Club quiz continues....

Congratulations! The correct answer to picture quiz - but sadly no picture of the winner in his Batchelor days.
The - unnecessary - clues would have been:

1. Who won a silver medal in the Sunday Times school team championships in 1958?
2. Who played for England U-18 in the Glorney Cup in 1961? 1965? and 1966?
3. Who came first equal in the British U-18 and U-21 championships in 1964 and 1966?
4. Who was selected to play for Scotland in the 1972 Skopje Olympiad?
5. Who won the British Senior championship in 2010?
6. Who has won the B&HCC championship 17 times (including 4 jointly)?
7. Who is the oldest person (by four years) ever to have won the B&HCC championship?

and  8. Who is the other, now-deceased, county player?

Mysterious Players in '62

  I reckon Geoffrey James and Brian Denman are Two of these three individuals. Geoffrey is perhaps a little easier to recognise. Brian must have been quite young when this was taken. He is perhaps 4-5 years younger than Geoffrey here.

The Summer of '62

Where are they now?
Name two out of three of these dapper young players for full marks. Post your answer here or send me your own junior pic - photo or .jpg - with your answer for our next 'where are they now?' feature post.

New Gallery page and match room

The Gallery is now up and running - see new tab above if you are viewing this on the website and not just the blog. Thanks to Michael for help on setting this up. Most of the pictures up there are his as well. If you have any albums you would like to share send me the HTML code for embedding the album in a website and I'll add it to the page. (This is easy on Picasa.)

The first team and the fifth team are both playing tomorrow so the plan is to have the front and back room as one large, silent match room and chat, friendlies and analysis in the small 'poker' room. If you are playing an internal tournament game you can use the match room as well. Please therefore enter the large room very quietly and be aware of how noise carries even from the small room. This should make all match players happier and might be the way to go all season.

Progress and opportunity

Congrats to the sixth team in their match against Haywards Heath 2 (average grade 135) and also to the fifth team who pulled off a similar feat against Worthing 3 last Monday (average grade 142). With 2-3 scores they didn't quite win but these results prove we can surprise the best of the third division. I hope we can continue as far as possible to field our strongest teams early in the season, giving our promoted teams the best chance of staying up and the sixth team a good run for its money.

Meanwhile e2e4 Brighton is filling up with 90 entrants so far. Two weeks to go if you still want to join the dozen or so members already signed up. This is always a very well run event and, well, why not? Eat your sandwiches on the seafront and it's as cheap as it gets!

Having lost 5-0 to the fifth team the week before, the sixth team were unlucky not to score with a 3-2 loss against St Francis & Haywards Heath 2 last Thursday. Thanks to Andrew S, Bob, Carl, Maria and Oli L.

Blog posting for all

If you were confused before, you won't be now! I have just further improved the 'How to write to the Club Blog' page, see yellow tab above (below header picture). All possible permutations of puzzlement covered!

Paranormal activity

Just read the French write up for our nervy, edgy close run battle. They talk of a 2 hour delayed ferry crossing coming over; their luggage (chess sets and food) getting taken from them in transit as they had to put their larger baggages in a separate support vehicle on the ferry (interestingly they were going to mug up on variations of the Benko Gambit en masse during the crossing, but this was not to be...) ; of someone seeing a ghost on the crossing; of many staying up till 2am pre match day painting la ville rouge in Brighton's nightspots; of celebrating until 3am following their victoire. Do we have the stamina? They really enjoyed their whole trip but are already planning victory next year to bring the overall match score all square for a massive encounter in 2014. You have been warned.

New tournaments published

The new tournaments are now up. Please read the updated Tournaments page as well for further information. Please note that there are three requirements this year before your name can appear in a club tournament:

1. You have joined the club.
2. You have joined the ECF so your results can be graded.
3. You have requested to join a tournament.

If your name doesn't appear in a tournament and you wish to be added please address the points above! If you still haven't appeared please contact the Tournament Controller, Andrew Caswill.

