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.