Horsham Chess Club

In a sequence that summed up the team's season, Horsham 1 veered from disaster to triumph in consecutive matches, as they slumped to a big loss against Hastings 1 before scored a narrow but deserved victory over a very strong East Grinstead 1 team.

In the Hastings 1 match, Horsham 1 went down at home by the margin of 0.5-3.5, with most boards suffering some sort of disaster. Only James Mansson was able to escape with a draw.

With my visits to the club heavily curtailed, I have been playing in a 4NCL online tournament, 7 rounds played fortnightly with a time control of 45+15.

This position arose in my latest game as white after my opponent played Bd6-Bb8...

Horsham 2 ventured down to Worthing for the halfway mark of the season. Unfortunately I missed this game with Roy volunteering as captain on the night. A very close loss of 2.5-1.5 against a strong team, disappointing that it only came down to one board in the end.

A comment from Ian about his game below.

Many of Horsham teams are having a tough time this year but Division 3 is a different story with a very satisfactory look at the moment!

Horsham 5 faced Bexhill 4 away on 24th January. It wasn't until we arrived at Bexhill that my grey cells clicked into action and realised that one of our players had become ineligible for the 5th team since the team selection had been made. This necessitated that we moved up boards 3 and 4, and declared a default against ourselves on board 4. Other team captains, and indeed players, please take care to avoid a similar mistake as the season progresses and more players get caught by the rule about 4 appearances for higher teams.

Last Thursday, Horsham 1 were away against Haywards Heath 1; they managed to record a comfortable victory due to wins on the bottom two boards.

First to end was the top board game between Gavin Lock and Feliks Kwiatkowski. A complicated Rossolimo Sicilian end up as a draw, giving us a good result to build on.

Next was James McGrath's victory over Edward Upsdell on bottom board. James McGrath played the Sicilian against his opponent's 1 e4; his opponent played an unwise piece sacrifice that was easily refuted. The made the score 1.5-0.5 in our favour.

Horsham hosted two matches, Horsham 2 vs East Grinstead 1 and Horsham 6 vs East Grinstead Bookshop. Along with the other internal club competition matches, it was another full night. As usual we were out-graded on every board, particularly so with this very strong East Grinstead team.

First to finish was Phil on board 3. Black had a strong kingside attack after an opposite-side castling Scandinavian but white found all the defensive moves and with the position destined for a drawn rook ending, the players agreed a draw.

Horsham 3 began the year with another tough match, this time against Bexhill 2. Despite putting up a fight on all four boards, we were soundly defeated 1-3. Ian Comley played Black in a very sharp Trompowsky line on the first board, eventually getting an overwhelming position before succumbing to a desperado. Nick Warren had the white pieces against an Alekhine and reached an unusual position where Black's Queen was able to infiltrate his kingside and was eventually overwhelmed.

Horsham 1 started the New Year with a draw against a decent Lewes side.

On board one, Gavin Lock was up as Black against Henry Adams. Gavin managed to resist his opponent's pressure in a sharp Catalan and the game ended up as a draw.

On board two, Mark Broom was White against familiar opponent Peter Farr. Mark gained some early pressure with an enterprising pawn sacrifice, but went wrong in the ensuing complications and ended up losing.

Horsham 5 travelled to Haywards Heath last Thursday to take on their 3rd team. Peter Rankin opened the scoring with a win on board one. Playing the white pieces, Peter reports: