Horsham Chess Club

My own game on board 5 finished fairly quickly with an agreed draw, both our kings had little cover and unwilling to push too hard. Peters game on Board 1 looked equal for a long time with pieces slowly coming off but he managed to gain an advantage with aggressive knight manoeuvres to have a slightly stronger king/pawn end game which he expertly played out until the 42nd move where it was clear he’d queen and win. Soon after Alex had won his after facing a king side pawn storm his opponent ran out of support, pushed too hard and Alex calmly kept control.

Hastings 2 brought a very strong team to Horsham last Tuesday, as the winners of this match would more than likely win the Division 2 championship.
Gradings were very similar from Board 2 to Board 5 but on Board 1 Anthony was heavily out-graded playing a 210, so he did exceptionally well to secure a draw with the black pieces. In fact at adjudication Anthony was pawn up but the position was such that this was insufficient to get a win.

Horsham 4 pulled off a comprehensive victory last night beating Eastbourne 3 4.5-0.5. Some fine chess all round confirms their position as third in the fourth division.

Meanwhile in the committee room Horsham 2 were having a tougher evening playing Hastings 2. Paul Taylor managed a draw but Peter Harbott lost and Anthony Higgs drew an adjourned game against a 210 player. Unfortunately both Phil Stimpson and Dix Roberts both lost despite Dix having a threatening outside passed pawn.

Here are the final set of gradings. The main winner here is Ben Crosby who has shot up 12 points to 98 ... a name to watch I think!

I have compiled a list of the new Horsham grades. Our list of players is too large to fit in one screen grab so here are the top players. Matt Forster has seen his grading increase an impressive 12 points to 197 and Lucy Bennet-Stevens has increased by 7 points to 164.

A Horsham junior team made league history on Tuesday night but Lewes walked away with the spoils...

Horsham 1 scored a narrow win against Lewes 1 in the Mid-Sussex League last Tuesday.

Mike Forster was first to finish, with a draw against Martin Costley, who managed to equalise with solid play against Mike's English/Catalan hybrid.

James Mansson emerged clearly worse from a rather unorthodox opening, but was fortunate that his opponent eventually miscalculated, allowing him to win substantial amounts of material; his opponent very soon resigned.

Mark Broom and Gavin Lock ended up drawing after Mark was unable to make anything of his slight edge.

Some very competitive chess last night with two Horsham teams playing.

Horsham 1 were playing Lewes and it was very tight but Horsham gradually took the ascendancy to win 3-2 . Meanwhile the Juniors were battling out in the rapid play competition. Horsham fielded a full team of girls who were playing a full team of boys. Anthony is very sure this is the first time that an entire team of girls has been fielded in the competition. Unfortunately girl power was not enough to win on this occasion but Anthony will put up a full report.

The 2nd team made the long journey to Hastings last night but it was worthwhile as we secured a 4-1 win against Hastings 3rd team, which moved us to the top of Division 2.
First to win was Anthony on Board 1 – he faced an Albin Counter Gambit in which Black also castled on the queenside. Anthony was able to force open the ‘a’ file and after playing Ra8+ got his opponent in all sorts of problems!

Lucy Bennet-Stevens was very successful in Hastings Open weekend tournament scoring 3 out of 5 coming 4th and winning a grading prize.

The top two places were GMs and she beat a number of stronger players so well done!