Our reigning club champion, Freddie Waldhausen Gordon, had a fine tournament to finish in third equal position on 10.5 points in the 15 round all-play-all event in Leamington Spa on 16th November.

Freddie was in or close to the lead for much of the tournament, which was played at 3 minutes + 2 secs increment per move. Only a final round loss prevented him being first equal with the winner – GM Eldar Gasanov (11.5). GM Danny Gormally (11) finished 2nd to become the English Blitz Champion.

Full details at www.englishchess.org.uk/uk-open-blitz-championships-2024/

The club’s junior coaching sessions on Sundays are proving to be a great success. We now have nearly 40 participants between the ages of 6 and 16 over two classes, and a number of them have already  joined the club. This includes Tushit Chatterjee, who won the recent top Scot junior regional qualifier at Prestonpans with a 100% score!

Congratulations to him and thanks to our junior coaches for their hard work and commitment to helping develop these young talents and their love of the game.
Tournament table and rating performance

There must be something in being club president that helps your play – first we had current president Raj doing well in the European Seniors and now we have his predecessor Neil Berry scoring well in the Bavarian Open in Tegernsee in Southern Bavaria, where he finished in a fine 10th place out of 550 competitors with 7/9, just half a point behind the winner in a field containing 13 GMs.

Neil describes it as a great tournament and a beautiful place to visit, which having visited the area myself I can happily confirm. If you fancy combining chess with a  holiday then look out for next year’s event.

Our President, Raj Bhopal has been playing in the European Senior Chess Championship and was delighted to play a legend of the game – GM Nona Gaprindashvili, who was women’s world champion from 1962 to 1968, and is still a strong player in her 80s. The game finished in a draw, so Raj can now say he’s drawn with a world champion. Definitely a day to remember.

Hard on the heels of his first tournament win, 8 year-old Adam Ling has triumphed a second time, at the Albyn Intermediate Shield event in Aberdeen. We’re clearly going to have to watch this young lad carefully.

Congratulations Adam!