Horsham Chess Club

Congratulations to Woodpushers for beating Horsham resoundingly.

1. Ian Comley 169 lost to Roger Hutchings 164
2. Paul Richardson 148 drew with Andy Briggs 150
3. Nick Warren lost to Julian Clark 148
4. Mick Harris drew with Juju Samworth-Calvier 129

Woodpushers had white on odd boards having won the toss. Horsham had to substitute the intended John Marshall after being 45 minutes delayed due to train strikes...although he then arrived within a couple of minutes of the substitution.

A very strong turnout of 28 Horsham players contested the annual Lightning tournament last week, following the junior club's own Lightning earlier in the evening...

The McArthur Cup is on paper the strongest team competition in Sussex. After some reverses at Brighton's hands in the league this season, Horsham won the semi-final cleanly over five boards even without the default on board 6...

The first team travelled down to Crowborough for the last match of the Mid-Sussex League season, and came away 3-2 victors making us runners-up in the league overall...

This was a home match played with a full strength team against an under-strength Lewes side, who made a good fight of it but lost out in some highly tactical games...

Just catching up with some match scores, I didn't play in this one so no report but here are the board results for the record...

Thanks to so many people for confirming your attendance on Tuesday - this means we can minimise the admin and get straight on with the chess!

Please see the table which shows the three groups this year - A,B,C. The groups were seeded on grading and it is worth me mentioning how I arrived at your grading. I arrived at a player's grading by firstly looking for the rapid play grading from January, failing that the previous rapid play grading, failing that their current standard grading.

If you can get arrive near to 7.30pm then we can have a prompt start.

Horsham 2 completed their Division 1 fixtures on Tuesday with another narrow 2-3 defeat, this time at home to Eastbourne 1 - the 5th time this season that we have suffered this score-line!
Alex faced an on-form Rasa who executed her attack clinically to secure the only victory on the night. Paul held the initiative for much of his game and won a pawn but the resulting Rook, Knight and Pawn ending was difficult and his opponent was able to equalise.

The 2nd team acquitted themselves quite well in a tough away fixture losing 2-3 to Worthing 1.
A special mention for Alex and Peter who both drew against opponents who out-graded them significantly on Boards 1 & 2 respectively. In fact we went home thinking we had a good chance of drawing the match as Alex seemed to have the initiative in his position at adjudication - unfortunately on deeper analysis there was not enough advantage to give a win.
David Graham (201) ½-½ Alex Freeland (182) (W)
Michael Nicholas (200) ½-½ Peter Harbott (171)

Just a quick reminder to all parents that there is no junior chess next Tuesday, we are back again on the 19th as normal. The adult club is on as normal for our older juniors.