Suffolk Chess

There are two junior tournaments coming up in the next two weeks.

On Sunday 8 March, the Bury St Edmunds Junior Congress takes place at Moreton Hall Community Centre, in Bury St Edmunds.   There are four sections: Under 9, Under 11, Under 14 and Under 18.   The winner of the Under 18 section will receive the trophy as East Anglian Junior Champion.

The following Sunday, 15 March, sees the Suffolk Junior Open, at Woodbridge School.   There are sections for all age-groups from Under 8 to Under 18, as well as an Open section for Adults.

For entry forms for either event, contact .

As in the past two years, Suffolk will be entering a team in the Under 11 Inter-Association Championship 2015.   This event is organised by the English Schools Primary Chess Association (EPSCA) and Suffolk will be competing in the East Zone Final on Saturday 21 March in Northampton against Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Northamptonshire, Barnet, Newham and Richmond.   It is anticipated that six of these nine 'counties' will qualify for the National Final, to be held in Nottingham on 9 May.

The 20-board team will include half a dozen players from Norfolk.   The rules allow us to 'borrow' players from a neighbouring, unaffiliated, county.   The bulk of the team, however, will be supplied by the two 'centres of excellence', Bury Knights JCC and The Abbey, Woodbridge.

The Team Manager is (father of Alan and Adam John), who will be pleased to hear of any children who are worthy of selection.   We are allowed to take up to four reserves.

Playing on 14 February in the 4NCL for Iceni 1, Bury & Ely's Chris Davison enjoyed a fairly quick win.   Here is his game:

Chris' win contributed to a 4½-½ win for Iceni, Surbiton having defaulted on the bottom two boards.

At least 18 teams have entered so far in the EACU Team Championships, taking place at Moreton Hall Community Centre, Bury St Edmunds, this coming Sunday.

There are four sections: Open, Team 600, Team 500 and Team 400.   There are at least four entries in each section, including teams from Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire.

Everyone will play two games, at County time rates (36 moves in 90 minutes, plus 20 minutes QP).

It's not too late to enter a team, but tomorrow (Thursday) is the deadline.   Please contact if you wish to enter.

The Suffolk Under 100 team, captained by Stowmarket's Daniel Yarnton, has won the Peter Burnett Cup (pictured right) for the EACU Under 100 Championship.

On Sunday, the eight-board team played two matches against Norfolk, winning the first 4½-3½ and drawing the second 4-4.   Because the matches between Norfolk and Cambridgeshire were never played, Suffolk win the Championship as the only team to fulfil its schedule of matches.

One remarkable feature of the Suffolk team was that they managed to field the same eight players for both sets of matches (on 7 December and 22 February).   This team consisted of four adults and four juniors.   This was their playing record:

Name	Grade (July)	Grade (Jan)	Played	Score	%
Dave Wild	99	101	4	3	75
Daniel Yarnton	97	105	4	2	50
Trevor Webster	e90	145	4	2	50
Rob Scott	75	70	4	2½	63
Alan John (J)	58	97	4	3	75
Adam John (J)	24R	74	4	1	25
Tom Roy (J)	13R	41	4	2	50
Ralph Martin (J)	10R	18	4	2	50

The team has decided not to proceed to the national rounds, as it would have proved difficult to find the extra four boards required for the 12-board team.   So instead, Norfolk will represent the EACU in the semi-finals as they have received a bye in the quarter-finals.

Playing in the Bunratty Classic last week, Justin Tan scored 4½/9 against a strong field, with a tournament performance of 2456.

Justin lost only one game, against the eventual winner, and beat his mentor IM Adam Hunt.   This is the third and final norm he requires for the International Master title.   Justin has also achieved the required rating of 2400.   His next published rating is expected to be 2407.   The title will be ratified at the next FIDE Congress in April and he should become an IM officially in May, soon after his 18th birthday.

This is a stunning achievement for Justin, who arrived at Woodbridge School in late 2013 with the challenge of attaining this title.   It is also a feather in the cap for Adam, who has guided him for the past 18 months and taken him to various tournaments across Europe.

The photo shows Justin proudly holding the IM norm certificate, presented after the tournament had finished on Sunday.

