Brighton & Hove Chess Club

The Railway Club, Belmont House, 4 Belmont, Dyke Road, Brighton, BN1 3TF (near Seven Dials)

News - 2007/8

Club Competitions

Eric Cohen Cup

This is the club’s competition for players whose grade was under ECF 100.

Joint 1st Prize: Charles Holcombe & Kevin Gee

3rd Prize: John Smuts

Plummer Knight

This is the club’s competition for players whose grade was under ECR 130.

1st Prize: Duncan Badham

Joint 2nd Prize: Neil Tasker & David Langridge

Challenge Shield

This competition was open to every player in the club.

1st Prize: Neil Tasker

2nd Prize: Dona Strauss (Neil noted that had Dona joined the club before March 2008, she would have won the Challenge Shield)

Joint 3rd Prize: Paul Selby and Paul Batchelor

Club Championship

1st Prize: Geoff James

2nd Prize: Paul Batchelor

Joint 3rd Prize: Paul Selby & Neil Tasker

Charles Holcombe Handicap Cup

This season's competition is unfinished.

Outside the Club

Sussex Veterans Championship 2007/8

Geoffrey James won the Sussex Veterans Championship and Neil Tasker came second. Well done to them both! The Sussex Veterans do not maintain a website.

Hastings 83rd International Chess Congress

This is the longest running chess competition on the planet.

(Since photography is banned during the matches, these photographs were taken through a window in an upstairs balcony corridor and stiched together - thus the curved edge.)

Paul Batchelor (159), Brian Izzard (133) and Duncan Badham (116) entered the Weekend Major (a competition for those graded under ECF 160). Paul got 3½ points out of a possible 5 and his grade over the competitions fell by two points. Brian got 1 point and his grading dropped to 99. Duncan got 2 points and raised his grade to 129.

Neil Tasker (125) entered the Weekend Minor (a competition for those graded under ECF 130), winning 2½ points out of a possible 5, dropping his grade to 104. Michael Cain (105) also entered the Minor. He won 1 point out of a possible 4 and his grade over the competition dropped to 60.

John Smuts (93), Simon Hayward (79), Sue Chadwick (73), Andrew Caswill (73) and Duncan Roy (55), and Andrew Shoulders (50) entered the Under 100 competition (previously known at the 'Novices'). John scored 3 out of 5 and his grade became 86. Simon won 1 point and collapsed both his grade (now 5) and his morale. Sue won 3½ points and raised her grade to 103. Andrew Caswill won 3 points and his grade went down to 71. Duncan Roy (that's me, writing this) only got one point and then only because his opponent didn't show up for the match; his grade went down to 13. Andrew Shoulders, who began the competition with a grade of 50 got 1 point and his grade went down to 30.

News - 2006/7

Club Competitions

Steve Diver came won the Eric Cohen Cup with 7.5 points. Andrew Caswill came second with 6 points. Simon Hayward and Charles Holcombe tied third place with 5 points each. 86% of the games were played in the Eric Cohen Cup.

David Norton & Neil Tasker tied with 7 points for the Challenge Shield, with John Smuts coming third on 5.5 points. 80% of the games were played in the Challenge Shield.

The Plummer Knight Trophy was won by Neil Tasker with 7 points. Sue Chadwick came second with 5 points and there was a three way tie for third place, between Peter Benson, David Langridge & Charles Holcombe who each had 4 points. 100% of the games were played in the Plummer.

Geoffrey James won the Club championship with 2.5 points. Neil Tasker came second with 2 points and Bas Geelhoed came third with 1.5 points. In contrast to the other competitions, the Club Championship again seriously lacked commitment from club members. 3 members who entered played none of their games. Another 3 played only 1 game each and one of those withdrew after losing his 1 game. As a consequence the result is a travesty. Neil Tasker was seriously minded to declare the competition null and void for the year. The committee decided to alter the competition from an all plays all basis to a knock out tournament. It will now be open to ALL club members (as it should be) and hopefully more appealing to the better players in the club whom it is hoped will hope will enter.

Outside the Club

David Norton continued his smooth rise through the grades by winning the Major (under 160) at the 2nd Weald Congress in Copthorne (14th/15th July) with 4.5 out of 5 (a grading performance 169).

Brian Denman has won the 2007 Sussex Championship after beating Feliks Kwiatkowski 1.5 - 0.5 in the Final, which was completed in May. Brian has also won this year's Mid-Sussex League Tankard for the best Match Average over the full season with 7.5 out of 8. This pipped International Master Simon William's score of 9/10, mathematically, although Simon won more games. There were also individual Tankards for each division and Brian naturally won this for the first division.

In March, Geoffrey James has returned from Dresden where he played for the English Veterans in a pan-European Championship.

Earlier in the year (in January), at the Hastings 82nd International Chess Congress, Sue Chadwick won a grading prize, John Smuts came joint second in the Weekend Under-100 Competition and David Norton won the Weekend Under-130 Competition.

Congratulations to all of them!