We have paused our Tuesday program with the club being closed, but are exploring ways of running some events online.

The first will be an online blitz tournament on lichess this Tuesday. All members and friends are welcome! We start at 7.45pm, and will run the event for 90 minutes. The time control will be 3 mins + 2 seconds per move.

You can sign up using the link below:

https://lichess.org/tournament/IP5z5Rlg

Password is 1822

You can sign up at any time beforehand, and just make sure you are logged onto lichess for the starting time. We’ll see how it goes, and happy to take suggestions for future events.

Over the years Edinburgh Chess Club Library has been donated several book and magazine collections.  Duplicate and surplus items are being made available for sale over the next few months.

We’re starting with surplus issues of the British Chess Magazine (BCM) and Chess (published both by Chess Sutton Coldfield and later Chess London).  We have for sale single issues, bound and unbound volumes – including some very old magazines and some rare issues e.g. from the war years etc.

Some items are currently being displayed within the Chess Lund Academy auction site  – please don’t hesitate to let anyone you know who may be interested!

If you wish to be included on the mailing list of any future sales lists please contact Ian (email: ian @ wassoc.co.uk).

 

Dear Club Member,

In light of the escalating situation regarding the Covid-19 virus, the Club Council have reached the difficult decision to close Edinburgh Chess Club from close of play on Monday 16th March.  The health and safety of our members is our primary concern.  Chess events are being cancelled nationally, and the game does not lend itself to social distancing.

Council will be considering ways in which we can remain a community through online informal chess events.  I will remain in touch.

Best regards,

Neil Berry
Club President

Unfortunately we lost our game against Edinburgh University 2. The final result was 4-2.  This means that we will finish 4th in the league and will not be promoted.

However we did have a small gem played by Indrek who had a fun game playing the von Hennig-Schara Gambit – see the club’s Facebook page for the game!

Full result:
McGillivray 0.5-0.5 Donitova
Reiland 1-0 Hand
Brejter 0-1 Angeletos Chrysaitis
Whittaker 0.5-0.5 Lyakh
Armitage 0-1 Bao
Platts 0-1 Knak

[Report by Calum McGillivray, team captain]

In preparation for the club’s 200th anniversary in 2002 the sub-committee, chaired by Raj Bhopal, carried out a deep dive last night into the club’s archive and records.

The session was led by curators Ian Whittaker and David Archibald.  They first gave an outline of the types of material held by the club:

Examples were shown of the approach being taken cataloguing the library, magazines, digital media etc.

The group then made a deep dive into the cupboards!

David showing some of the published material
Deep dive by Raj and Alastair