2015-16 Season

The 2nd team travelled down to Lewes 1 last Tuesday and were unfortunately narrowly defeated 2-3. As expected this proved to be a very tight affair between two evenly matched teams and there were some interesting games.

Horsham 1 were held to a draw by Brighton's second team last week...

Horsham 3 travelled to Eastbourne last week for a match where we were missing our top board player Ian due to illness. Thankfully John Cannon was able to step in on board 5 and we had a full team.

A brief report on a match that happened a couple of weeks back for which the final result has now been agreed...

The knockout and Plate competitions are coming towards this season's conclusion.

1 March : Plate Semi-final between Pavlovic and Rustom
8 March : Knockout Semi-final between Lock and Comley and Plate quarter-final between Matt Forster and Lucy Bennet-Stevens (winner to play Nick Warren)
29 March : Knockout Semi-final between Higgs and Mike Forster

Five Horsham players took part in this very well organised event.

I grew up playing chess in cold church halls and buying curled ham sandwiches swigged down with tepid tea but this was very different with plush carpet, ample room and excellent playing conditions. Hosted at the Crowne Plaza Hotel there was first class food to sustain the players through the ardours of the tournament and there was something appealing about a bar dominated by 30 players analysing their games.

Please can you ensure you have booked up with your opponent to finish off these competitions.

We have 19 weeks left so there is plenty of time left but of course you may have team matches, the knock out and even the quick play still to fit in!

Horsham 2’s strength in depth enabled the team to record another impressive victory to move into 4th place in Division 1.
Alex, playing Board 1 for the first time, had a tough initiation with the black pieces. Paul was unlucky on Board 2 having outplayed Howard Tebbs for much of the game and winning his opponents backward e pawn. Unfortunately his opponent found some counter-play that enabled him to win back his pawn and move into a won ending.

Horsham 2 achieved a pleasing 3-2 victory against Haywards Heath 1 last Tuesday. This promised to be a very tight match with both teams having the same average grade of 173 – they were stronger (on paper) on Boards 1 & 2 and we out-gunned them on 4 & 5 (with our strength in depth!).

A pretty impressive looking result for Horsham 3 last night.

The most unusual opening was on top board where Marc Bryant tried to outwit Roy Page with 1.a3 g6 2. h3 b6 which is unusual. He tried a later g3 and Rh2 to allow Bg2 but Roy always looked very strong and his attack soon became overwhelming.