It went right down to the wire, waiting for the last two results in the match between Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire.   Cambs needed 1½ points from these two games to win the match and therefore the championship.   But they could only manage a win and a loss, resulting in a drawn match.   Well done Herts!

Although Jon Collins and Simon Riley were still to finish, it looked certain that they would both win, which they soon did.   So the match points finished level, with both Suffolk and Cambridgeshire on 9 points out of a possible 12.   Both counties had recorded three wins and three draws and both the matches between them had resulted in draws.   So it was down to game points, and here Suffolk triumphed, with a two point advantage.

This is how the final table looks:

Team	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Match Points	Game Points
Suffolk	6	3	3	0	9	52
Cambridgeshire	6	3	3	0	9	50
Norfolk	6	2	0	4	4	45½
Hertfordshire	6	0	2	3	2	44½

In the morning, Suffolk beat Hertfordshire 9 -7 and in the afternoon beat Norfolk 9½ - 6½.

Jon Collins on top board won both games, as did Simon Riley (Board 5) and Stephen Lewis (Board 15).   On 1½ points were Mike Taylor (3), Pete Smyth (4), Bob Stephens (12) and Anita Somton (14).

By winning the EACU Championship, Suffolk avoid having to play in a preliminary round.   Instead, they will go direct to the national quarter-finals where they will face the runners-up in the Southern Counties section.   The draw can be viewed on the ECF website.   The most likely opponents are either Sussex or Kent, but they still have to play their final matches.

The default date for the Quarter-Final match is Saturday 16 May, but the match can be played on the following day if both captains agree.   Your captain will be on holiday, so will need someone to stand in on the day.

Rob Sanders has made the draw for the matches in the Suffolk Cup and Plate competition, which has now reached the semi-final stage.   Rob would like all the games to be played on the same evening but there are the usual constraints on that wish, not the least of which is that there are three Ipswich teams drawn at home and that would probably cause venue congestion at the Ipswich club.

Fortunately the draw has resulted in home teams that all play on a Tuesday evening.   With Manningtree and Bury playing on Wednesday and Thursday evenings it would have been more difficult to arrange to play all on one evening had they been drawn at home.

It is not surprising that the Cup teams are all from Division 1 of the Suffolk League while the Plate contains Division 2 and 3 teams.   Equally unsurprising is the strong Ipswich representation, given that the three Division 1 Bury St Edmunds teams could not fit the Cup and Plate competition into their very crowded fixture lists.

Cup Semi-Finals

Ipswich A v Manningtree
Ipswich C v Ipswich B

Plate Semi-Finals

Felixstowe v Saxmundham
Ipswich F v Bury D

(EDITED)
All this half-term week, ten players have been battling in the nine-round Bunratty Classic in Ireland.   They include the Woodbridge pair of Adam Hunt and Justin Tan.   Included in the field are three GMs, six IMs and one FM (Justin).   Neither Adam nor Justin had a particularly good start, both drawing four and losing one of the first five rounds.   Justin drew with two GMs, but lost to the lowest-rated player in the field!   In Round 6, Justin managed to beat Adam Hunt, a real feather in his cap.

The latest cross-table can be seen here.

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Meanwhile, the Graz International tournament has also finished, and Manningtree's Adam Taylor had a disaster.   Instead of gaining the 22 points he needed for his FM title, he ended up losing 89 points!   After his Round 2 loss to a GM (reported here), he only scored 50% against the next seven opponents, none of whom were rated over 2100.   As a Junior, he has a K-factor of 40, which means that any rating change can be considerable.   He now needs to regroup and find another event to regain the lost points.

This was the position in Round 6 of the 4NCL last Sunday between John Peters (White) and Chris Rawlinson, after Black's 65th move:

John has a difficult decision to make.   Should he retain the linked pawns on the a and b files by playing 66. g7, or to play 66. Ka4 and exchange his a-pawn, thus leaving two separated pawns on the b and g files?

Endings with opposite coloured bishops are notoriously tricky, and can often end up drawn, even when one player has extra pawns.   The danger that John recognised was that Black's bishop may be able to block the progress of the linked pawns, for example:

So John correctly played 66. Ka4, soon ending up with passed pawns on b6 and g6.   The Black king and bishop were unable to cope with the twin promotion threats.