Monthly Archives: April 2023

Guildford FIDE Congress 2023

Leave a Reply

The Guildford FIDE Congress took place this weekend at the University of Surrey. A total of 136 players entered the 3 sections (Open 46, Major 56, Minor 34). This included 53 juniors, which was very encouraging. The youngest competitor was 6 years old and the oldest was 92. The entry was much larger than expected. Probably there were two reasons for this:

  • the venue came free of charge, so we were able to offer a generous prize fund;
  • there are currently no other opportunities to play a weekend tournament in the Guildford area.

The event ran very smoothly, not least through the efforts of our team of three FIDE arbiters who each ran one of the sections. The time control of G90 + 30s worked well in most cases, but there were two very long games in the Open. Tim Foster v Peter Lalic in round 1 lasted 7 hours and did not finish until 1.30am on Saturday morning. Graeme Buckley v James Merriman in round 2 lasted over 5 hours and was still continuing when round 3 started for the Major and Minor (with a silent start). When people say they don’t like increments, I suppose this is what they mean. We could have limited the damage with a different FIDE-approved time control such as G110 +10s, but then players would not have had to record the moves with less than 5 minutes remaining. So it’s a trade-off.

All the sections were closely-contested. The Open was quite exciting with several players in contention in the final round. Eventually the clear winner on 4.5/5 was the top seed, IM Gediminas Sarakauskas (FIDE 2387). Four players tied for 2nd place on 4/5: Graeme Buckley, Steven Jones, Susan Lalic and John Merriman.

As well as the section prizes, we awarded prizes for the top junior, the top female player, and the top U2000 player in the Open. The SCCA awarded the title of U18 Surrey Junior Champion to Magnus Borrissow (highest-placed eligible junior in the Open on 3.5/5) and gave him the Michell Memorial Trophy, the first time for several years this has been presented.

There were several family relationships during the event requiring forbidden pairings. Not least the Lalic dynasty (three family members in the Open plus Lucy Buckley in the Major).

Full details of the event are on Chess Results and there will be a report and photographs on British Chess News within a week.

The feedback we received during the event was very positive and we hope to run it again next year.

New senior pro team

2 Replies

I wanted to share with you an exciting new development in English league chess.

Our game has emerged from Covid stronger than ever, with renewed interest from a wider public following the great success of The Queen’s Gambit and the notoriety of the Niemann cheating scandal. In fact it has come to the attention of British entrepreneurs looking to extend their influence in fashionable sectors of our national life. None more so than Sir Jim Ratcliffe, a sports-loving businessman who is currently trying to buy Manchester United and who is a lifelong chess fan.

Sir Jim has decided to enter English league chess by bankrolling a team of professionals. He knows that top chess players, unlike top footballers or cyclists, can maintain their performance until relatively late in life. He himself is 70 years old. He has assembled a team of senior citizens (aged 60+) from the pool of English GMs. His squad of 10 comprises (in alphabetical order) GMs Arkell, Davies, Flear, Hebden, Keene, Mestel, Nunn, Plaskett, Speelman and Stean. This is a joint venture with a well-known online chess training company and the new outfit will be known as Team Chessable Silver Fox.

For next season, Sir Jim is seeking entry into Division 1 of the 4NCL and Division 1 of the London League. He believes that this assembly of talent could attain the level of dominance in English league chess that was enjoyed by Team Sky in British cycling in the decade from 2010.

You may be wondering what is my interest in this development. I do actually rate myself over the board. I once won an online blitz game against someone called DoccyDoc, although I have not been able to establish whether this was the Good Doctor himself. However, I have not yet attained the GM title and I am therefore not eligible to play for this team.

In fact Sir Jim has personally approached me to act as Team Manager. My organisational skills in the chess field have not gone unnoticed. I have been offered a retainer of £1,000 a match. There is no win bonus attached to this. Sir Jim expects Team Chessable Silver Fox to win all its matches and so there is no point creating any additional incentives for victory.

Naturally this commitment will affect my involvement in other areas of chess activity. I have to go where the money goes. So I have had to tell my colleagues at Streatham that I will not be available to play league chess for them more than twice a week from next season.

Sir Jim’s plans do not stop there. Over time he would like to fuse his twin passions of chess and cycling by developing the new sport of ChessCycling. In this, contestants will alternate standardplay games of chess at the senior-citizen-friendly time control of G90 + 30s with circuits of Box Hill on a team bike (Box Hill is the iconic Surrey climb that featured in the 2012 Olympic Road Race). A contest will consist of 9 standardplay games and 9 circuits of Box Hill. My role will not be to join them on the bike (which is a shame as I am a keen cyclist) but rather to drive the team car behind them on the course carrying spare bikes and essential nutritional drinks.

I am sure we all wish Sir Jim well in this new venture. Some people believe that the continued dominance of one team in any particular sport removes the excitement, since everyone else is competing for second, and this is as true in chess as in any other sporting discipline. However, the presence of so much talent in one team can help to drive up standards generally and so this should be good for English chess as a whole.