Editor : Those of us who participated in the 4th Sussex University Chess Congress on 18-19 April received this message recently from Sussex University. I thought it merited wider publicity on our website, both for the mention of the support we have consistently provided with equipment and for the excellent contribution of Rose Burgess as assistant arbiter. It is also worthy of record the determined organisation and leadership of Hooman Honarvar who has initiated and sustained the development of chess through the Sussex University events which we, at Bexhill Chess Club, have been there for since the student-led inception at the Falmer campus. His speech at the start of the final round was inspiring for its evocation of community, peace and harmony – with the living embodiment being a gathering of a large and diverse assembly of chess players.
Here s part of the message :
” Congratulations to Candidate master Jacob Yoon, the winner of the under 2400 section of the Congress and Mr Russell Goodfellow for the under 1900 section and the joint winners of the under 1600 section Toby, Sandom, Artem Dudakh and Aarav Ghanshala.
Another congratulations to FM Sergey Korshunov on winning the blitz tournament with a perfect score of nine out of nine.
Many thanks to Lance Leslie Smith for taking on the chief arbiter role of the event and doing a great job at that and many thanks to FIDE arbiter Mike Forster, deputy chief arbiter and a person who has been with us since the first edition of this event and another thank you too Mr. Owen Gibson for providing remote help for the event.
Congratulations and thank you to Rose Burgess for acting as a section arbiter and obtaining her final level 2 arbiter norm.
Thank you you to International arbiter Matthew Carr for providing us with live boards so all your brilliancies and blunders can be broadcast live with 15 minutes delay, of course!
Thank you to the great clubs of Bexhill and Horsham for providing us with very nice wooden boards.
Special thanks to Hastings Chess Club and Mark, Bryant and Henry Cove for providing emergency double-sided score sheets!
Thank you to Sussex Junior Chess for their continued support and providing clocks and sets and national master Callum Brewer for his chest sets, and all the parents who helped with the smooth running of this event.
Thank you to Sussex University Student Union for helping to organize this event.
Thanks to David Lightfoot for helping with the publicity of the event around the campus. Please look out for the next editions of his excellent Isle Of Wight Chess tournaments and some more!! in the ECF calendar.
Thank you to David Howell patron of Sussex Junior Chess for spreading the word about our event on X.
Here is the link for the photos. You can order printed photos from the same website. The password is “Chess”.
https://zoeandjohnphotography. shootproof.com/gallery/ 50c08eeb-e38a-49e4-aefc- 0425ff674573
Finally, as we’ve said before at Sussex university it’s not just about chess it’s about chess community and we are very honoured to have had you at our event.
You will be hearing very soon about an exciting event in July until that announcement please save the date for 20th till 25th of July. We will be back 😉 “
Hooman Honarvar, delivering his speech before the exhibition match, between international master Sohum Lohia and FIDE master Sergey Korshunov , which was narrowly won by Korshunov. This was fund-raising for the Doctors Without Borders ( Medicines sans Frontiers) charity.
Photograph above from ZOE & JOHN – see the above link if you wish to see more.
In the tournament u-2400, Bexhill’s Luke Chapman finished 24th/40 on 2/5 in a very tough field
In the u-1900, Mjchael Hayward had a very good tournament 0n 3/5 finishing 7th/32. Bill Tracey and Lawry Rhodes took part finishing 19th and 20th respectively on 2.5/5.
Given there were 51 contestants in the u-1600, my maths indicates an amazing 123 total field.