Suffolk Chess

In the National Final today in Warwick, the Suffolk team beat Nottinghamshire by the convincing score of 9½ - 6½ to win the trophy as this year's Minor Counties Champions.

The win today follows a successful season in the EACU competition, where we finished runners-up by just half a point.   This qualified us to play in the national rounds, where we first beat Somerset in the Quarter-Final on 18 May, followed by Essex in the Semi-Final on 14 June.

Teams playing in the Minor Counties Championship must not exceed an average grade of 180.   We were fortunate to obtain the services of three outstanding juniors on our top three boards - Alan Merry, Justin Tan and Adam Taylor - whose combined age of 50 was considerably less than several other members of our team!   The youngsters did us proud, scoring 2½/3 between them, including excellent wins on the top two boards.

After four games had been completed, Suffolk were 3½ - ½ ahead, with wins from Mike Cook, Shaun Munson and Alan Merry, and a draw from Nick Savage.   Our lead was maintained throughout the afternoon and with the score at 8 - 5 we knew we would win, because in the event of a tie, board count would have worked in our favour.   Steve Gregory's win made our victory mathematically certain.

The photo shows Steve Gregory and joint captain Ian Wallis holding the trophy after the presentation.

Other Suffolk winners were Shaun Munson and John Peters, whilst further draws were recorded by Adam Taylor, Rob Sanders, Silas Peck, Leon Burnett, Michael Clapham and John Feavyour.   In the event, only three players lost: Graham Moore, Steve Ruthen and Ed Kirkham.

In all a great team effort!

Tomorrow, Saturday, sees the Finals of the County Championships.   Suffolk face Nottinghamshire in the Minor Counties Final.

Having (just) qualified from the EACU competition, Suffolk have gone on to conquer first Somerset, in the national Quarter-Finals, and then Essex in the Semi-Final.

It has been quite a struggle to find a team with an average grade not exceeding 180, but we have done so - our team for tomorrow averages 179.3.   How close can we get?!

The match against Essex was a stunning victory for Suffolk, by 10½ points to 5½.   There were victories for WGM/IM Dagne Ciuksyte on top board, Shaun Munson (Board 3), Steve Gregory (5), Tim Lunn (7), Rob Sanders (11), John Peters (12) and Silas Peck (13).

The result of tomorrow's match will be published here tomorrow evening.   Fingers crossed!

Just a quick reminder that the Suffolk County Chess Association Annual Meeting takes place tomorrow (Tuesday 10 June) at the Ipswich Chess Club.   It will start promptly at 7.30 pm.   All members of affiliated clubs are welcome to attend.   Everyone who attends gets a vote!

This is the last article for a while as the writer is off on holiday tomorrow!

The following game between Oskar Hackner (2127) and Ed Player (2246) was played at the e2e4 Sunningdale Congress over Easter.   The annotations are by Ed.   Apologies for the odd layout - the best I could do from Ed's Chessbase file.

The Board 1 match between David Spence and Shaun Munson in yesterday's Norfolk & Suffolk Cup had an interesting finish.   This was the position after White's 24th move:

The game continued: 24... b4   25. c4   Qc5   26. h4   Rd4   27. Qg3   a5   28. h5   Bc6   29. hxg6   hxg6?   (see diagram below)

After the game, both Shaun and David agreed that 29... fxg6 would have been better.   The computer agrees!

30. Qh3   Bf8   31.Nh7!   Be7   32. Bf8!!   A great move and a difficult one to find across the board.   Rh4   (what else?)   33. Qxh4   Bxh4   34. Bxc5   Kxh7   35. Rh3 and Black resigned.

The Suffolk Final of the Norfolk & Suffolk Cup took place this evening, between Bury St Edmunds and Ipswich.

The result was as close as possible.   With the final score of 3 - 3, it was down to tie-breaks to decide the winners.   With the bottom two boards finishing as draws, it was Ipswich's win on Board 4 that gave the match to Bury St Edmunds.   Here's the winning team:

(left to right): Rob McCorry; David Spence; Mike Harris; John Peters; Ed Player; Steve Ruthen

The first game to complete - at 10.15 pm - was the draw between Rob McCorry and Ted Matthewson on Board 6.   Almost immediately, Shaun Munson resigned his top board game against David Spence.   With the scoreline 1½ - ½ to Bury, the situation soon changed around, with successive wins by Mike Cook against Steve Ruthen, and Steve Gregory against Mike Harris.   The score now stood at 2½-1½ to Ipswich!   Both the remaining games appeared to be going in Bury's favour, but Nick Savage managed to hold out, two pawns down, against John Peters, with a draw in an opposite bishops endgame.

The final game between Ed Player and Tim Lunn went down to the wire.   Earlier in the game Ed had succeeded in reaching the 30-move time control with four seconds remaining (having made his last six moves within the final minute).   With both players running very short of time, Ed managed to checkmate Tim, bringing the final result to 3 - 3.   Rule 47 decides a tied match by "elimination of bottom boards until a result is achieved."   So Bury St Edmunds go forward to play Norfolk winners Broadland, probably at the end of May.

