Hastings and St Leonards 3rd Weekend Tournament

Hastings are running another weekend tournament on 7th-8th May.
See this page on their website for further details.

Tournaments

A reminder that the longplay tournaments end on 30th June. However it is best to aim to have all your games played by the middle of June at the latest. It can often be difficult to arrange games at the last moment.
Also be aware that the winner of each tournament is the person with the highest score irrespective of the number of games played. E.G. Player A only completes five games and has five points. Player B completes 8 games and has 5.5 points. Player B is the winner.
The two Rapidplay tournaments continue until 31st August.

Brighton & Hove Chess Club Division 1 Champions

A hearty congratulation to everyone who contributed to this season's campaign. At present we lead Haywards Heath by 4-0. John Henshaw's game is adjourned. This means we finish the season with
 8.5 Match Points out of a possible 9. A most commendable performance. Well done everyone.
 Today's winners were Julien Carron, Callum Brewer, Simon Wilks and myself.

Rapidplay Ladder Tournament

The Open Rapidplay Tournament is now full.
 If present members, wish to enter a tournament, the Open Rapidplay Ladder Tournament is now operating.
To enter members just write their name on a card positioned in the ladder and challenge people above them. The time control is the same as the Open Rapidplay Tournament.
The rules of the Open Rapidplay Ladder Tournament are displayed at the club.

Library and clocks

Anthony's updated Library catalogue and all his digital clock help pages are now on the website. The clock pages make everything a doddle for people still puzzled by anything digital. Please take a moment for them to load if you don't see them at first. If you want to practise at home you can get a super new DGT 2010 for £49.99 - sale price from Chess and Bridge - or a much cheaper DGT 1001 for £19.99 for just the basics.

Also don't forget the e2e4 comeback at Gatwick next weekend.

Hastings chess match 12-Jan-2016

Hi Chess Club,

I am looking for 3 players willing to travel to Hastings to play for the 3rd Team next Tuesday 12th Jan 2016.

Myself and Sue are driving so you can have a lift.

If you would like to play at Hastings next week, then please contact me ASAP. ***Playing strength is not important.

Contact me on 07976 739911 or email : michael_s_cain@yahoo.co.uk

Thank You

Michael

A Life in Check

A nice short and true story about a chess-obssessive in Manhattan.  A warning to us all :-)


Merry Christmas all!

Christmas Cheer

We will be closed on Christmas Eve, Boxing Day and New Year's Eve, but fear not there are all these events to go to to get you through the bleak midwinter:

Coulsdon Christmas Longplay Congress
Hastings Chess Club Christmas Party
Hastings International Chess Congress

Hastings Christmas Party

Hastings are inviting Brighton and Hove players plus guests to their
Christmas Party on 20th December. 

New and improved Events Calendar

I've changed the Events Calendar to a calendar format and included MSCL matches to the end of January, complete with links to MSCL website and venue maps. Will captains please let me know of any date changes for this to function reliably - and anyone else for anything else exciting you'd like added!

PS Now with added e2e4 Gatwick Congresses in February and May 2016!

Knock Out match against the Args.

I thought we were goners arriving at Wednesday night's Knock Out match when it transpired Mikolaj had played in the first division as well as the third, meaning our grading average suddenly shot up by 30 points*. We were still the same underdogs but now minus the grading handicap. Ouch! However Robin overcame his 27 point difference and beat Peter Farr on top board. Paul Selby and I drew and Andrew won against roughly equal competition. Mikolaj was battling on against his 150 opponent on board three - both offering and declining draws - until finally Paul Kington's knight proved superior to Mikolaj's bishop in an equal pawn ending. Still, a good performance and we had beaten the Args. 3-2 with plenty of downtime in the Jolly Tanners (no speculative argy-bargy over unfinished games :-)). We now face Horsham at home in the quarter-finals.

* Ungraded players are estimated according to the highest division they have played in.

First match of the season and first win of the season.

 A confident win in the first match of the season sets us up nicely for the remainder of the season. The score was 4-1. Let's hope we are in the mix as the season draws to a close.

Open Rapidplay

New Open Rapidplay launched which should be of particular interest to new and ungraded members. See Open Rapidplay under Tournaments tab.

