Suffolk Chess

Suffolk's First Team, inspirationally captained by Ian Wallis, has won their way through to the National Final by beating Hertfordshire in the semi-final by 12 points to four.   This exceptional result followed on their quarter-final victory against Worcestershire, when they won 13 - 3.   In the 32 individual games that have been played so far in the national rounds, not one Suffolk player has lost a game!

11 players have featured in both matches, with Richard Lamont and Ian Wallis winning both their games.   Eight others have scored 1½ points: Alan Merry, Shaun Munson, Graham Moore, Nick Savage, Tim Lunn, Silas Peck, John Peters and Ted Matthewson.   Martin Fogg drew both games.

Suffolk will now face Essex (whom they beat convincingly last season in the semi-final) in the National Final, taking place in Warwick on Saturday 4 July.   As current holders of the Minor Counties trophy, Suffolk will be keen to retain the title.

The Suffolk Closed Championships will be held at Ipswich Chess Club on Saturday 11 July and Sunday 12 July.

There are two sections: the Championship and the Challengers.

The Championship is a six-player all-plays-all tournament.   The entrants will be:
Alan Merry (226)
Andrew Lewis (207)
Adam Taylor (207)
Stephen Gregory (194)
Shaun Munson (194)
Silas Peck (178)

The winner of the Championship will receive a trophy and will be Suffolk Champion for 2015.

If numbers permit, the Challengers will be a Swiss tournament.   The winner of the Challengers will gain an automatic qualification for the Championship in the following year.   There will also be an Intermediate trophy for the highest placed player graded under 130.

Both sections will be over five rounds, using Suffolk League time limits (30 moves in 75 minutess, then an extra 15 minutes to finish).   All games will be submitted for grading.

The timings
Saturday 11 July (venue open 9:00am)
1st round: 9:30am - 12:30pm
2nd round: 1:30pm - 4:30pm
3rd round: 5:30pm - 8:30pm

Sunday 12th July (venue open 9:30am)
4th round: 10:00am - 1:00pm
5th round: 2:00pm - 5:00pm
Prize giving will take place no later than 6:00pm (in the unlikely event of a play-off match).

Entry Fee and prizes
The entry fee will be £3.50 for ECF Direct Members.   This will cover the cost of venue, and some light refreshments.   Please note that there are NO money prizes.   Trophies will be presented at the end of the tournament.

Where to find it
Ipswich Institute, Admirals House, Tower Street, IP1 3BE.   The entrance can be found off Tower Street (down from the Tower Ramparts bus station).   If heading down the (alley) side entrance to Tower Ramparts shopping centre, the double doors are on your left - set in an alcove with an iron gate.   To enter, press the buzzer, then open the door when you hear the return click.   Once inside, the room is at the top of the stairs (on the left).

From 2014
Suffolk Champion: Dagne Ciuksyte
Challengers Winner: Silas Peck
Intermediate Winner: Alex Sheerin

If interested please contact Tim Lunn: 07882 470473, or email [email protected]

Yesterday, Bury St Edmunds Chess Club hosted Broadland Club in the Final of the Norfolk & Suffolk Cup.

This was the Bury St Edmunds team before play started:

(left to right):
Steve Ruthen (Board 4), Mike Harris (1), John Peters (3), Ed Player (2), David Brown (6), Richard Lamont (5).

Broadland's team averaged 188, whilst Bury St Edmunds could only manage 180.   Broadland had a grading advantage on four of the six boards.

After two hours play all matches were level, although Ed, John and Richard seemed to have slight positional advantages.   Steve Ruthen was the first to finish, after he accepted a draw offer from Ken McEwan.   This was followed by a draw on Board 6, when Daniel Frean accepted David Brown's draw offer.

Meanwhile, on Board 1, Mike Harris was struggling with a bad bishop against Richard Polaczek's good knight.   Eventually Richard (graded 224) prevailed and for the first time Broadland took the lead.

Ed Player achieved a smooth win against Roy Hughes, despite getting into his usual time trouble.   He had to make moves 25 to 30 in 38 seconds, which he achieved with four seconds to spare!   John Peters missed a pin and had to take a draw against Gerald Moore.   So with the score at 2½ - 2½, it was all down to Richard Lamont, facing Terry Turner.   After an exchange of all four rooks, Richard's bishop was no match for Terry's passed pawn and Richard was forced to use his queen to prevent the pawn from promoting.   Richard bravely declined a draw with less than a minute remaining, but eventually agreed the draw with only seconds on his clock.

