2010 News

Hastings International Chess Congress

As usual quite a lot of our members went to this great meeting of players from around the world - the longest running chess competition on the planet! Here are the full results from our players, so far (this is being written on 5th January 2010):

5 Day Tournaments

Christmas Afternoon A
Paul Batchelor - 3 points out of 5

Christmas Morning C
Arthur De Silver - 2

Christmas Afternoon C
Arthur De Silver - 2½ out of 5

Weekend Tournaments

Open
Paul Batchelor - 1½ out of 5

Major
Dona Strauss - 2½ out of 5
Brian Izzard - 1½ out of 5

Minor
Joint 1st: Felix Haxby, 4½ out of 5, winning £250!
Michael Cain, 3 out of 5,
Kevin Gee, 2 out of 5,

U120 Section
Duncan Roy, 3½ out of 5,
John Smuts, 3½ out of 5,
Sue Chadwick, 3 out of 5,
Andrew Shoulders 2½ out of 5, winning a grading prize!
Andrew Caswill, 2 out of 5

2009 News

British Senior Championships

CONGRATULATIONS to Geoff James on becoming British Senior Champion jointly with two others at the British Championships in Torquay this year. He acheived this remarkable feat with four wins and two draws, scoring 5 out of 7. Here's him holding his trophies. The one on the right is the cup and the one on the left is the one that Geoff gets to keep.

Club Competitions

Holcombe Handicap Cup

This is an old style material handicap competition with a cash prize donated by Charles Holcombe, a former secretary and an active member of the club. Due to the material handicap, these games are ungraded.

Joint 1st Prize: John Smuts & Bob Davies
3rd Prize: Paul Selby

Denman Cup

This is the club’s competition for players whose grade was under ECF 70.

1st Prize: Charles Holcombe & Kevin Gee
2nd Prize: Nathan Gregg
3rd Prize: Duncan Roy

Eric Cohen Cup

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

Joint 1st Prize: Felix Haxby
2nd Prize: Bob Davies
Joint 3rd Prize:Simon Hayward; Sue Chadwick, Arthur de Silver

Plummer Knight

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

1st Prize: Dona Strauss

2nd Prize: Charles Holcombe
3rd Prize: Duncan Badham

Challenge Shield

This competition was open to every player in the club (although not everyone entered).

1st Prize: Dona Strauss (her second 1st prize this year - see immediately above)

2nd Prize: Neil Tasker

3rd Prize: Paul Selby

Club Championship

1st Prize: Luke Rutherford

2nd Prize: Geoffrey James

Joint 3rd Prize: Paul Selby & Paul Batchelor

A very nasty accident

Neil Tasker, one of our most popular members, who was the club's tournament controller for several years, had a very nasty accident on 22nd August 2009. We understand that he had swum a race in the sea on the morning of the accident - a one mile race - before attending the club. He fell on the stairs and, without going into details, had to be taken to hospital, where he was taken into intensive care. Although Neil did briefly come out of intensive care, he caught a chest infection and returned to intensive care. The prognosis is that he will probably remain in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. He has been given a placement in a rehabilitation unit in Salisbury and some of us will be visiting him shortly (updated 27th November 2009).

British Junior Team Championships

Felix Haxby, aged 12, played in the Sussex Junior Chess Team, which won this event. Well done to Felix, who scored 3½ points out of a possible 4.

Abroad

Erik Scothron was obliged to leave the club by dint of him now living abroad (can't we have ex-pat membership? - webmaster) and he sent us this message: "Can't say I'm enjoying it much here - there will be quite a long period of adjustment methinks - life here is very different and I have to accept that and not bleat about it so much. It is great however to be with my wife again. I went in search of a chess club and thought I had found it when I came across several people playing by a bus stop with several boards but I'm told the chess club proper was on the other side of town - I have yet to find it.

I was genuinely challenged to play but what I thought would happen if I won and the guy was a sore loser - well you can't be too careful." What can he mean?

Mid-Sussex League 2008-9

Congratulations go the club's 3rd and 4th teams. This year the 3rd team was captained by the Club President Sue Chadwick, who led her team to the top of the third division and it is therefore promoted to the second division where its opponents next year will include our own 2nd team! Simon Hayward, in his first year of captaining, led the 4th team to the top of the fourth division. The 4th team was unbeaten throughout the season and will now be promoted to play in the third division.

The 84th International Chess Congress in Hastings

Our club had a fantastic turnout of 15 playing members in this year's congress in Hastings. Full results are on the congress website (click here). BIG CONGRATULATIONS go to Paul Batchelor for winning two competitions outright within three days! First he won the Christmas Afternoon B competition, which lasted for 5 days and the prize for which was £120. Then he won the Weekend Major Competition, the prize for which was £300. Paul Batchelor is the captain of our 1st team. BIG CONGRATULATIONS to Arthur F De Silver for winning two competitions outright simultaneously! Arthur won the Christmas Morning E competition, the prize for which was £120, and also Christmas Afternoon D competition, the prize for which was £120. Those tournaments lasted 5 days. CONGRATULATIONS to Kevin Gee for achieving joint 3rd place in the Weekend Under ECF100 competition! WELL DONE to everyone from the club who played.

These videos are a masterclass in bad documentaries, containing everything from jittering to poor resolution to sound dropouts. Kevin Gee's prize is announced, much to his surprise in the first video (3 minutes 36 seconds into the video) - hear him say "Oh" when Duncan Badham nudged him into getting up. Sorry about the inexplicable sound dropout when you collected your cheque, Kevin.

Paul Batchelor's prize is announced in this second video (5 minutes 6 seconds).

News - 2007/8

Club Competitions

Eric Cohen Cup

Plummer Knight

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

Challenge Shield

This competition was open to every player in the club.

Club Championship

1st Prize: Geoff James

Outside the Club

Sussex Veterans Championship 2007/8

Hastings 83rd International Chess Congress

(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.)

Neil Tasker (on the right).

Paul Batchelor (on the left).

Duncan Badham (second from the left).

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!