The Chandler’s Ford Chess Club AGM will be on Wednesday11th September 2024. The Annual General Meeting 2024 will be at the Club’s venue at the Central Club, at 7:30pm.
See the Agenda below. Topics will include various issues and will prepare the club for the forthcoming 2024-25 Season.
Agenda
Chandler’s Ford Chess Club AGM. 7.30 pm Wednesday 11th September 2024
1 Apologies
2 Minutes of Special General Meeting 10th April 2024
3 Matters Arising
4 Officer Reports:
Secretary (Malcolm)
Treasurer/ Membership (Suzan)
President/ Liaison/Social (Nobby)
Website (Keven)
5.Issues Raised by club members:-
i)Andy – standardise time control for club tournaments to 80+10 / ladder changes/ noticeboard/ annotated games by A team players?
ii)Peter E- storage space for senior+junior club/ U18 subs/ Noise levels in club room/membership limit?/CFCC recording sheets
iii) Graham – Cole Cup/Most improved player award/Recorded games quantity and timing/squad photos; Presentation Evening / CCFC Online Rapid Tournament
6.Team Captains/ Squads / Nominated Players for 24-25 season
7. AOB
8.Presentation of trophies ( if agreed above.)
AGM reminder message from Chairman Rob Sims:
Just a final reminder that our AGM is on Wednesday at 7.30 pm this week after Junior Chess Club finishes at 7.00pm.
It’s a bit of a club tradition that some people pay their CFCC membership fee after the meeting, although there is no compulsion to do so! We now have a bank account set up, so the days of payment into a suspicious looking plastic bag are now over!!
I’m sure that Suzan, our new Treasurer, would be happy for you to make payment by bank transfer if you would like to and she will provide details at the meeting or in an email.
Best Wishes
Rob Sims
Maha Chandar hands over Treasurer role to Suzan DunleavyMaha Chandar is thanked for her role of Treasurer over many years, by Chairman Rob Sims at the 2024 SGM. Photo by Suzan Dunleavy
ECF Membership renewals 2024-25 will be due for many club players at the end of August. Although it is now possible to join and renew English Chess Federation Membership in any month, many of us continue to have September to August membership annual membership. Membership will last for 12 months from the date of purchase of the membership package you choose.
ECF Membership 2024-25 due
Membership of the English Chess Federation enables playing ECF-graded games, such as the club’s own internal tournaments, plus Southampton Chess League matches, County matches, and Congresses (tournaments) across the country. The different membership levels will determine what is covered. Note that there is no longer a Silver level of membership.
ECF Membership also gives discounts at various companies, including Chess & Bridge shop
ECF Membership levels: what’s best for me?
Basic Bronze level ECF membership gives players ECF Grading for their game results in club tournaments, local Leagues, and County games.
Gold membership: as Bronze, plus it includes Congresses (tournaments outside our club e.g. Castle Chess Fareham etc), and FIDE rated standard play tournaments.
Platinum. As per Gold, plus printed ECF Yearbook.
For most club players, Bronze Membership is sufficient: Bronze if you don’t plan to go to Congresses, but do want to play in the club’s events and the League.
Other ECF Membership type
ECF Supporter: access, and ECF grading to ECF online members clubs and events on chess.com and lichess.org together with free online rating of all ECF rated online events. £12.
ECF Membership renewals 2024-25 rates
ECF Supporter – £12.00
Bronze – £20.00 | Junior Bronze – £6.00 (or FREE for first year of membership)
Gold – £35.00 | Junior Gold – £12.00 (or FREE for first year of membership)
Inside the Chess & Bridge shop in London – where ECF members get a discount
Renewing your ECF Membership
This may automatically happen, and the subs will be taken when due. If you are an existing ECF Member, but haven’t set up for automatic payments, you can renew by going to the ECF’s membership payment page ecf.justgo.com – or via the ECF’s Membership page:
English Chess Federation membership is one of 3 possible costs of being an active member of Chandler’s Ford Chess Club. The other costs are joining our chess club, and membership of our venue, the Chandler’s Ford Central Club. See our ‘What does it cost?” Page:
The Knockout 2024 Semi-Finals player pairings have been drawn by tournament organiser Steve Dunleavy.