Sussex Chess News 2015

Finally I have managed to put the Sussex Chess News file onto the website. You can download it from the pdf file on the Links page.

Digital clocks and time controls

Just a reminder that instructions for setting the digital clocks for league and tournament games are provided under Setting Clocks on the website. In particular the newly introduced alternative for league games, if both players wish it, of the incremental time control (Fischer) - 80 minutes for all moves + 10 second increment per move - is covered. Do ask if you need a demo (e.g. Michael, myself, Rob).

Also, it’s been pointed out that the chess magazines in the library are a valuable resource for the club. Some are in poor condition. To try to preserve these magazines please could you find an alternative to resting on them when recording games. Thank you.

Club Tournaments launched

The club tournaments are now up and running with paper charts up at the club, and online charts on the website so you can see who you have to play and what colour. There's also still the link on the Tournaments page for players to contact their opponents. You can enter your results on the paper charts but they won't be online as it's fiddly to do and more useful to use the online charts as a playing guide. (Anyone missing them should probably get out more or pop down to the club more often :-).) As you can see there are still places left in all three and these will be allocated first come first served. The Club Championship is open to applications from higher graded or aspiring players up to a maximum of nine. The Plummer Knight and Tasker Tankard will close at twelve. Anyone still wanting to play graded games after that will have to put their names down for a possible Open in the New Year, or join the Ladder.

Club Tournaments 2015-16

Thanks to everyone who's renewed their membership this season and put their names down on the tournament list. The tournaments are looking like this at present:

Club Championship: (probably playing both colours)
Julien Carron, Geoff, Callum B., Simon

U140 Plummer Knight:
Terry, Calum S., Jan, Mikolaj, Peter, Alaa 

U120 Tasker Tankard:
Rob, Joe, Sue, Andrew C., Andrew S., James Alvarez, Andrew Wallis 

There are still places left in all three but remember to renew club and ECF membership first (if you've paid recently online I won't know until Geoff's back). See the tournament controller, Andrew Caswill, or me if you have any issues.We hope to have the charts up and running in the club next week.

New season news

Jan has resigned as third team captain due to new work commitments which, together with a slight drop in numbers, means we are only entering four teams and a KO team in the MSCL this season. Paul and Robin will have a team each in the first division and Michael and Andrew, with help from Alaa, a team each in the third. All team matches will be back to Thursday evenings, unless rescheduled for a Saturday. Thanks to Jan for all his time and effort with the third team.

We are planning to follow a Callum-inspired idea with the tournaments this season which should result in a greater variety of opponents and an option to play in two tournaments over the year - think World Cup with two qualifying group tournaments for the championship. If you want to enter please put your name on the list at the club or let Andrew Caswill know before the end of the month. The precise plan will depend on numbers and entering later may not be an option. We will also have a casual Open for both the super-keen and the less committed.

Last year's members remember to renew your membership of the club before 8th October to qualify for the £5 discount (amounts and bank transfer details are on the FAQs page, question 4) and renew your ECF membership if you want to play in anything other than friendlies at the club.

There is a strong rapidplay congress at Crowborough tomorrow for anyone interested, see link on Events Calendar page. 

Vacancy for a team captain

It looks likely we will only have captains for four teams this season unless we have a volunteer. The snag is you either need transport or the support of someone else willing to drive. Please let me know if you're interested or thinking about it as we need to let Julie know fairly soon. Doesn't matter what your grade is, we'll fit you in accordingly.

Dieppe v Brighton 2015

And gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not there... etc. that played not in Dieppe against the French.

In the simul on Saturday Callum Brewer, Paul Selby, Julian Clark and Michael Cain got draws against Marie Sebag GM, at 2496 the top female player in France and eighteenth in the world, playing thirty boards in two and a half hours, with only one other draw and 25 wins at lightening speed. Our match against the Dieppe team on Sunday was lost 7/5 but as usual we faced a very strong home team so not at all a bad result. I have put the individual results on the Dieppe page of the website as the blog is resistant to forms. This is Michael's video with more pictures to follow:



A really excellent weekend with much food and drink, and fun and games.