Suffolk Chess

There is an annual competition in the Bury Area League for the best game played in each of the three divisions.   Winners receive a £25 prize.

The winner of the Division 3 prize for 2015/16 was Adam Leigh of the Bury St Edmunds club, who also won the Player of the Season trophy, scoring seven points out of eight.

Here is Adam's winning game, where he was playing Black against Cambridge's Stan Bazyk.   Annotations by Adam:

The 34th Bury St Edmunds Chess Congress is now just six weeks away.   It takes place at the Apex over the weekend of 22/23 October.

To date there are 34 entrants, but it's expected that numbers will exceed 150 on the day.

There are four graded sections: Open, u170, u145 and u120.   Previous winner and highest-graded English GM Matthew Sadler (pictured right) has entered again, so if you fancy your chances against such a strong player, enter the Open and hope for a good draw!

You can enter (and pay) online here.

The Ipswich Junior Chess Club got off to a good start this morning.

Organiser Martin Tomes reports:

"Re-formed and off to an enthusiastic start, the Ipswich Junior Chess club met at the main Library on Northgate Street for the first time.   Excellent facilities, with private kitchen and toilets, and ever-helpful library staff.   Some of the Ipswich Senior Club members plus parents helped out as 12 juniors came along.

A nice buzz to proceedings, as conversations welcomed and everyone present wanting to come back next Saturday at 10:00am.

Organiser knackered, but back for more.   The Club is booked up every Saturday to Dec 17th.   We already have an offer of a match from Norwich Junior Chess Club.... what an incentive..."

The two England teams (Open and Women) are currently competing in Baku, Azerbaijan.   Suffolk's Dagne Ciuksyte is on Board 2 for the Women and is currently unbeaten on 4½/6.   Sadly, the rest of her team is not faring so well.

The Open team is having a good tournament.   Having convincingly won their last two matches against Vietnam and Chile, they faced third seeds China today.   All four members of the China team are rated over 2700.   The result was an astounding 3 - 1 win for England, who move into joint runners-up spot, with six wins out of seven.   They are actually placed sixth on tie-break, the same as their seeding.

England's Board 1, Michael Adams, beat Yue Wang (2737) when the latter blundered on move 35.   And Nigel Short, who is having a great tournament (5/6), won against an opponent rated 80 points higher, again following a blunder, this time on move 36.

It doesn't get any easier, as tomorrow England face India, with 2803-rated Harikrishna on top board (but there's no Anand).   India were thrashed 3½-½ by USA today, who now take top spot on 13 points (six wins and a draw).

Click here to see the results and here to view live games (starting at 13.00 GMT daily).   The official site can be seen here.

The annual start-of-the-season Jamboree was held this evening at Moreton Hall Community Centre in Bury St Edmunds.   12 teams participated, six of which were from the Bury club.

Before the games started, the annual trophies were presented.   Pictured below, receiving trophies from BACL Admin Secretary Steve Lovell (clockwise from top left) are:

Kevin Clark (Linton A - Division 1 winners)
Patrick Ribbands (Linton Blacks - Division 2 winners)
Giulio Sahinoz (Linton Whites - Division 3 winners)
Tim Lunn (Division 1 - Joint Player of the Year)

Linton maintained their winning habit, scoring 11½/12 in the Jamboree, with perfect 3/3 scores for Kevin Clark and the two juniors, Giulio Sahinoz and Aarnavh Trivedi.   Only Martin Pinner dropped half a point.

The League starts in earnest next week, with matches in Divisions 1 and 3.

The Tuesday afternoon Club at the Apex in Bury St Edmunds has continued to meet every week over the summer.   Attendance usually varies between 8 and 12 members.

In the photo above, familiar faces include John Peters (playing Jon Collins), Dave Clark and Chris Davison.

The Club is open to all-comers, and there is no charge.   You can even park your car in the nearby Council car park for free after 3 pm.

