The first rated junior blitz tournament of the season started this week. It is a nine round blitz (each player gets 5 minutes total for the game) that will take place over three or four Wednesday sessions. Many thanks to John Upham for organising this.
Full details of the tournament, including results, pairings, standing and so on can be found here: Chess-results.com – Crowthorne Junior Blitz 2024
Blow are some pics of Wednesday’s action, please click for a larger image.
Unfortunately we do not have access to the Monro Pavilion this week so unfortunately we have to postpone our first meeting of the new season until next week.
Please refer to emails from Jonathan for further information.
The Khyber Cup took place Saturday, 13th July, 40 years since the first Khyber Cup in 1984, which makes it older than many club members (though not all).
We were hosted this year by John Upham, in his recently refurbished house and super garden, and had an excellent turnout with 18 players. The weather was sufficiently kind that we could play all rounds outside, and the forecast rain showers never really emerged. John arranged for a buffet at the nearby Thatched Cottage, which was excellent in quality, quantity and value.
The Khyber Cup is the opportunity for less proficient club members to steal a point from those higher up in the ratings order, but the only upset I’m aware of this year was when Richard’s chair collapsed underneath him leaving him flat on his back (fortunately unhurt and unshaken, he went on to win the game).
Unlike last year, when we had a four-way tie for first place, this year we had a clear winner in Paul Cooksey, who scored an impressive 4.5 points out of the 5 games, his first Khyber Cup win. Congratulations to Paul.
Paul was closely followed by Richard and Ian (Thompson), both previous winners, on 4 points.
We also had a clear winner (if that’s the right word) in the competition for the bottle of wine, which was awarded to Christine.
Thanks to John for being an excellent host and organising and running the event. Thanks also to Zak who, although not playing, generously donated the refreshments.
Many thanks to Richard for providing an annotated game from his recent success at the Dorset Centenary Congress in Bournemouth. This is his final round game.
Richard equalised comfortably out of the opening and was slightly better around move 15. Then White made the mistake of exchanging off his best minor pieces (his knights). This resulted in a slight initiative to Richard, which he made use of by attacking two pawns, and winning one of White’s queen’s pawns (and the other one will drop off shortly). White’s resignation may seem a little early at first sight, but his position was quite lost and lacked active counterplay.
An instructive game.
Several Crowthorne Chess Club members played in the Dorset Congress in Bournemouth last weekend (19-21 April) and Richard Webb came equal first in the open!
Here is a position from his Round 2 win. Richard’s opponent has unwisely just played 18 …Bd7, 18 …Rg8 was a better try, but his position would already be very difficult after 19 Ne5.
What did Richard play to force a quick win?
After 5 rounds of the current Online 4NCL season Crowthorne has won 3 matches, drawn 1 and lost 1. We are in eighth place (out of 33) in Division 5, with two rounds to go.
Crowthorne won the latest match 3-1
Two Crowthorne players were successful at the Swindon 2024 Rapidplay, held on Saturday 2nd March.
In the U1900s, Ashton Grimmett scored 4.5 out of 6, and won the section on tiebreak. An excellent result, especially given his current rapidplay rating of 1729.
Richard Webb won the Open outright, scoring 5/6.
Win or otherwise, the events at Swindon are always pleasant to play in, and are highly recommended.
Full results for the U1900 can be found here and for the Open here.
4nclresults.co.uk/2023-24/media/kids/9th/prog-div4.html(opens in a new tab)
Crowthorne Chess Club has a team in Division 4 of the Junior Online 4NCL competition.
In this format, teams play in a seven round Swiss, with each player playing two games against the same opponent. The time rate is 10 minutes for the game, plus 5 seconds increment each move.
Crowthorne Juniors won their latest match:
This means that Crowthorne has won two out of the first three matches and stand in 15th place out of 34 teams.
Full details at the 4NCL website.
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.
Round 1 of the 9th Season of the 4NCL took place on Tuesday, and Crowthorne started with a win against the Colchester JFF B team.
We outrated our opponents, but a good start to the season nonetheless. All results, tables etc can be found at the 4ncl website.