The pre-season friendly vs Fareham Chess Club was last Tuesday, 8^th August 2023. Thanks to Graham Stuart for organising the event. Chess! Buffet! New chess pieces! It was a great evening. The new chess pieces used in the match were purchased in London just the previous Friday.

In this article Graham Stuart selects the team, and then reports on the match.

Preparations

Graham’s pre-match preparations including how he selected the team.

Thanks to everyone who wished to play in this match.

It is a shame that not everyone can play in the match as we have more people interested that Fareham, but I have hopefully chosen a fair method for selection. Because Fareham will be stronger than us (as I have discussed players with their Captain) I felt that the top 6 rated players should be selected, and the remaining 3 players were chosen by my wife at random. For the remaining 6 players I have paired 4 of you to play an extra rated friendly on the night as part of the friendly, but not counting towards the result of the match.

This leaves two players, myself, and Kev Lamb. We will be the reserves and if Kev does not mind I would very much like him to be of photographic duties for the night?

Team: CF Team (board colours to be chosen on night)

Time Control: 80 mins + 10 secs per move (I will set the clocks up before the match, but this is option 18)

Start Time: 7:30 (Rob and myself should be at the club at 7pm to set up)

LMS: CF vs Fareham Annual Friendly | ECF League Management System (ecflms.org.uk)

1	Eric Jones	1714
2	Andy Mills	1656
3	Sam Murphy	1542
4	Rob Sims	1513
5	Peter Eales	1479
6	Philip Tarrant-Edwards	1459
7	Patrick Pavey	1371
8	Nobby George	1435
9	Steve Saunders	1063

Additional Friendlies (white first player named)

• Geoff Parish v Mike Davis
• Keven Lamb v Rose Saunders

I hope this is all ok with everyone, but please do let me know if you cannot play and I will rejig?

Buffet

With regards to the Buffet, we have received a very generous donation to pay for this and the club will supply this. I would kindly suggest that you don’t eat at the boards especially as we should be playing on the new equipment. But the beauty of chess is that you can move away from the board during the match. There should be plenty of food for everyone at the club, and this is not just for the people playing.

Good luck on the night.

Graham

The match: CFCC 3-6 Fareham CC

A closer game than the result indicated saw us lose 6 – 3. Fareham out-rated us by an average of over 100 points and the result  was not unexpected. However, we did have a number of excellent results with Sam “Morphy” Murphy beating Tom Philidor with a very pretty finish and Patrick coming out on top in his game as well. There were also two CF vs CF games as well which were hard fought.

Diagram: “Morphy” v Philidor. White to move. Black then resigned.

The new chess pieces were an excellent addition, many thanks for Peter, Andy, David and Kev for their trip to London to collect these.

The match has been added to LMS as well as the two overspill games.

• Chandlers Ford v Fareham | ECF League Management System (ecflms.org.uk)
• Round 1 | ECF League Management System (ecflms.org.uk)

Cheers

Graham

Gallery: photos from the friendly match