Individual results were:

David Spence   1 - 0   Shaun Munson
Mike Harris   0 - 1   Steve Gregory
Ed Player   1 - 0   Tim Lunn
Steve Ruthen   0 - 1   Mike Cook
John Peters   ½ - ½   Nick Savage
Rob McCorry   ½ - ½   Ted Matthewson

Congratulations to Woodbridge School's Justin Tan, who has achieved his second International Master norm, following an excellent performance in this season's 4NCL.

He played in nine rounds, scoring an unbeaten 6½ points.   This included three draws against GMs, as well as two wins and a draw against IMs.   The average rating of his opponents was 2394, resulting in a rating performance over the nine games of 2560.

Had he beaten GM Matt Turner last Saturday (and he's cross because he should have won), his performance would have been 2614 - a Grandmaster norm!

The eight-board Suffolk Correspondence team, playing in the Sinclair tournament, have scored 9 points out of 14, with just two games (both by Silas Peck) remaining to be completed.   This is an excellent score, which improves considerably on last season's performance.

The following scores have been recorded:

Board 1   -   Ian Wallis    ½ - ½
Board 2   -   Bob Jones    1 - 1
Board 3   -   Silas Peck
Board 4   -   Phil Revell    1 - ½
Board 5   -   Kevin Greenacre    0 - 0
Board 6   -   Jim Buis    1 - 1
Board 7   -   Bob Stephens    1 - 1
Board 8   -   Jakob Tulic    0 - ½

Captain Jim Buis would like to field a second Suffolk team next season.   Anyone interested in playing should him.

A total of 25 Suffolk players travelled to Hinckley and Daventry for this weekend's final rounds in the 4NCL.   The results were mixed, with disappointment for two of the Anglian Avengers teams, who were hoping for promotion to Divisions 1 and 2.

The results for the five Suffolk-based teams were:

Anglian Avengers 1   -   one win and two draws
Anglian Avengers 2   -   one win and two losses
Anglian Avengers 3   -   one win and two losses
Iceni 1   -   one win and two losses
Iceni 2   -   three losses

So overall there were four wins, two drawn matches and nine losses.

AA1, in the Championship pool of Division 2, really needed three wins to be promoted to Division 1.   They won their first match convincingly (6 - 2), but could only manage 4 - 4 draws in Rounds 10 and 11.   They finished the pool with 6 points.   The four promoted teams scored between 7 and 9 points.

AA2, second in Division 2 before the weekend started, won their first match but lost the next two.   They finished one place away from promotion, in fifth place.   Iceni 1 ended up in 20th place (out of 63 teams); AA 3 were 32nd and Iceni 2 were 57th.

The three Suffolk players in Division 1 were all unbeaten over the three games: Adam Hunt scored 2½, Justin Tan 2 and Dagne Ciuksyte 2.   One of Justin's draws was against GM Matt Turner.

In Division 2, Ed Player and Mark Gray were unbeaten on 2 points, whilst David Spence recorded three draws.   Other scores were Shaun Munson 2, Alan Merry 1½, Adam Taylor 1½.

In Division 3, individual scores were as follows:

Steve Gregory   -   2½/3
Vivian Woodward   -   1½/2
John Peters   -   1½/3
Nick Savage   -   1½/3
Dominic Carter   -   1½/3
Bob Jones   -   1/1
John Feavyour   -   1/3
Mike Cook   -   1/3
Silas Peck   -   1/3
Richard Lamont   -   1/3
Steve Lovell   -   1/3
Peter Collicott   -   1/3
Steve Ruthen   -   0/1
Ian Wallis   -   0/1
Martin Fogg   -   0/3

At the time of writing (late Sunday evening), the final weekend of this season's 4NCL is two-thirds complete.   The 4NCL runs across five weekends in total, with two rounds being played on each of the first four weekends.   This weekend, however, is a three-day event, with Round 9 being held on Saturday, Round 10 on Sunday and Round 11 on the Bank Holiday Monday.

This programme creates a real problem for team captains, who have to find teams of eight (Division 1) or six (Divisions 2 and 3), for each of the three days.   Not everyone is prepared (or able) to commit to three days of chess (especially at a time of year when they should be busy in the garden!)

Five Suffolk-based teams are competing as usual - the three Anglian Avengers (captained by Ian Wallis) and the two Iceni teams (captained by John Feavyour).

After the completion of Round 10 today, Anglian Avengers 2 lie in second place in Division 3.   After Round 11, the top four teams in Division 3 will be promoted to Division 2.

This is the current top of Division 3:

Any three of eleven teams could accompany already promoted Guildford 3 into Division 2 next season.   The final column is match points, with two points being awarded for a team win (and one point for a draw).   The penultimate column is game points, which is the tie-break for teams on the same match points.   So if Anglian Avengers 2 can win their match tomorrow, they will definitely be promoted.   If they draw 3 - 3, they could still be promoted on the basis of the number of game points, which is greater than most of the opposition.

Tomorrow's article on this website will give the full results for all the Suffolk-based teams, as well as the individual scores recorded over the weekend.