Suffolk Chess

31 children turned up this evening for the weekly meeting of the Bury Knights Junior Chess Club.   As well as the usual rated games, members played the third round of the Delancey UK Chess Challenge.   The lead in this competition is held by four players, Alex Sheerin, Tom Roy, Alan John and Alwin Jose, all on the maximum score of nine points.

Ed Player (right) was also in attendance, giving a demonstration to the club's top players of how he shouldn't have lost his game the previous day against Steve Gregory, when both were in mutual time trouble and relying on 15-second increments!

The club's membership currently stands at 40, of whom eight are girls.

The 78th Tata Steel Chess Tournament starts tomorrow in Wijk-aan-See in Holland.   Amongst the Grandmasters competing in the Masters section is ninth seed Michael Adams, the only English entrant.   With nine of the top 20-rated players in the world, this category 20 tournament is one of the strongest ever.   The average rating of the 14 GMs is 2748.

They will play 13 rounds (all-plays-all) over the following 15 days, with Round 1 on Saturday (start time 12.30 UK time).   Live games and commentary can be followed on the tournament website.

There is also a 14-player Challengers section and other sections for 'amateurs'.   The amateur sections start tomorrow.

Alan Merry travelled to Telford in Shropshire last weekend to play in the Open section of the FIDE-Rated Shropshire Congress.

The event attracted a strong field, which included five Grandmasters, three IMs and three FMs.   Predictably, the five GMs finished in joint first place on four points each, with none having lost a single game (all recorded two draws).

Seventh seed Alan was on his own on 3½ points, finishing in sixth place.   His best result was in the final round, when he ignored the obvious charms of French IM Sophie Milliet (right)) to record a draw.   Alan was a little lucky to survive.   In the position below Sophie (Black) could have won the exchange with ...Bf2 (there are other good moves too), but she went all passive with ...Be6, and followed up with several other sub-optimal moves.   Alan failed to gain any rating points (he lost 2), so remains 26 points short of the elusive IM title.

Also playing, in the Major (u160) section, was former Suffolk junior Anita Somton.   She scored 3½ points, including wins against a 153 and a 155.   Her grading performance for the four rounds she played (she took a bye in Round 1) was 167.   It surely won't be long before 11-year old Anita is playing regularly in Open sections.

The Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival takes place between 25 January and 4 February.   This event usually attracts a number of Suffolk players.

To date, IM Justin Tan and David Spence have entered the Masters section.   David is also playing in the Challengers (u2250) section during the first week.

The deadline for entries (avoiding a £50 late entry fee) is this coming Friday (15th), so if you plan to go, get your entry in now!

The Masters section has an amazing 245 entries, of which 76 are Grandmasters.   The popularity of this event seems to be increasing year on year.

Four Suffolk players travelled to Wetherby in West Yorkshire at the weekend to take part in the 6th 4NCL Congress.   All four played in the Open section (38 entries).

4th-seeded Ed Player finished in equal second place, losing only to the eventual winner, Martin Brown.   Both players are pictured above in their top board Round 4 match.

David Spence, Steve Gregory and Nick Savage all finished on three points.   Both Steve and Nick played (and lost to) Ed.

Ed won £100 for his efforts (probably barely covering entry fee, travel and accommodation!).   He also gained 14 rating points to take his live rating to just short of 2200.

There were two other sections (u1900 and u130), attracting a total of 52 players.   It's surprising how few people entered, especially as the venue (the Mercure Hotel at Wetherby) was easily accessible to thousands of chess-players in the Midlands and North of England.   The prize-money was good too, with £750 paid in each section.

This annual Junior Congress, organised by the Bury Knights Junior Chess Club, will take place this year on Sunday 6 March - that's just eight weeks today.

Entry forms can be downloaded from the ECF website (calendar page).

The tournament takes place at the Moreton Hall Community Centre IP32 7EE (home of the Bury St Edmunds Chess Club).   The Centre sponsors the event by providing the hall free of charge, which enables more prize money to be provided.

There are sections for Under 9s, Under 11s, Under 14s and Under 18s.   A maximum of 100 entrants can be accommodated.

Last year 73 children entered.   The section winners were:

Under 18   -   William Sait (Bury St Edmunds)
Under 14   -   Karthik Saravanan (Lowestoft)
Under 11   -   Tristian See and Julia Volovich (both Cambridge)
Under 9   -   Adam John (Bury St Edmunds)

This annual tournament, sponsored by Delancey and organised by IM Mike Basman, takes place in many schools and clubs across the UK during the Spring Term.   Those who score well in the local rounds progress to the 'Megafinal', a county-wide tournament.   There are then two further stages, the 'Gigafinal', usually in Manchester and the 'Terafinal', which takes place in the Midlands.