This year we are putting the emphasis on everyone committing to one tournament and completing all their games. If you really want or need to withdraw please do so promptly so that someone else can take your place. The tournaments are limited to twelve so once they're full they're full. The vacant places will be allocated on a first come first served basis. There will be another open tournament in the New Year for late joiners and members who have played most or all of their tournament games.

The Club Championship has gone back to being an all-play-all in order to give the top players more opportunity to play each other. The Denman Cup is lower graded to allow new members the chance to join and fill the spaces during the year. The Tasker Tankard replaces the Eric Cohen with the generous gift of a silver tankard to the club by Neil Tasker.  

***There will be a presentation of the Tankard to the Club next Saturday 13th at 6:00 pm in the bar when Neil will also be providing certain refreshments! All members welcome.

Please use the Members' Contact Details link on the Tournaments page to contact you opponents - it connects to a regularly updated google document where email addresses and 'phone numbers are interactive.

Good luck and, win or lose, enjoy your games!

New contact list

Members of the club can now find the email address and 'phone number of every member via the Link on the Tournaments page of the website. The list is only visible to members. Access to the list requires you to sign in to your google account - all the hints on this are also on the Tournaments page. If you have difficulty please let me know which email address you are using for access so I can check I have used the right one, or you may not have rejoined the club yet this season. Also please let me know if you would like any of your details changed. The list is so you can contact your tournament opponents and team captains can contact you. The new tournaments will be published next week.

Dieppe win by a whisker!

Big thanks to everyone for making it a great event on Saturday, particularly for all the effort that went into the cooking, and even more especially to Carl, John S., Rob and Anthony for turning up yesterday for a very thorough, and cheerful, clean-up operation.

Lots more pictures to follow.

Match update

A last minute switch in the French team means Oli gets a slightly tougher match. Rob and Anthony have also been switched following Anthony's ECF grading correction from 110 to 112. Geoff's FIDE rating is 2191 and Paul's is 2048 so the top is better than it looks. I'm not sure how these French Elos were calculated.

	NOM	PRENOM	ELO	COUL	NOM	PRENOM	ELO
1	BOIZANTE	YVAIN	2220	B	JAMES	GEOFFREY	2112
2	FERRANT	CHRISTOPHE	2098	N	BATCHELOR	PAUL	2000
3	DELABARRE	OLIVIER	2004	B	LOWE	CHRIS	1968
4	DIOLOGENT	MATTHIEU	1977	N	SELBY	PAUL	1792
5	LEHARANGER	GULLAUME	1901	B	WIESS	OLI	1752
6	WAUCAMPT	YOAN	1713	N	BREWER	CALLUM	1720
7	BRANLANT	ALBANE	1651	B	BADHAM	DUNCAN	1720
8	BAULAIN	ROMEO	1660	N	JONES	ROBIN	1720
9	DEREGNAUCOURT	GAETAN	1648	B	CAIN	MICHAEL	1704
10	DUBOIS	BENJAMIN	1620	N	DE SILVER	ARTHUR	1688
11	DEREGNAUCOURT	LUCAS	1550	B	SMUTS	JOHN	1608
12	BRASSE	ROMAIN	1430	N	BENSON	PETER	1560
13	GAULT	FREDERIC	1420	B	STANTON	ANTHONY	1496
14	CHAPELIER	ANNIE	1170	N	COUNSELL	ROB	1488
15	BAUDET	KELLY	N/C	B	DAVIES	BOB	1472

MSCL fixtures published

The MSCL fixture list is now up on the Fixtures page of the B&HCC website, all 199 of them! The divisional split has been adjusted to 12/11/13 after a failure of nerve by Crowborough 2. As always we are indebted to Julie Denning for managing to squeeze everything in yet again. Thursday 18th October is the day for all first and third division players to keep their diaries free.

Grades and ratings

NB Our team's Elo ratings given below are not FIDE ratings but the ECF grades as translated into Elo by the French. Any FIDE ratings will be different and so will the calculations done the EFC way, i.e. ECF x 8 + 650. If you think the French are under an illusion so be it!

