Once again, John Upham is organising a UK Chess Challenge (UKCC) competition for juniors at Crowthorne Chess Club.

In case you don’t know, the UKCC is a series of competitions for juniors, starting with qualifying tournaments and then going on to Megafinals, Gigafinals and Terafinals. More details can be found on the Delancey UKCC web site.

In the first week we already have 19 entrants signed up for the competition, more may well enter in later weeks. You can follow the progress of the competition on chess-results which has full details of entrants, results, individual performance etc.

We held the annual Crowthorne Christmas Speed Handicap last Friday (15^th December), in the Pinewood bar & café using the function room at the back, which proved to be a perfectly suitable room for us. We set a new record for attendance – 28 players, including seven juniors, two parents and two newcomers.

Given the number of players, we split into four for the group stage. The club’s strong established players did well, with Paul, Richard, Harvey and Robert winning their respective groups. This despite Paul, for example, having less than 5 minutes total playing time across all 6 games.

For the knockout stage we also introduced a novelty, a round of 16. The field was reduced to 3 juniors in the semi-finals, Matthew, David and Dylan, along with Hamid attending his first club competition. The final saw David and Dylan playing a fine and evenly balanced game, both playing with great maturity. David pushed for an attack, but Dylan gave no ground and after an even and well fought battle, it was Dylan who had the better time control and won the game, and with it the Harvey-Ironside Shield.

Congratulations to Dylan, and indeed to David too for doing so well.

We had two other “winners”, both earning themselves a bottle of wine: Scott for the most outrageous Christmas costume (the snowman onesie, slightly tighter fitting this year) and Michael for sportingly giving all the other players a chance.

This (13th December) is the last Wednesday this term in the Monro Pavilion for juniors and matches. We resume again on Wednesday 10^th January.

We thought three consecutive nights of chess would be a bit much, so there is no Pinewood social chess meeting this Thursday. We should be ok to meet again next Thursday, 21^st Dec before taking a break over the Christmas/new year period.

Christmas Handicap is on Friday, doors open 7:00, rules read-out 7:30, play start about 7:45.

Jonathan sent an email yesterday to people who are down as playing. If you didn’t receive it, but you expect to be playing, please let Jonathan know ASAP.

On Wednesday 29th November we will not have access to the Monro Pavilion. This is the last Wednesday we don’t have access to the building this season (i.e. until the summer holidays). We will be meeting there again as normal on Wednesday, 6^th December.

Our annual Christmas Speed Handicap has been booked for Friday the 15^th December. This is in the Pinewood Centre, like last year, but this year we have the rear function room booked, which will make it a little quieter and more private. A buffet will be provided. Jonathan has promised to send frequent reminders about this event, but for now perhaps you could note the date in your diaries.

For those unfamiliar with the Christmas Speed Handicap, all games last the same time (10 or 15 minutes, depending on the number of attendees) but the time allocated for each player is adjusted according to their strength to give each player an even chance of winning. The overall effect is that any player can win the whole event. Quickness of mind and hand are more important than a simple ECF rating.