So, with four draws on the bottom four boards, it was Ed's excellent win on Board 2 that had to be eliminated in order to break the tie.

Congratulations to Broadland, whose name will appear on the cup for the first time.   Below is their winning team, together with non-playing captain Paul Badger, holding the trophy.   (left to right): Gerald Moore, Terry Turner, Ken McEwan, (Paul Badger), Roy Hughes, Richard Polaczek, Daniel Frean.

With the season just about over, this blog will only appear occasionally from now on.   It will resume on a daily basis in early September.

So, in the meantime, if you haven't done so already, sign up to 'follow by email'.   At the bottom of the right-hand column on this page there's a box where you simply add your email address.   Every time an article is published, you will receive a notification by email.   That way, you don't have to check every day to see if there's something new.

Still to come this season is the EACU Congress (this coming weekend), the Norfolk & Suffolk Cup Final (4 June), the Suffolk First Team County Championships semi-final against Hertfordshire on 14 June, the Suffolk Junior Open (at Woodbridge School) on 21 June and the SCCA Annual General Meeting on 23 June   There will reports on all of these events, as well as other occasional snippets of news.

Unlike the Suffolk County Chess Association, the BACL doesn't have a Committee, it has an Executive.   This evening the Executive held a meeting in the extremely pleasant surroundings of Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge.   The main purpose of the meeting was to agree the agenda for the forthcoming Annual General Meeting, which will be held at the Bury St Edmunds club venue on Monday 22 June (the day before the SCCA AGM!).

The photo above includes (left to right) Colin Roberts (Press Officer), Patrick Ribbands (Rapidplay Organiser), Paul Kemp (Treasurer), Ole Bay-Petersen (Chairman), Steve Lovell (Admin Secretary) and Charles Richmond (ex officio member).   Absent were Norman Hutchinson (Vice-Chairman), Jon Crowe (Match Secretary), Tim Davison (Internet Officer) and Mark Szymanski (Roger Goldsmith Organiser).   I took the photo!

David Spence will be playing in the 7th Festival Internazionale Capo d'Orso, on Sardinia's Emerald Coast, from 6 to 13 June.   He is amongst six English players who have entered.

Ten Grandmasters are included amongst the 122 entrants.

The tournament website can be accessed here.

The Final will take place on Thursday 4 June at Moreton Hall Community Centre, between the current holders, Bury St Edmunds Chess Club and Broadland Chess Club.   This will be a re-match of last year's final, when the Bury team travelled to a remote part of Norfolk and beat the Broadland team 3½-2½.

Anyone wishing to come and spectate will be most welcome to do so.   Free coffee/tea and biscuits will be available!

Manningtree's Andy Lewis (207/2278) plays for Anglian Avengers 1 in Division 2 of the 4NCL.   He has annotated the following win against Ian Thompson (213/2202) from the final round on 4 May.

The new Cup and Plate Competition has ended with wins for Ipswich A and Saxmundham in the Cup and Plate respectively.

The Cup Final was between Ipswich A and Ipswich B, with the former winning impressively by 3½-½.   There were wins for Steve Gregory, Shaun Munson and Michael Clapham, with Nick Savage drawing.

The Plate Final was won on tie-break by Saxmundham, against Ipswich F.   The outstanding individual result was Alex Sheerin's Board 1 win against Saxmundham's David Brown, graded 41 points higher.   Alex has enjoyed an excellent season, which included a win against Phil Hopkins (173) in the League.

The full results can be viewed here for the Cup and here for the Plate.

The rules for this competition may need to be reviewed if it is to continue next season.   The initial pairings threw up some odd matches, with four 4-0 whitewashes and several matches where one team was outgraded by more than 50 points per board.   There was also a problem with the rule that states that participants in the Final must have played before in at least one of the previous rounds.   Where a team used the same four players throughout the competition and then faced a situation where one of these players was unavailable for the Final, this had the potential of an enforced default.   Fortunately, the problem was solved by the generosity of the opposing captain, but this rule certainly needs to be amended for next season.

All ECF members (and therefore most readers of this website) should have received an email recently from the English Chess Federation.   14 players have been short-listed for the ECF Player of the Year.   This list includes 18-year old Alan Merry (right).

If you feel that Alan is deserving of this award, please vote for him by clicking this link.   Alan is on the verge of becoming the first Suffolk IM since the Perts (he just needs to gain another 58 rating points).   Nick Pert achieved his GM title at the age of 20, so Alan still has a couple of years to match him.

It would be great to see a Suffolk player becoming the Player of the Year, so please send in your vote soon!