The Knockout 2024 so far
The Preliminary Round whittled the field of players down to 16. Round 1 determined who went through to the Quarter Finals. Those 8 have been further whittled to the final 4 for the Semi Finals.
Close-up of the Knockout Trophy
The results will be shown on the Knockout 2024 Page in due course, but will appear sooner on the appropriate LMS tournament page sooner, as the results will be used for player ECF rating via LMS.
Details of a new tournament, the Hampshire Rapid-play 2024, have been announced. The event will be on Saturday 7th September 2024 at Barton Peveril College, Eastleigh. It is organised by Chandler’s Ford Chess Club’s own Iwan Cave.
The tournament is a 6 round rapid play tournament in which the games have a time control of 15 minutes plus a 10 seconds per move increment. Round 1 starts at 09:30. The event is ECF-rated, and players below Silver ECF level of membership will need to pay an additional £9 pay-to-play. If you are not yet an ECF member but want to join the English Chess Federation, click on the link: ECF Membership.
The prizes are the minimum amounts – the prize fund will be increased if there are sufficient entries, and further prize categories to include Rating, Juniors, and Women.
Rate of play
15+10: 15 minutes per player, plus a ten-second increment per move.
Schedule
Round 1 – 09:30
Round 2 – 10:40
Round 3 – 11:50 Lunch – 13:00-14:00
Round 4 – 14:00
Round 5 – 15:10
Round 6 – 16:20
Hampshire Rapid-play organiser Iwan Cave – who is Hampshire Champion
Further information
Full details and online entry form can be found on the tournament’s own Page on the Hampshire Chess Association website:
The Knockout 2024 Round 2 (the last 8 – the Quarter-Finals) player pairings have been drawn by tournament organiser Steve Dunleavy. The Preliminary Round whittled the field of players down to 16. Round 1 determined who goes through to the Quarter Finals: the last 8.
The Knockout Trophy
The results will be shown on the Knockout 2024 Page in due course, but will appear sooner on the appropriate LMS tournament page sooner, as the results will be used for player ECF rating via LMS.
Ladder Latest: change at the top as challenger Dick Meredith takes top rung from John Pellegrini. John had enjoyed top perch for many weeks. The Ladder Tournament is a very popular club contest, with 32 players. Tournament Organiser Rob Sims gives an overview of the week’s action.
The Chandler’s Ford Chess Club Ladder Trophy
After a couple of quiet weeks, Tuesday of this week saw a total of 4 ladder games. In three of them the challengers lost: Sam lost to Philip, Steve D lost to Theo and Alikhan lost to Christian. A definite pattern in the results of these matches!
In the fourth game, there was a top of the ladder challenge when Dick Meredith challenged and beat John Pellegrini. This was a long and well fought battle that attracted cluster of spectators late in the evening. Dick becomes top player on the ladder and John moves down to second place.
Initial positions on the ladder are determined in order of grade.
All games to be played on the clock, which will be set at 80 minutes each with 10 second increments per move.
You may challenge anyone who is one, two, three, or four places above you on the Ladder.
A challenge cannot be made more than 7 days ahead of a game. Once a challenge is accepted neither the challenger nor the player being challenged may make or accept another challenge.
The decision as to who plays white is made at the start of the game by one of the players choosing a black or white pawn from a closed hand.
You can email challenges to your eligible opponents in advance, but it won’t count as a loss if your opponent is unable to play for any reason.
If the lower ranked player wins, the lower ranked player takes the higher ranked player’s position on the Ladder, and the higher ranked player moves down one place.
If the higher ranked player wins, there is no change in the players’ rankings. If the game ends in a draw, the lower ranked player takes the position just below the higher ranked player.
