Tag Archives: Tournament

Dear Challengers Players,

The uncontested winner for this year’s edition of the Challengers is…
Snorri Kristjansson !!

Congratulations!

Some other great displays and performances, with some major upsets.

I hope you enjoyed the tournament. Please send me your own comments and suggestions. I’ll be taking them in into account to organise the next season, hoping to improve the overall experience e.g.:

  • Start a bit earlier in the season;
  • Provide extra time to play during holiday seasons / school breaks;
  • Better system to communicate results and arrange matches;
  • Arrange 2x dates at the club for recommended play from the start;
  • More systematic updates to the site;
  • More frequent updates for live rating!

Please add your own in the comments below!

Cheers to all, and see you around!

Andre Antunes, Tournament Organiser

The European Chess Union reports (again!) on last year’s She Plays To Win (SPTW) IM Norm event ….

A further report on the IM Norm event that the club hosted last year as part of our bicentenary celebrations appeared in the recent issue of the ECU’s E-Magazine:

ECU E-Magazine December 2023, Pg16
ECU E-Magazine December 2023, Pg17

Coincidentally this was issued just as we’re about to host another SPTW Scottish Invitational event at the club for girls and women in February 2024.

We currently have 10 players signed up and, with a maximum capacity of 20 players, there is space for more entrants.  If you have a FIDE rating please do get in touch with IM Lorin D’Costa (sheplaystowinuk @ gmail.com).

There is no entry fee, but players are liable of course for costs of travel and accommodation etc.

 

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.

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The 2nd Northumbria Masters took place in the Novotel Hotel in Newcastle on August 22-27. 9 games in 5 days over the bank holiday weekend was a demanding schedule, but the venue was excellent and the Masters featured 6 GMs and 7 IMs. I managed to finish 5th= on 6/9, having played 4 GMs – my best tournament result in a while. TRaj Bhopal and Robert Kane played in the Challengers event.

The event will be held on the same weekend next year. Definitely worth a visit!

For the second time in three years, we sent a team to play in the European Club Cup. This years’ event was held in the splendid Rodos Palace Hotel in Rhodes, from October 19-27. We qualified as Richardson winners, and were joined by runners up Edinburgh West. We had an average rating of 2136, making us 43rd seeds out of the 53 Teams in the Open section. Here are my highlights:

1. Winning! We won 3 matches 3.5-2.5, which meant we finished in 33rd place. This was double our points total from last time (although we had a kinder draw this time around). Edinburgh West player John Watkins remarked that winning a game in the ECC was similar to winning a game in the Edinburgh Premier League. He meant it as a compliment…I guess we don’t have to face the mighty Edinburgh 1 so don’t have the same perspective!

2. Rubbing shoulders with the stars. It was nice having all the games in the one hall, and almost all of the Teams staying in the same Hotel. During meal times you would always see a number of galacticos. This extended to the local bars, where various groups of chess players gathered to watch the Champions League football matches or just unwind. Ukrainian GM Anton Korobov had the unfortunate experience of witnessing one of our worst pieces of analysis

3. The Morra Gambit! Well, not really, but it provided us with our first individual win, the following fine attacking effort from David Oswald:

19.g5! hxg5? [Too compliant.]

[19…Nd4 was better. The position is messy – White has a strong attack but Black has counterplay.]

20.hxg5 Bxg5 21.Rh1 [White’s attack flows naturally.]

21…Bxe3 22.Qxe3 Nd4! [The best try. Black combines an attack on the ?c4 with defensive resources such as …Nxf5–h6 or …Qg5+–h6 in some variations.]

23.Bd3! [The most impressive move of the game. White takes a time out to move his attacked Bishop, while preventing …Nxf5 and creating a new threat of f6. A very hard move to find when ‘mid combination’.]

[Neither 23.Qh3 Qg5+; nor 23.Ne4 Nxf5 work for White.]

23…e4 24.Bxe4 d5 25.Rh5 [25.Rxh7+ mates immediately, but the move played is plenty good enough to win.]

25…dxe4 26.Rch1 Kg8 27.Rxh7 f6 28.Rh8+ Kf7 29.Rxf8+ winning either the Queen or the Knight on d4. Black resigned. 1–0

Match Results:

Rd1: Reichenstein SSB (SUI) 4.5-1.5 Edinburgh
Rd2: Edinburgh 3.5-2.5 SV Voerendaal / KNSB (NED)
Rd3: Edinburgh 1.5-4.5 SK 47 Eynatten (BEL)
Rd4: Eppingen (GER) 2.5-3.5 Edinburgh
Rd5: White Rose (ENG) 3.5-2.5 Edinburgh
Rd6: Edinburgh 3.5-2.5 Adare (IRL)
Rd7: ASI Bologna (ITA) 4-2 Edinburgh

Individual scores:

1. Clement Sreeves 2.5/7
2. Calum MacQueen 3.5/7
3. Neil Berry 3.5/7
4. David Oswald 4/7
5. Alastair White 1/7
6. Chris Sykes 3.5/7

http://euro2013.chessdom.com/

We are currently looking for someone to represent the Club in this competition.

This is an individual knock-out tournament open to all Chess Scotland clubs.  Matches are played at evenings or weekends at the home player’s club or home, or a neutral venue.  There can be signficant travel involved.

The MacIsaac is for club champions, or failing that, a club member graded at least 1850.  This season the club champion has declined to participate so we are  extending the invitation to  the wider membership.  If you would like to represent the club in  this competition please let me know by 26th October.

Mark Sanderson