Berkshire League Fixtures are out too!
Fixtures are now available on the Berkshire Chess League website. Crowthorne Chess Club’s fixture can be found here (these links are also available in the Useful Links page).
Please remember that fixtures are occasionally subject to rearrangement, and that the Surrey Border and Berkshire League’s websites should be checked just in case fixture dates have changed.
SBL Fixtures are out!
The Surrey Border League’s fixtures for the 2019/2020 season are now available on the SBL website. The Berkshire League’s fixtures will become available some time in September.
Crowthorne Chess Club’s SBL fixtures can be found here.
Back to Permanent Location
From next Wednesday (21 Aug), we will be meeting at our usual location in the Maths Dept, and no longer at our summer lodgings in PE1. Please click the image below for a detailed map, or go to the About Us page for detailed directions.
Summer event: Random Opening Rapidplay Tournament
To complement the fixed opening rapidplay held earlier in the summer, Crowthorne Chess Club held a random opening rapidplay, with a different opening in each round. The results of the tournament, held yesterday evening with eight members playing were:
1st Harvey Duckers with 6 points (out of 7)
2nd Mark Taylor with 5
3rd Jonathan Welton with 4.5
The openings for each round were as follows:
1 Queen’s Gambit Accepted
2 Najdorf with 6 Be3
3 Fajarowicz variation of the Budapest
4 King’s Bishop Gambit
5 Open Ruy Lopez
6 French Winawer poisoned pawn
7 Grob
Summer event: Mini Rapid Trompowsky Tournament
Yesterday the club held a themed blitz tournament where all the games started with the position arising after the moves
1. d4 Nf6
2. Bg5 Ne4
This took most players off the beaten track and into very varied and unknown territory, and as a result many interesting games ensued.
Twelve members participated, and the event was held as an all-play-all blitz. Richard Webb won with an impressive 10/11, with Derek Johnson in second place with 8.5 and Ken Coates and Harrvey Duckers sharing third with 8.
New ECF Grades are out!
The ECF has just published its July 2019 list, as usual timed to be just before the start of the British Championships.
Grades of Crowthorne Chess Club players can be found here
Summer talk: Chess Puzzles
Yesterday Richard Webb gave a very entertaining talk, going through a number of endgame puzzles. The puzzles were all spectacular, often humorous and, of course, difficult to solve.
As a taster, here is one of the puzzles that Richard presented, a 1922 composition by Kubbel. White to play and win. Expand the “Spoiler” below to see the solution:
The main line of the solution is:
1 Nc6 in order to meet 1…a2 with 2 Nb4+
1 ….Kxc6
2 Bf6 threatening Bxd4, controlling the queening square a1
2 …. Kd5 if 2 …Kc5 3 Be7+ wins the a3 pawn
3 d3!! a2
4 c4+ Kc5
5 Kb7 a1=Q
6 Be7 amazingly, this is checkmate!
Richard at the demo board 
Summer Mini Blitz Tournament
As part of our summer events Crowthorne Chess Club held a blitz tournament in the club room on Wednesday 10th July. With 10 club members playing, it was an all-play-all with a time rate of 3 minutes + 2 seconds increment per move.
The results were recorded using state-of-the-art technology (a whiteboard – see the image below). Colin came first with 8 points, Richard was second with Daniel (the only junior playing) third with an impressive 6 points.
Click to Play 
Click image to expand
Many thanks to Kim for providing the video
Khyber Cup 2019
The Khyber Cup, which was held on Sunday June 16 fulfilled all the traditional Khyber cup elements: good natured but closely fought games in a friendly environment, and weather going from imminent rain to a lovely summer’s day. Even the traditional winner, Richard Webb, won the event, adding his name to the shield for the 19th time. Runner up was Paul Sloane and there was a three-way tie for the wooden spoon. Many thanks to John Upham for being a generous and perfect host.
Thanks also to Paul Sloane for providing these photos (click to see full image):
The players 
The winner, Richard Webb, with the John Purkis Shield
New Summer Location
We will be in a different room within Wellington College over the summer, in PE1 in Combermere. It is the same room we were in last summer. In the attached map it is arrowed in red (our current rooms are arrowed in blue). If leaving the current playing rooms turn left on the main road towards the front of the college and Combermere is the building beyond the Old Gym (see image below). PE1 is the first room on the left in the covered walkway. We will be in this room until 14th August, and return to the usual maths block room on the 21st August.
