Husband and wife chess players Rose and Steve Saunders have played 2000 chess games together since joining online chess game provider lichess.org! And that’s just the online games they’ve played against each other!
Rose and Steve Saunders are keen chess players, both online and over-the-board, and they play for Chandler’s Ford Chess Club in the Southampton Chess League.
Online Chess
Why play online against each other when they can play on a board with pieces? During the Covid pandemic the Chandler’s Ford Chess Club, like all such clubs, could not meet in person. Our club’s solution was to set up an online, virtual Chandler’s Ford Chess Club on one of the chess game websites. We considered chess.com and lichess.org, and went for the latter: Graham Stuart set up our “Club” on lichess.org.
Keen chess player couple
Steve and Rose Saunders quickly joined lichess.org in April 2020 and have been keen online players ever since. They have played against each other in the club’s online versions of its long-play tournament games, plus the regular online rapid-play tournaments. From time to time they would be paired against each other in the various tournaments. They also play many games against each other online outside of the tournaments, and over the board. These online games against each other give them practice at the various time controls and settings, plus their games are graded on the gaming platform, a useful measure of their playing strength. Incidentally, Rose and Steve’s lichess ratings are almost identical:
Steve and Rose are members of other clubs on lichess in addition to Chandler’s Ford, and Rose is a member of the England-women lichess team. Steve has played over 3,000 games on lichess since joining, and Rose has played over 3900 online games! Games can be played in the ‘clubs’ or as individual challenges.
2000 Games against each other
Steve, ever the gentleman, told me today not to be misled by those scores: “Before lockdown Rose had won far more games than me over a number of years on the board“.
It seems that a shared interest in chess is a recipe for a successful marriage!
Links
England-Women: lichess club, see also our Article England Womens Chess Team and Rose Saunders’ thoughts on playing in the match against Libya.
Congratulations Rose and Steve! Such enthusiasm!
Patrick
Fantastic achievement. Rose continues to play for the English Women Team online and has defeated a couple of players graded over 2200 whilst Steve has defeated a lot of the higher graded C.Ford players in the weekly tournaments! But there games against each other stand out as an amazing achievement!