After a Ladder game is played, at least one of the players must play a Ladder game against someone else before they can play each other again.
Please report all results of games to me and I will submit them to ECF for grading purposes.
The top three players on Tuesday 3rd September 2024 will play off to decide the eventual winner. Players in second and third place play each other and the winner plays the player in first place.
The Summer Tournament 2024 starts as its organiser Malcolm Clarke announces the player pairings for the first Round.
The Summer Tournament runs during the summer, and is a 5-round Swiss format between May and September. Usually in the Summer Tournaments, the winner’s name is engraved on the Kooner Cup and the winner receives a replica of the Cup. The organiser is Malcolm Clarke.
The Summer Tournament is usually 5 Rounds over the summer months – about a month per Round. The winner receives the Kooner Cup for a year and usually gets to keep a replica. The games are standard play in terms of time control, 90 minutes each player.
Summer Tournament prize: the Kooner Cup
Whilst all the results will show on the Summer Tournament Page, see LMS (League Management System) for more up to date results as it will be updated more frequently.
Rate of play: games can be played at either 80 mins + 10 secs or 90 mins for the whole game. If players cannot agree on time control 90 mins is to be used.
When the Round Pairings are announced, the first-named plays as white.
Notify Malcolm Clarke of the results.
Click on the button below to see the Summer Tournament 2023 Page:
Former chess club member John Zastapilo has died. He was 72. John moved to Belgium, but participated in our online tournaments during the Pandemic, and he joined us for our Autumn Curry social event in 2021. His close friend David Culliford has written the Chess Obituary:
John Zastapilo (picture from John’s sister Linda via David Culliford)
Chess Obituary for John Zastapilo
I am sorry to report that my very good friend John Zastapilo has died, aged 72. I first met John during the 1990/91 chess season when he turned up at Southampton Chess Club one evening, seeking a return to playing club chess after a few years’ break from the game. Previously John had played for the Southampton Hospitals team in the Southampton and District League in the mid-1980s. John played for Southampton in the early 1990s and then switched clubs to Cricketers in the mid-1990s, along with our mutual friend Kev Byard. I followed them to Cricketers a year or two later.
John had a fine knowledge of the game, and in particular the principles behind the openings. He displayed a varied opening repertoire, especially with the black pieces, and was sufficiently proficient in many such that he could adapt with ease to his opponents’ efforts to divert him from his preferred opening configurations.
He played in club matches in the Southampton League and also especially enjoyed competing in weekend chess congresses throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, with Exeter, Frome and Weymouth being perhaps the most memorable. A substantial contingent of chess friends from various clubs in the Southampton area would travel to these events and we would typically enjoy the social side of these weekend events as much as the chess, if not more so.
From the mid-1990s onwards, John tended to favour tournaments comprising games with a shorter time-control, and these ‘rapidplay’ events would often have six or seven games compressed into a single day. John became less-enamoured with the longer ‘standardplay’ time-control format, which he always referred to as ‘slow-play’!
In 2006, John left England to work in Nijmegen in the Netherlands, moving to Belgium a few years later to work as a technical author for a company which specialised in the research, design and manufacture of cochlear implants. John very much enjoyed living on the continent, and seemed very settled in his well-appointed flat in the centre of Mechelen, a fine Flemish town.
In early 2022, just a few weeks after his 70th birthday, John was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. After a long period of intermittent treatment in Belgium, John finally returned home to be with family, just a few weeks before he eventually died on Sunday 11th February 2024. His funeral was held at Thanet Crematorium in Margate on Wednesday 13th March.
Having known John for well over 30 years, I found him to be a man with considerable wisdom and an engaging conversationalist. He had long-standing interests in foreign languages, European history, cycle racing and, of course, chess; with a well-refined knowledge of each. Adjectives I would use to describe John are: intelligent, patient, erudite, gracious. He will be greatly missed by his family and friends.
