Horsham Chess Club

Those who attended our AGM earlier this month will recall that I expressed concern for the survival of Sussex as a meaningful participant in county chess. Horsham has had a proud history over many years of contributing both players and captains for County teams over a spread of playing ability. Sadly, this has fallen off to some extent recently and others have so far failed to fill a number of vacancies. For the 2018 / 19 season the County has been reduced to entering only an Open team in the County Championships. I, for one, will certainly miss the opportunity to play County chess.

MSL have let us know that the first match of the season will be Horsham 1 v Horsham 2 on 16 October - let the opening preparation begin!

Here is the draw for next week. Good Luck!

M Forster (snr) v J Marshall
C Heath v I Comley

P Harbott v N Warren
R Moorhouse v LJ Cannon

H Roberts v B Donnelly

A Higgs v A Burling

L Bennet-Stevens v P Helliwell
R Waddingham v G Turvey

J MacLean v M Harris
D Gray v Bye

R Barrowclough v J Mansson

It was great to see so many new players come along last - big welcome to Guy, James and Harry.

The draw was done for the Quickplay and the Knockout last night. It is the Quickplay next Tuesday with just 15 minutes a game - good fun and a great way to blow off the cobwebs of the summer.

Quick reminder about completing the GDPR form, paying subs and joining the ECF...boring but important!
It really will make James Mansson's job easier as the new treasurer if you can pay promptly and by BACs.

When the season starts we need to do some admin to set ourselves up for the season (boring klaxon).

A few things to make sure we do :

It was great to see two new members last night - we offer a warm welcome to Andy and Nick . It was also great to see so many members back again after the summer.

The highlight of the evening was the award of Life Membership to John Cannon in recognition of his sixtieth year as a club member, forty years as Secretary, 13 years as Chairman , his History of Horsham Chess Club (see link on this site) and inestimable other services to make Horsham the successful club it is now.

Characteristically John's first comments were to recognise the excellent efforts of Julie Denning :

Parents are advised that the junior club will restart on 11th September, as usual this is a week later than the adult club. See you then!

It's not long until our first week back after a very hot summer .

See you then.

It was the last club of the season last night (26 June) with a number of competitions being resolved. While some of us travelled to Lewes for the Mid Sussex Chess League AGM some serious chess was under way.
Firstly the juniors had an award ceremony with a host of promising juniors vying for the Peter Alford cup.
The eventual winner was Ben Crosby who narrowly pipped a number of contenders including Peter Crosby , his twin brother and a runner up. Ben also wins the ladder competition this year so there is some silverware heading for the Crosby household.

There was a very exciting and eventful game between Alex Taylor and John Marshall to decide the Knockout Plate winner.

Alex had considerable pressure on the kingside and an open c file but John's pieces were very active and balancing the position. Alex continued to press when John found a typical Marshall tactic and eventually won the better endgame.