Rising from five-year old stone-cold ashes, the Ipswich Junior Chess Club is about to re-emerge into the light of day.   Prime mover Martin Tomes of the Ipswich Chess Club has laid all the necessary foundations.   All he needs now is a large number of children to turn up on Saturday morning at 10.00 am at the Ipswich Library.   The new Club will welcome children aged between 6 and 16, of any standard.

Martin has put in a lot of hard work to reach this position and he deserves active support from members of the adult club.   Every chess club needs to have a cohort of juniors ready to step into the shoes of their older members.   The success of the Bury St Edmunds club in recent years can largely be attributed to its 'youth' policy; the Club currently runs four teams of juniors.

The new Junior Club in Ipswich has been heralded in the Ipswich Star - see here.

Last Saturday a number of children and their parents came to the Library for a discussion on the new Club.   They were able to have a few games with members of the adult club, as well as playing on a giant chessboard.

Suffolk Chess wishes the new club every success and looks forward to photos of the first meeting!

The County First team, captained by Ian Wallis, finished as runners-up to Cambridgeshire in the EACU tournament.   The top three teams in the EACU qualify for the national stages, so Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Norfolk competed with six other counties in the first round of the national Minor Counties competition.

After one preliminary match, between Cornwall and Lincolnshire, eight counties were paired in the quarter-finals.   Suffolk were drawn against Somerset, whilst Cambridgeshire faced Leicestershire and Norfolk played Nottinghamshire.   All three EACU teams won their matches, with Suffolk having the most convincing of victories, 14½-1½ against a weak Somerset team.

In the semi-finals, Cambridgeshire lost to Lincolnshire, whilst Suffolk faced 'old enemies' Norfolk.   Played on 12 June, Suffolk's team was as strong as could be allowed under the rules (average grade under 180), but Norfolk won by 9½ points to 6½.   Despite good wins on the top boards by Dagne Ciuksyte and Graham Moore, boards 3 to 12 could only muster four draws between them.   The only other Suffolk winner was Richard Lamont on Board 13.

Norfolk went on to beat Lincolnshire in the Final by 9 points to 7.

Ian Wallis is standing down as First Team captain.   A replacement is urgently needed!

The Final of the Norfolk & Suffolk Cup took place at the end of May.   The Norfolk winners, Broadland Chess Club, hosted the Suffolk winners Bury St Edmunds.

This was the third successive year that these two clubs have competed in the Final.   Bury St Edmunds had beaten Ipswich 4 - 2 in the Suffolk Final, with wins for Mike Harris, Ed Player, Chris Davison and John Peters.

The Final was won by Bury St Edmunds by the same score, 4 - 2.   The Bury team was heavily outgraded (by more than 10 points per board on average) and were missing a key player, Mark LeVine, who had misunderstood pickup instructions.   'Non-playing' captain Laurie Pott was forced into last-minute action, with the bottom three boards having to play a board higher than expected.

The result was as follows (Broadland names first):
Kamil Przybyla (209)    0 - 1    Mike Harris (203)
Gerald Moore (186)    ½ - ½    Ed Player (198)
Ken McEwan (186)    1 - 0    John Peters (179)
Roy Hughes (189)    ½ - ½    Alan Watkins (165)
Karthik Saravanan (171)    0 - 1    Richard Lamont (168)
Daniel Frean (175)    0 - 1    Laurie Pott (135)

As can be seen from these results, the key to Bury's success was on the lower boards, with Alan Watkins gaining an excellent draw and Richard Lamont and Laurie Pott both winning their games.

This is the first posting of the new season.   From now on, readers can expect a new article every day.

I welcome news from the clubs in Suffolk.   Please send anything of interest to .

The fixtures for the Leagues and Cups have been published for all to see on Dave Wild's website - here.

There is a total of 22 teams playing in the three divisions this season, an increase of one from 2015/16.

Over the next few days there will be a catch-up of events that have taken place over the summer.   We will also look forward to the first meeting of the re-formed Ipswich Junior Chess Club, taking place on Saturday 10 September.