Ford chess club online tournaments are set up and ready to join on lichess.org. The weekly Tuesday Arena is on 15th December, and we have our regular 5-round Swiss on Thursday 17th December.

Tuesday Arena, 8pm on 15th December 2020

This is our regular weekly 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.

5-round Swiss, 8pm Thursday 17th December

Our next 5-round online Swiss Tournament is on On Thursday 17th December. This starts at 8pm on 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.

Lichess Ladder Latest

Tournament Organiser Nobby George reports three games played this week in the Lichess Ladder Tournament. Patrick is now top of the Ladder. See our Ladder Page each week for the latest positions.

GAMES PLAYED THIS WEEK.

• Steve Dunleavy  1  Rose Saunders  0
• Maha Chandar  1  Keven Lamb  0
• Patrick Pavey  1  Steve Saunders  0

David Culliford reports on the progress of fellow Chandler’s Ford player Dave Holmes in the Devon Chess online Autumn Grand Prix. Dave Holmes has previously done extremely well in the Devon summer event in July – see our item Dave in Devon Finals

A quick update on Dave Holmes’ progress in the graded section of the Devon online chess ‘Autumn Grand Prix’ finals stages.

Apparently Dave (‘gashead4’ is his chess handle) played last night (9th December 2020) in his semi-final, but I don’t yet know the result. According to Tim Paulden who runs Devon chess, there will be live coverage of the other semi-final tomorrow night (Friday 11th December) on Tom Thorpe’s Twitch channel (details in the forwarded email below) and, more relevant to us, there will be a review of Dave’s semi-final. I don’t know whether that means some commentary coverage or not, but nevertheless, we will get to find out how Dave fared.

Autumn Grand-Prix Semi-finals – 7:30pm tomorrow!

After six hard-fought weeks of competition, we’re delighted to announce that the Semi-finals of our Autumn Grand-Prix will be broadcast at 7:30pm tomorrow night (Fri 11 Dec). The match-ups will be as follows:

In the Championship: Live coverage of JackRudd (Jack Rudd) vs ExeterPrez (Tim Paulden), and JUDevon (Jon Underwood) vs robertcymru (Robert Taylor)

In the Graded: Live coverage of cash-only (Steve Dean) vs dawsx40 (Darrell Watson), and a review of gashead4 (David Holmes) vs histo03 (Charlie Keen), which was contested last night

We’ll be running live commentary on the event via Tom Thorpe’s Twitch channel, which can be accessed free of charge simply by going to https://www.twitch.tv/chesster1883 in your web browser.

It promises to be another fun evening of chess to round off the week – so we hope you are able to join us at 7:30pm tomorrow!

Peter Przybycin, the Book Prize Tournament organiser, announces the pairings for Round 3.

Hi All,

All games in round two have now been completed.

Results so far:

Round 1

Rose Saunders  ½ – ½ Mike Henbury

Geoffrey Parish 0 – 1 Keven Lamb  

Rob Strachan 1 – 0 Don Creasey

Rob Sims 1- 0 Steve Dunleavy

John Kooner 1 – 0 Steve Saunders

Nobby George 1 – 0 Suzan Dunleavy

Round 2

Steve Dunleavy 0 – 1 Keven Lamb

Suzan Dunleavy 0 – 1 John Kooner

Rob Sims ½ – ½ Mike Henbury

Nobby George 0 – 1 Don Creasey

Geoffrey Parish 0 – 1 Rose Saunders

Rob Strachan 1 – 0 Steve Saunders

Round 3 pairings are as follows, with players’ current scores in brackets:

• John Kooner (2) v Don Creasey (1)
• Rob Sims (1½) v Rose Saunders (1½)
• Steve Dunleavy (0) v Geoffrey Parish (0)
• Steve Saunders (0) v Suzan Dunleavy (0)
• Rob Strachan (2) v Nobby George (1)
• Keven Lamb (2) v Mike Henbury (1)

As always, the player named first plays white. I am aware that some of you will be playing your third game in a row with the same colours. This will balance out during the course of the tournament.

Deadline for finishing round three games is Saturday 2^nd January 2021. As round two finished early it gives us a few extra days to play round three, which is just as well, with Christmas falling in this period.

Enjoy!

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.

Online tournaments and Ladder Latest. Results of the online club tournament on Tuesday 1st December, the SCL tournament on Thursday 3rd; the Lichess Ladder latest. Plus details of the next two online club tournaments.

Online Tournament results 1st, 3rd December

Tuesday Arena, 1st December 2020

16 of us participated in this week’s Arena Tournament on Tuesday 1st December, joint-best attended of our online tournaments on lichess.org. Congratulations to Keith Gregory (‘KeithDFG’), who came first. Well done too John Zastapilo (‘john_zed’) 2nd, and Rob Sims 3rd.

SCL 5-round Swiss 3rd December

The monthly Southampton Chess League online tournament, set up by Graham Stuart, was a 5-round Swiss tournament this time. It was well-supported by Chandler’s Ford Chess Club players – indeed we formed the great majority of this month’s players. Our own club’s Joseph Henbury came 2nd.

Lichess Ladder Latest

Lichess Ladder Organiser Nobby George reports 2 results this week:

• Patrick Pavey 1-0 Don Creasey
• Nobby George 1-0 Steve Dunleavy

The online version of the Ladder – the Lichess Ladder- is played on lichess.org. Players may challenge an opponent up to 4 places above their own position. If the challenger wins they swap places on the Ladder, otherwise they stay where they are. The games have a time control of 90 minutes per player. Go to the Ladder Page of this website to see the latest standings.