Bury's juniors have a proud record in this event, first with Alan Merry and more recently with Anita Somton and Adam John; all three progressed to the Terafinal stage, where fewer than 70 players compete for the 'Strat' title from more than 50,000 original competitors.

Yesterday, the Bury Knights Junior Club held the first two rounds (of seven).   In the first round, William Moody (ECF 96) was paired against Amy John (left), who is just half his age. Amy is the third chess-playing member of the John family (Alan and Adam already play regularly in the adult leagues).   Below is the position with Amy (Black) to play.   The clocks were set at 25 minutes each and Amy was down to two minutes whilst William had about five minutes remaining.

Although only 7½ years old, Amy is a deep thinker and seemed unaware that her time was rapidly running out.   The following moves were played, but at the end, with Amy having a mate in one, her time expired, leaving a most relieved William to reflect on his good fortune.

1... Qd5   2. Rf3   Ree2   3. Rg1   Bf2   4. Rf1   Bxd4   5. Rg3   Rxg2   6. Be4?   and Amy's flag fell before she could make a move.   William had played Be4 instantly, with less than two minutes remaining on his clock.   At first glance it looks good, forking queen and rook, but in fact he could not have avoided mate, even if he had played a different move.   Given a few more seconds, Amy would have surely spotted ... Rh2 mate!

Incidentally, there's a rather neat line (thanks computer) if William had played 6. Rf2 instead of Be4.   It goes: 6... Rgxf2+   7. Kg1   Qh1+!   8. Kxh1   Rh2 mate.

Five sets of answers were received by the deadline of 3 January, although one (Stephen Lewis) had only provided three answers.   He did find the answer to the fourth one, but three days too late!

So that leaves four contenders for the prize, in alphabetical order: Nathan Barnes, Chris Chambers, Kevin Greenacre and Steve Lovell.

All four provided correct answers, but only one person had them absolutely correct.   For the winner, see the foot of this article.

Here are the answers:

Puzzle 1

From this position (left), the moves were:   1... Ne5+,   2. g4   fxg3   3. Kxe5, which gives us the position in the problem (right):

Puzzle 2

There appear to be two possible alternatives for White's last move: e4 and c4. As all eight black pawns are still on the board, they can only have reached the given position by making at least ten captures.   As there are only six white pieces remaining, all the captures of white pieces must have been made by the black pawns.   White's f1 bishop cannot have been taken on its starting square by a black pawn, so it must have been allowed to move.  This would only be possible by the e-pawn having moved some time before.   Therefore the only move is c4, with mate following by bxc3 abd c2.

Puzzle 3

This was the easiest of the four puzzles, and everyone got it right.   1. Qd6, maintaining the symmetry.   If the Black king takes a pawn, then Qa3 or Qg3.   If ...d4, then Qxd4.

Puzzle 4

Whilst everyone found the correct answer, only one person had it exactly right.   Black's last move must have been g7-g5.   It couldn't have been g6-g5, or Kg7-h6, as checks would've been involved.   Steve Lovell said the only two-move mate would be if the last Black move was g7-g5.   Kevin Greenacre said that he 'thought' Black's last move was g7-g5.   Nathan Barnes thought the previous Black move was one of three possibles. So, after Black played g7-g5, White took en passant hxg6.   After Black's only move Kh5, Rxh7 is mate.

That leaves just one person, Chris Chambers (who appreciated that g7-g5 had to be the last Black move).   Chris wins the book prize!

For those who don't know Chris, he was a strong player back in the '80s, who left chess to concentrate on the game of Bridge.   Now to find out where he lives...

At long last, there is another junior chess club in Suffolk.   Martlesham Junior Chess Club held their first meeting last Saturday, when 12 children turned up.

This is the brainchild of Dagne Ciuksyte, who is assisted by Graham Moore.   With two strong players available to coach the children, there are high hopes for this new club.

To assist this start-up, Bury Knights JCC has provided six boards and sets for their use.   These were handed over recently to Graham Moore - see photo left.

Dagne and Graham are hoping that there will be as many as 17 attending next Saturday.

The club meets at the Scout Headquarters on Martlesham Heath (IP5 3PL), from 14.00 to 15.30 every Saturday.   For more information, contact Dagne on 07574 936810 or her.

The draw has been made for the semi-finals of the Cup and Plate competition, as follows:

Cup:

Manningtree A v Felixstowe A   (to be played 2 March)
Sudbury v Ipswich B   (to be played 7 March)

Plate:

Saxmundham B v Ipswich F   (to be played 23 February)
Bury St Edmunds D v Manningtree B   (to be played 25 February)

If there are any clashes with these dates, please notify , the Competitions Secretary, immediately.