Horsham Chess Club

This was a particularly clever entry..

For those members who were unable to attend the Christmas Tree Festival, here is a visual taste. In addition to those shown, there were trees in the front foyer, all down both sides of the church and others in the lounge, making a most attractive impression overall, which was worthy of the major efforts to which the contributing groups had clearly gone There was a goodly number of visitors, indicating a worthwhile benefit to the Action for Children charity.

...more pictures to follow...

John Cannon

Horsham had a convincing victory away at Haywards Heath in the preliminary round of the Paul Watson Trophy last night, winning 4-0. This competition is for teams of 4 players with an average grading of 150 or less.

The games finished in Board number order ! On Board 1, Peter defended precisely with the black pieces against a sacrificial attack and emerged a rook up for two pawns and his opponent duly resigned. I was assisted by my opponent’s reluctance to castle which lead to him giving up the exchange in order to get his king to safety.

A few of us (including Anthony and Phil) ventured up to the London Chess Classic last friday to enjoy some great play by Adams, Nakamura, Giri, Kramnik ...the commentary was provided by Danny King, Nigel Short and even Peter Svidler!

It was a great day and full details are at http://www.londonchessclassic.com/
and the commentary can be found http://new.livestream.com/chess24/lcc2014

Anand won...which is why he is smiling!

Last Tuesday saw Horsham 2 host Worthing 1, a team boosted by the presence of two strong former Knoll Knights players and therefore a force to be reckoned with this season...

The MSL KO team played their first match of the season against Brighton & Hove on Wednesday. The teams were very closely matched in terms of aggregate grading, so no handicap applied. Paul Richardson and Brian Howard were losers in the first 2 games to finish, but Anthony Higgs then won on top board. I had knight and pawn for a rook, but felt I had some positional compensation for the slight material deficit. However, with time running out for each of us in the mandatory QPF of the KO competition, neither of us could establish a clear advantage and we agreed a draw.

The 6th team were victorious in their home match against Woodpushers 2 last night, winning by 3.5 - 1.5. Oliver Thorne and Richard Hewitt each won on the lower boards against noticeably higher-graded opponents. Peter Helliwell provided the 3rd win on board 3, while I had a draw on board 1. Roger Waddingham, alas, went down to a counter-attack from what had seemed a strong position.

Horsham 6 reach the mid-season point in a strong position, having now scored 4 out of 5 in MSL Division 4.

The full match results were:

Horsham 3 recently hosted Brighton and Hove 3 and despite being caught offside on a couple of occasions, ran out 3-2 winners. Ian and Nick, both with the Black pieces, were outplayed to leave us 0 - 2 before half time.
The second half was hard fought and saw Tim and Chris, both with the White pieces -- and almost identical attacks following their Closed Sicilian openings -- slowly gain ground. Chris won a piece late on, and Tim turned a solid draw into an excellent win. 2-2

I’d like to start by thanking John Marshall for his commitment to get to our Worthing match last night, after train delays to his morning commute he was faced by several more delays in the evening but still managed to make the venue just in time. Unfortunately even after knocking out the first 20 moves quickly he was still very much down on time which gave his opponent enough of an edge to take the game away from him.

Melusi’s game was also moving quickly however he had built a very strong attacking position with which he was able to tactically control and win his game, 1 all.

Horsham 2 nearly took their first points of the season in a very tight match with Haywards Heath 1 last Wednesday, but the hosts just edged it 3-2...