Forthcoming online club tournaments

Forthcoming Chandler’s Ford chess club online tournaments are set up and ready to join on lichess.org. The regular Tuesday Arena is on 8th December, and we have our regular 5-round Swiss on Thursday 10th December.

Tuesday Arena, 8pm on 8th December 2020

This is our regular 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.

5-round Swiss, 8pm Thursday 10th December

On Thursday 10th December there will be our regular online 5-round Swiss Tournament. This starts at 8pm on 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.

Nobby George, the organiser of the club’s Ladder Tournament, has started a new Ladder, games to be played online on lichess.org.

The Lichess Ladder started on 27th November 2020, and will be updated each Sunday.

The time control is 90 minutes per player in each game. A player may challenge up to 4 places above, and if the challenger wins the two players swap places on the ladder (otherwise they stay perched on their current rungs). The Challenger has the White pieces.

The Lichess Ladder Rules.

All games to be played on the clock ,which will be set at ninety minutes and then play to a finish.

Players may challenge up to four places above their own step. If the challenger wins he will exchange places with the loser all other results then the positions remain the same. The same players may not play each other again without first playing another player. Once a challenge is accepted neither the challenger nor the player being challenged may make or accept another challenge. Challenge cannot be made more than five days ahead of the game to be played.

The ladder begins as from Today (27^th November 2020). The Challenger has the white Pieces and it is up to the winner to e mail me (Nobby George) the result. The Ladder will be updated on Sunday of each week and will continue until who knows when.

Initial Lichess Ladder Positions

Lichess Ladder position	Player
1	Steve Saunders
2	Steve Dunleavy
3	Rose Saunders
4	Andrew Vagg
5	Don Creasey
6	Nobby George
7	John Kooner
8	Keven Lamb
9	Patrick Pavey
10	Maha Chandar
11	Rob Sims
12	Sam Murphy
13	Manoj Chandar
14	Andy Mills
15	Joseph Henbury
16	Rob Strachan
17	Peter Przybycin

Tournament results: a great week for Joe Henbury as ‘Smokin Joe’ smashes the tournaments on 24th and 26th November 2020. Details of two forthcoming online tournaments on lichess.org on Tuesday 1st December, and the monthly SCL tournament on 3rd December.

Online Tournament results 24th, 26th November

Tuesday Arena, 24th November 2020: Smokin’ Joe

13 of us participated in this week’s Arena Tournament on Tuesday 24th November, another good turnout for our online tournaments on lichess.org. Congratulations to Joseph Henbury (JoeHenbury), who came first by a good margin – with 100% wins. A spectator nicknamed him Smokin’ Joe (after boxing legend Joe Frazier). Well done too John Zastapilo (john_zed) 2nd, and me, Keven Lamb 3rd.

5-Round Swiss, 26th November

Eight of us played in the 5-round Swiss on 26th November. Joe Henbury concluded his week with another tremendous performance, winning all 5 of his games. Smokin Joe strikes again! It was his dad’s (Ewokmike) birthday that day, and Joe gave him a chess lesson in defeat as a gift…

Manoj Chandar joined part-way through the tournament – and he still got a virtual podium place with second! Another rising young star. Well done Manoj!

Graham Stuart (‘WillHeSac’), a frequent winner of these tournaments, had to content himself with 3rd place this week.

Forthcoming online club tournaments

Forthcoming Chandler’s Ford chess club online tournaments are set up and ready to join on lichess.org. The regular Tuesday Arena is on 1st December. On Thursday 3rd December there will be the monthly Southampton Chess League online Tournament, this time it will be a 5-round swiss rather than the usual SCL Arena.

Tuesday Arena, 8pm on 1st December 2020

This is our regular 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.

SCL 5-round Swiss, 8pm Thursday 26th November

On Thursday 3rd December there will be the monthly Southampton Chess League online Tournament, this time it will be a 5-round swiss rather than the usual SCL Arena. This starts at 8pm on 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.

The New Tournament, organised by Peter Przybycin, is now called the Book Prize Tournament. The tournament is progressing, and the First Round games have already been played. The games are played online at lichess.org, and have a time control of 90 minutes each per player. It is an 11 round tournament, all-play-all.

Peter names the tournament

Fellow members,

As I mentioned before, I feel that the new tournament needs a name, and I have settled on “The Book Prize Tournament”. There are several reasons for this.

Being an “Internationalist” I don’t want to refer to any nationality in the name.

I don’t want to give it a name which includes Chandlers Ford in the title, because I feel that making it an official club tournament is something which should be agreed by the club as a whole.

I don’t want to give it a name that suggests there may be more in the future. My thinking is that, after the covid situation ends and we’re back to playing league matches, there will no longer be room for a fourth club tournament.

That said, it may be that there is sufficient demand for another OTB tournament, failing that a regular online tournament alongside all the over-the-board stuff, in which case I would call it the “Chandlers Ford Minor”, and supply a trophy rather than donate a book.

This is all speculation of course, and hopefully the options can be discussed at a future general meeting.

Best regards,

Peter P.

The Book Prize Tournament Round 1 Results

White		Black
Rose Saunders	0.5 – 0.5	Mike Henbury
Geoffrey Parish	0 – 1	Keven Lamb
Rob Strachan	1 – 0	Don Creasey
Rob Sims	1 – 0	Steve Dunleavy
John Kooner	1-0	Steve Saunders
Nobby George	1-0	Suzan Dunleavy

Round 2 pairings

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

As before, the first named player has white.

Winner to notify me of the result. In the event of a draw, the player of the white pieces has this responsibility.

Please play your round 2 games by Saturday 12^th December.

Kev, as ever, please feel free to post any of this info on the club website.

Enjoy!

Peter.