Friday, 10 October 2014

Dates for County matches

This season Suffolk will be fielding teams in four of the EACU County Championships: Open, Under 160, Under 120 and Under 100.   The team captains are:

Open   -   Ian Wallis (Ipswich)
u160   -   Bob Jones (Bury St Edmunds)
u120   -   Peter Collicott (Saxmundham)
u100   -   Daniel Yarnton (Stowmarket)

The match dates involving the Suffolk teams are as follows:

Codes:   S = Suffolk; B = Bedfordshire; C = Cambridgeshire; H = Hertfordshire; N = Norfolk

Date Open u160 u120 u100
30 November S v N / B v S N v S / S v N
7 December S v C / H v S C v S / S v C
18 January S v C / N v S
1 February N v S / C v S
8 February S v B / H v S C v S / S v C
22 February S v H / S v N N v S / S v N
8 March S v H / C v S


Thursday, 9 October 2014

Millionaire chess fundraiser

Bury's Jon Collins is one of only two English players to have entered the Millionaire Chess tournament in Las Vegas, which starts today.   See last Friday's article.

Jon has sent the following:

"Please help me raise funds for Cancer Research UK, whilst I play in the competition of a lifetime in the USA.   Around 550 participants from 40 countries across the world will compete in this groundbreaking event.

100% of donations will go to Cancer Research, PLUS the total donation amount will be boosted by 50%, PLUS gift aid will be added to the total of all donations!

As part of the fundraising effort, I will offer:

*   A daily blog including regular tournament progress updates
*   URLs to watch live coverage of the tournament online
*   Match analysis and annotations of all 7 games

You can also download the app "Millionaire Chess" for the best up-to-date coverage.

Thank you for all your help and support!

Please donate here."



Wednesday, 8 October 2014

New website for Woodbridge School Chess

A sparkling new website has been created to promote chess at Woodbridge School.   You can view it here, or if you want to copy the link in full, it's at http://woodbridgechess.wordpress.com/

You'll see a link to the recent Simul given by Justin Tan, and there's plenty else to enjoy.   The next tournament at Woodbridge is the Junior Open on Sunday 23 November.   Well done Adam Hunt for developing this new website!

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Over on the Isle of Man, Alan Merry had a torrid time today against 2713-rated GM (and third seed) Laurent Fressinet, losing in 29 moves.   You can view the game here (until tomorrow morning).   Alan's on 50% after five rounds, not bad considering he was seeded 56th out of 73 entrants.   He has gained 29 rating points to date, so he's closing on the 2300 level that he reached a year ago to earn the FIDE Master title.


Tuesday, 7 October 2014

Alan update

Alan lost his fourth round match today against GM Marin (2583).   In the position below, where Marin (White) had just played 26. f5, Alan responded with exf5?   Marin then played 27. Ra7+, which soon led to the loss of several black pawns.   According to Rybka, 26... Rc1+ followed by ...Rcc2 would be much better, and nearly equal.

Despite this loss, Alan's rating performance over the four games is 2565.   Tomorrow (Wednesday) he is White against 2713-rated Laurent Fressinet.   It's not getting any easier!


Monday, 6 October 2014

Eat, kill, cut or ... take

Two Spanish children at the Bury Knights don't 'take' pieces, they 'eat' them!   It seems that in Spain the commonly used word for capturing a piece is 'comer', which means 'eat'.   'Comer' can also be used figuratively to refer to corrosion, erosion or the 'eating up' of something by natural processes.

In France, the colloquial, but accepted, term is 'manger'. which of course has the same meaning: to eat.   An example could be, "Désormais perdre une pièce, je pouvais manger tous ces pions" (Despite losing a piece, I managed to take all his pawns).

Some other children at the club use 'kill'.   I wonder where that comes from?   It's not Malayalam, the language spoken by many of the Indian children at the club.   Their word, 'vetti', means 'cut'.

Does anyone know of any other words that are used for capturing a piece, and what language they originate from?

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A couple of days ago, a position from an Adam Taylor game was featured.   Adam played 1. Rh5, when his opponent replied with the tempting ... Rf6?!, forcing the White queen away from the g-file and the protection of g4.   2. Qe8+   Bf8 (Rf8 is no better:   Qe6+   Rf7;   Rxf5)   3. Kg5!   1 - 0


Sunday, 5 October 2014

Alan's in the Isle of Man

Alan Merry (see photo left with Mum Thelma) is currently playing in the nine-round Pokerstars International Chess Tournament, in Douglas, Isle of Man.   The event started yesterday, with Alan drawing with White against an Israeli IM rated 2431 in the first round.   Today he faces English IM Simon Ansell (2370) with the black pieces.

There are 75 entrants in the Masters section, one-third of whom are Grandmasters.   Top seed is England's Michael Adams.   And there's an £18,000 prize fund!

The chess is taking place alongside a poker tournament and to kick things off, US WGM Jennifer Shahade played three chess games and three poker games simultaneously.   You can view an excellent edited video of the Simul.

This is the main website for the tournament.


EDIT:   Alan won today!   He now plays a 2528 GM/WGM from India in Round 3; he should be on the live boards (Board 15), starting at 1.30 pm Monday.

Saturday, 4 October 2014

A position from Adam Taylor

Adam Taylor (White, to play) reached the following position in Round 10 of the recent World Youth Championships against a Zambian opponent.   Adam posted the position on his Facebook page, asking readers to calculate to the end what the result/best moves are:

Answer(s) tomorrow.


Friday, 3 October 2014

Who wants to be a Millionaire?

Bury's Jon Collins does, for one.

He's off to Las Vegas soon to take part in 'Millionaire Chess', from 9 to 13 October.

As well as the Open section, which has already attracted 32 Grandmasters (!), there are five other rated sections: Under 2200, u2000, u1800, u1600 and u1400.   Jon (Elo 1932) has entered the Under 2000 section.   Actually, it's only the Open section where there's a chance of the big prize.

The event is being organised by GM Maurice Ashley (pictured right), who has held a dream of organising such an event for at least ten years.

To date, 120 have entered the Open, all of whom are rated over 2200.   In total 525 people will be playing across the six sections.

The only drawback to this amazing tournament is the entry fee... $1,000.


New Junior Club in Colchester

Colchester Chess Club has started up a new Junior Club; their first meeting took place yesterday.

See here for details.

So there are now chess clubs for children in Norwich, Bury St Edmunds and Colchester.   Perhaps it's time that Ipswich grasped the nettle and reinstated the club that folded a couple of years ago.


Wednesday, 1 October 2014

Honours shared at Ipswich

Two Ipswich teams met their Bury St Edmunds counterparts yesterday at the Ipswich club.   Ipswich A thrashed Bury A 4 - 0, but Bury B beat Ipswich C 2½ - 1½.

In total there were three matches at Ipswich last evening, the other being the Division 3 match between Ipswich F and Manningtree B (in the foreground in the above photo), won by Ipswich 2½ - 1½.   Ipswich F top board, 12-year old Alex Sheerin, has made a splendid start to the League season, winning all three games in the Suffolk League for a grading performance of 171.

With so many people playing in a relatively small space, noise levels can often be a problem.   One Bury player (pictured right) has his own patent method of shutting out unwanted sounds!


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