Pairings for Dieppe match on Saturday

	NOM	PRENOM	ELO	COUL	NOM	PRENOM	ELO
1	BOIZANTE	YVAIN	2220	B	JAMES	GEOFFREY	2112
2	FERRANT	CHRISTOPHE	2098	N	BATCHELOR	PAUL	2000
3	DELABARRE	OLIVIER	2004	B	LOWE	CHRIS	1968
4	DIOLOGENT	MATTHIEU	1977	N	SELBY	PAUL	1792
5	PLESSIS	ARNAUD	1830	B	WIESS	OLI	1752
6	WAUCAMPT	YOAN	1713	N	BREWER	CALLUM	1720
7	BRANLANT	ALBANE	1651	B	BADHAM	DUNCAN	1720
8	BAULAIN	ROMEO	1660	N	JONES	ROBIN	1720
9	DEREGNAUCOURT	GAETAN	1648	B	CAIN	MICHAEL	1704
10	DUBOIS	BENJAMIN	1620	N	DE SILVER	ARTHUR	1688
11	DEREGNAUCOURT	LUCAS	1550	B	SMUTS	JOHN	1608
12	BRASSE	ROMAIN	1430	N	BENSON	PETER	1560
13	GAULT	FREDERIC	1420	B	COUNSELL	ROB	1488
14	CHAPELIER	ANNIE	1170	N	STANTON	ANTHONY	1480
15	BAUDET	KELLY	N/C	B	DAVIES	BOB	1472

Ladder Tournament.

The rapid play Ladder Tournament has now started.Players in order at the beginning of the tournament are:
Top:   Andrew Shoulders, Andrew Caswill, Bob Davies, Sue Chadwick, Anthony Stanton, Rob Counsell, John Smuts, Neil Tasker, A De Silver, Robin Jones, Martin Roe, Callum Brewer.
See rules on the website or on the club notice-board  for more details.. At the moment a player can challenge another player on the ladder who is up to six positions above them. eg Callum could challenge anyone up to and including Rob.
New players can join at the bottom of the ladder throughout the year..

Busy Saturday

The Bridge Club will be busy on Saturday with a party downstairs and rubber bridge in the back room upstairs. Please use the match room and skittles room at the front.

Club computer

Hi all,

You may have noticed the recent lack of computer facilities since our old PC gave up the ghost. Anthony has kindly procured a replacement which I will be bringing back to the club tonight. I've installed Fritz 12, Arena (a free chess analysis program) and internet access. If there's anything you think is missing, or you find something doesn't work, please either post here or let me know (as I'm not around much you can always e-mail or pass a message via committee members).

BTW Sue, I think the 'Open' for high ranking players is a good idea.

Cheers, Kevin.

More on ECF - see below

One of our former club members, CJ de Mooi, resigned from his position as ECF President on Saturday. Ever out-spoken and controversial, and still better known as a television 'Egghead', he has been offered a job in the world of commercial chess which he considers incompatible with his position at the ECF. Roger Edwards (?) is currently the only candidate for the post - to be confirmed at the ECF AGM on 13th October.

However, don't let this stop you taking out ECF membership - only 17 of our members have signed up so far - which means so far only 17 lucky members will be appearing on our internal tournament charts! (see post on September 3 below) Club membership subscriptions are also due and will be accepted by any committee member any Thursday or Saturday at the club.

ECF Membership Rates:

• BRONZE £13 a year (Juniors £9)
• SILVER £19 a year (Juniors £13)
• GOLD £28 a year (Juniors £22)
• PLATINUM £60 a year (Juniors £60)

You only need BRONZE for all graded games at the club and in the Mid-Sussex League. The year runs from 1st September and it costs the same whenever you join in the year. The £2 per person per game alternative will NOT be available for internal tournaments.

Dieppe

I have made a slight change to the Dieppe line-up - see post below - as I unforgivably forgot to include Callum who applied by email back in June. Great to have have him on board!

There is a snazzy new website for the Dieppe Chess Club with a special Brighton blog dedicated to our encounters over the last five years.