Suffolk Chess

Suffolk County Chess Association President Colin Roberts is keen to fill the remaining vacancies on his Committee.

They are:

*    Junior Organiser
*    Under 100 team captain
*    Under 120 team captain

I (Bob Jones) have been nominated and seconded as Vice-President and will be standing for President at the next AGM in June, when Colin's three-year term of office expires.

So I, too, am keen to see these positions filled, especially the first.   We haven't had a Junior Organiser for several years, after Adam Hunt stood down from the role.   It's particularly important, because every club in Suffolk needs a few up and coming juniors; they are after all the future of Suffolk chess.

The Junior Organiser should be able to encourage more schools to run their own chess clubs.   Also, there's a glaring gap in Ipswich, where the population of over 130,000 people has no junior chess club.   Two children travel all the way to Bury each week because there's no alternative.

Anyone considering any of these positions should contact , in the first instance.   I can provide more information as to the level of commitment that is required.

Although there are still seven weeks to go before the Bury St Edmunds Chess Congress on 25 / 26 October, entries are flooding in.   To date there are 37 paid-up entrants.   This is way ahead of previous years.

The Apex, pictured above, is considered to be one of the best chess venues in the country.

There's a limit of 172 entries, due to space restrictions, so make sure you get your entry in soon!   You can enter online here.

After a four-month break, the Bury Knights Junior Chess Club sprung back into action last evening, with more than 40 children attending.

The Bury Knights is currently the only junior chess club in Suffolk.   It's a great pity that Ipswich, with a population some three times that of Bury St Edmunds, is unable to sustain a junior club.

In addition to 34 existing members, seven children turned up for their first chess club.   They were put into a special 'Novices' group, where three coaches - Suffolk Ladies Champion Emilia Jewell, 15-year of Alba Saenz, and Sam Starling (mother of William), helped to teach the children the basics of the game (see photo below).

Due to space limitations at Horringer Court Middle School, as well as supervisory concerns, the number of members will need to be limited to 50.   It is envisaged that this number may well be reached in the next few weeks, as several other new members are expected.

16-year old Adam Taylor, top board for the current League Champions Manningtree A, has been selected to play for England in the forthcoming World Youth Chess Championships in Durban, South Africa.   The 11-round event starts on 19 September.

Sadly, representing England at chess is not the same as in most other sports: the cost of travel and accommodation has to be borne by the parents.   Adam's mother Debbie will in fact be 'Head of Delegation', responsible for the ten youngsters in the England team.   The cost to the family will be in the region of £3,000.

The Suffolk County Chess Association, at its AGM in June, awarded a grant of £100 to Adam and several individuals also contributed.

If anyone else would like to make a donation, however small, it will help to offset the enormous expense that has to bear.

Click here to see the full England team and their profiles.

Competitions Secretary David Green has completed the fixtures schedule for the League and the new Cup & Plate competition.   The Under 125 Cup fixtures will follow in a couple of weeks' time.   It is likely that this event will not commence until December.

This hasn't been an easy task for our new Comps Sec.   Some clubs have restrictions on the number of matches that can be played, and then there's the need to dovetail with the Bury Area Chess League (where Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket play) and the North Essex League (where Clacton also play).

Club Secretaries have also asked for some fixture dates to be changed, for various reasons.   Hopefully the version that has now been published will be the final one (although one amended date is still awaiting confirmation).

Dave Wild's excellent website shows all the fixtures here.

Last Saturday, outside the Apex in Bury St Edmunds, 10-year old Anita Somton took on all-comers, playing as many as ten opponents at a time.   In total, she played about 20 games, drawing two, losing one (a back-row mate!), and winning all the rest!

Anita's current ECF grade is 128 and she has a target of 150 for the next list, to be published in January.

In October, Anita will be travelling with her father to Batumi, in Georgia, for the European Youth Championships.   She will represent England in the Under 10 Girls section, where she will face the top players from the likes of Russia, Azerbaijan, Hungary, Romania and many other European countries.

This trip alone will cost £2,000, and she can expected to be selected to play for her country on many future occasions.   It is hoped that some local companies can be encouraged to support Anita financially in her burgeoning chess career.

Hi everyone!

It's the 1st of September and time for the Suffolk Chess website to awake from its summer slumber.   From now on, there will be an article every day (except when I'm on holiday).   As usual, articles, photos, news from the Clubs will be welcome.

-oOo-
Last Tuesday, the Suffolk County Chess Association held two Extraordinary General Meetings.   It's somewhat unusual to need to hold one EGM, let alone two.   But the Constitution states that an EGM may only consider a single issue.   We needed to consider two, hence the consecutive meetings which took place at Ipswich Chess club with me (Bob Jones) in the chair, as President Colin Roberts was unavailable.   17 people attended the meeting, surpassing the required 12 for a quorum.

The first EGM voted to restore the Under 125 Cup competition.   This event had been dropped from the programme at the Annual General Meeting in June, but subsequently considerable opposition was expressed.   The Committee therefore decided to raise the issue at an EGM.   Four clubs (at least) have agreed to provide teams for the u125 Cup and Competitions Secretary David Green will soon be publishing dates for the first round.

The second EGM was held to approve the revised competition rules.   Over the past couple of months the Rules Sub-Committee has been hard at work re-writing the rulebook.   This was no simple task and it proved difficult for members of the sub-committee to agree on a 'final' version.   Eventually, and just in time for the EGM, a version that was generally acceptable to the sub-committee was distributed to the affiliated clubs.   At the EGM, following an hour's discussion on some of the more contentious rules, a vote was taken.   Although there were three abstentions, everyone else present voted in favour.

The new rules can be seen here, or by clicking on the 'Rules' tab at the top of the page.

At the Annual General Meeting in June it was agreed that the SCCA rules needed a radical revision.   Some of the rules were ambiguous, or poorly drafted.   A Rules sub-Committee was established, with representatives from each club.

Over the past six or seven weeks, hundreds of emails have been exchanged between the members of the committee, who were tasked to look at all 60 rules and to suggest amendments.   The new Competitions Secretary, David Green, led the discussion and indeed made the initial gambit by providing his own suggested revision of the first 29 rules.

Yesterday (6 August), the members of the committee came together for a meeting at the Stowmarket Chess Club venue, to agree as many of the revised rules as possible.   The meeting was chaired by Suffolk President Colin Roberts, with County Secretary Bob Jones taking notes.

The photo above shows all those attending the meeting (except Bob Jones who took the photo!).

By 22.40, when President Colin closed the meeting, most of the rules had been agreed; only a few remain to be discussed.   These will be considered over the next week or so, reverting to email contact between the members.   The complete set of revised rules will be put to an Extraordinary General Meeting of the County Association on Tuesday 26 August, at the Ipswich Chess Club.   All members of affiliated clubs are welcome to attend.   It is anticipated the final set of rules will be published a week or so before the meeting.

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!