Horsham Chess Club

Horsham 1 scored a narrow 3-2 victory away against a strong Worthing 2 team.

Looking at the Worthing 2 line up, a number of the players could (and have) played for the first team, so it was clearly not going to be an easy night.

Matt Forster sensibly bailed out with a draw against Chris Jones when the latter offered it. His position looked rather shaky at the time as subsequent analysis seemed to demonstrate.

Paul Taylor won material against Peter Larwood on bottom board and consolidated to secure Horsham's first win.

Horsham 3 were away to Crowborough on Friday evening and expecting a tough challenge. Crowborough put up two strong players but thankfully not as strong as we were expecting and we out graded them heavily on boards 3-5 so fancied our chances.

Horsham 2 returned to winning ways with a convincing 4-1 home victory on Tuesday against Eastbourne 2.
The four games that we won were all done so fairly comfortably – Dix, Lucy & Chris all won material quite early on and had no problems converting their advantage to win. Phil was able to play one of his favourite lines of the Grand Prix Attack and a strong attack also lead to a comfortable win.

Many Horsham members will recall the ever-cheerful John Coules, who sadly passed away on Feb.16th, aged 75. John was a regular member of Horsham Chess Club for most of the period 1983 – 2011 and had been a valued committee member and team captain.

Very sad news concerning the passing of Oliver Andrew who founded Woodpushers and was well known in MSCL chess. I copy below the eulogy to him from the MSCL website

Here is the list of the top performing individuals who have played four or more games to qualify for the match knight trophy.

While Horsham 1 and Horsham 3 were doing battle last Tuesday the final of the Knockout Quickplay Plate was taking place.

Richard Barrowclough faced Nick Warren in a dynamic final with periodic exclamations of anguish from both players ! Nick Warren came out the victor and congratulations to him for being the first to claim silverware this season.

Horsham 1 were defeated at home by Worthing 1 last Tuesday.

Horsham 1 fell behind with James Mansson losing quickly after a couple of mistakes as White in a sharp Sicilian Dragon.

Matt Forster also lost as he fell into a bad position as Black against his opponent's Grand Prix Attack and was unable to recover.

Anthony Higgs pulled one back, as he unearthed a brilliant continuation to turn around a bad position.

The top and bottom board games were unfinished on the night, but subsequent analysis showed them both to be drawn.

This gave Worthing a 3-2 win.

Woodpushers 1 were only able to field four players against Horsham 2 last night but they somehow managed to conjure wins on the top three boards to take the match 3-2.
Lucy, playing her first match for the 2nd team, produced a top class win. From a Maroczy Bind position against the Sicilian she had full control of the whole board and black’s position fell apart after Lucy sacrificed a piece in an attack against her opponent’s King and followed this up with clinical accuracy.

Horsham 4 saw a pretty comprehensive victory tonight against East Grinstead with good wins for Zevon, Richard and John with Julie and Nick drawing. In contrast Horsham 2 started the evening with a default on bottom board and Lucy played an excellent game on board 4. But Phil lost to an impressive Ian Kelly and Dix's strong attack didnt quite pay off and finally Anthony missed a tactic in a strong position. So Woodpushers won despite their default.

In the Rook James beat Paul Taylor to return to winning form.