As part of its bicentenary celebrations the club, along with International Master Lorin D’Costa (from “She Plays To Win”), held a chess weekend on September 3rd and 4th in support of women and girls in chess.
There were a number of events at the club’s premises over the weekend including: scheduled training sessions for both beginners and experts, 5-round female-only tournament(s) (15 mins each on the clock), simultaneous displays with Lorin and other chess experts. There were over twenty-five attendees over the weekend.
Saturday started in the morning with Lorin running a beginner’s class before everyone engaged in some stimulating group-based exercises.
After lunch Lorin explained to the beginners how games were played with a clock before running a five round allegro tournament.
Joint winners of the SPTW Saturday afternoon tournament, Hayley and Yvonne, being presented with their trophies by IM Lorin D’Costa.
In the Saturday evening simul Lorin took on twelve opponents, which included WIM Svetlana Sucikova and WFM Suzie Cooke together with some token male players. Lorin wiped out the opposition – except for Suzie who held the fort in her game!
There was a great turnout for Lorin’s Sunday morning training session with fantastic drop-in support from GM Keti Arakhamia-Grant, WIM Svetlana Sucikova and WFM Louise Head!
In the afternoon an allegro tournament was held for everyone.
This produced some exciting chess with Pavlo Sokolenko, from Ukraine, emerging as the eventual winner – closely followed by his mother Olga Sokolenko in second place! The training day gave some useful practice for Flossie Wilson before she headed off to Romania to represent Scotland at the World Youth Chess Championships the next day.
The event was supported by Edinburgh Chess Academy, Chess Scotland and Lothians Junior Chess.
She Plays To Win (SPTW) is a UK Girls Chess Project to try and encourage more girls to participate and learn chess in a fun environment. SPTW is run by the current England International Women’s Chess Coach Lorin D’Costa who has successfully been coaching girls’ chess nationally and internationally for over 11 years.