Many congratulations to Bexhill junior Rose Burgess who played at the EJCOA national youth championships last weekend. Rose, pictured here with CM Rob Willmoth and IM Lorin D’Costa, won a training award for outstanding performance in the training sessions; £50 chess and bridge voucher. Well done Rose!!
Last weekend, seven members of Bexhill chess club headed over to Tunbridge wells for the Kent congress held at the bridge club.
It was a well run event in a beautiful building and a great weekend of chess.
In the under 1650 section, Sharon Merchant was very happy to win two points. Sebastian Merchant scored 3 and finished in 8th. Samuel Merchant came in 4th (joint 2nd) and won the grading prize of £50. Luke Chapman had a fantastic congress and finished on 4.5 in joint first place! He wins £138! Congratulations Luke!! 🥳🥳🥳
In the very competitive under 1950 section, Steve Blewitt managed a win and two draws to finish on 2 points. Bill Luxton managed half a point more with 2 wins and a draw to finish on 2.5. And finally Steve Merchant with 2 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss, finished with 3 points in 13th place.
Many thanks to Satish Gaekwad, Ashok Damodaran for their excellent organization. And especially to John Bowley for being the most friendly and professional arbiter I have ever met.
Following the EGM yesterday… we will be changing one of our meetings. With immediate effect, we will no longer be meeting on Saturday afternoons. The Saturday afternoon meeting is being replaced with a Friday evening meeting from 7pm till 10pm at our usual meeting place at St. Marks.
Tuesday meetings will remain unchanged.
We look forward to seeing you all at our first evening meeting this Friday June 30th!!
Today, Tuesday 30th May, saw the completion of the Gordon Cup. This years competition has been incredibly hard fought, with many very high standard games being played. In the end the top three were as follows:
3rd place Mike Lambert with 5.5 points
2nd place Sam Merchant with 6 points
1st place Sharon Merchant with 6.5 points
A massive congratulations to Sharon as a significant piece of history was made with this result, as no female member has won a club competition for at least 22 years (as long has Joe has been in the club). As a result of this Sharon and Sam gain promotion.
A huge well done to everyone that took part in what was a very close competition.
On Saturday the 20th of May, several Bexhill juniors traveled to Worthing to compete in the final Grand Prix of the Sussex junior chess season.
It was a wonderful day with some fantastic achievements. 120 juniors battled it out in four sections. The tournament is a six-round rapid play with a time control of 25 + 5. It is also the sixth and final event in the Grand Prix calendar.
In the Under 11 minor section we had 2 juniors playing in their first Sussex tournament, Albion Haughton and Jaxson Foster. Both boys finished on 2 points showing tremendous talent and resilience and received arbiter’s awards in recognition of this. Well done, boys!
In the under 11 major section, Harry Morter had his first taste of chess at the major level. It’s a tough challenge but Harry battled valiantly with 1 win, 3 draws and only 2 losses. He finished in 10th place with 2 and a half points. In the same section, Rose Burgess had an incredible day, remaining unbeaten with 5 wins and a draw. She finished joint first with five and a half points. Congratulations, Rose!
In the under 18 minors, Sebastian Merchant finished on four out of six, putting him on joint 8th.
In the under 18 majors, Samuel Merchant and Luke Chapman both had great days taking 3 points each and finishing joint 15th. Anh Nguyen managed 1 point more and with a strong tie break score finished in third place.
At the end of the tournament, points were tallied for the season. Samuel Merchant was second place under 10, Rose Burges was third place under 11, Luke Chapman was top under 12, and Sebastian Merchant was second place under 14.
We are so proud of all our juniors. You’re all amazing. What a fantastic end to a fantastic season. It’s so nice to see you all being rewarded for your hard work. Have a wonderful summer and we all look forward to doing it again next season.
Here is a report from our chairman Bill Tracey on this years handicap tournament:
On Saturday 13th May a Time Handicap Tournament was held for members of the club.
It was fantastic to see an entry of 25 members which included 6 juniors.
The event was held as a 6 round Swiss with up to 7 minutes time difference between players.
After 3 hours of intense competition the results were as follows:
3rd place went to our junior England player Andy with 4 .5 points from 6.
In second place was Phil, who made an excellent return to the club after being away working for 6 months. He scored 5 from 6.
In first place was our National Master Mark who scored a perfect 6 from 6.
Mark did say that the handicap system meant that he was pushed very hard in a number of his matches
The future of the club looks very promising with 6 juniors participating, of whom 5 were in the top 10!
My thanks are due to Michael Hayward , Bill Luxton, Rose and her family and the Merchant family for arriving early and helping to set up the venue.
Particular thanks goes to Sharon for her admin work through out the tournament.
Well done to all that took part.
It is an aim of the club that we will run more events such as this on a more regular basis.
Final cross table and photos from the event can be found below.
Here is the report from our captain Bill Tracey on the League season 2022 to 2023.
For the 1st time, Bexhill entered 3 teams into the Mid Sussex Chess Leagues.
Only 2 other clubs entered more than us with several entering only 1.
This, I believe, is another powerful indication of how much stronger the club is becoming both in terms of member numbers and in playing strength.
A total of 17 members played for the club this season, including 8 new members.
I would like to thank all these members for making my job as team captain so easy.
Across the 3 divisions we played 27 matches which equates to 108 games,
and, for each of these we had not a single drop out from any member who had committed to play.
From those 108 games 43 were wins 35 were draws and 30 were losses.
Our 1st team had the daunting prospect of playing in Division 1.
This was always going to be a huge challenge and this was clearly shown
when we were out rated in our first match against Brighton by1380 rating points! Despite this those who played for the 1st team did a fantastic job of keeping us in the top league. Although we finished in 7th place from 9 we only had a game point difference of only minus 6, this contrasts with the two teams below us with minus 16 and minus 13.
The two standout players were Andrew Fleming and Janis Petersons. They played all 9 matches, all bar one on boards 1 and 2 against the best players in the league and only lost 4 games from 18.. Janis scored 5 points and Andrew 4.5.
Our 2nd team played in Division 2 and despite the best efforts of the 10 members who played during the course of the season we finished 8th and hence are relegated. The story of the season was of several close matches that we lost by a point. Our game points difference was minus eight, meaning on average we lost by just under a point per match, so we were competitive in many of the matches but just came up short too often.
Our 3rd team in Division 3 had a fantastic season being unbeaten all season winning 8 matches and drawing one and thus winning the Division crown. Our game point difference was 28 to 8 with only 5 games resulting in a loss.
9 members played throughout the season including 5 new members.
Several players deserve a special mention, Alan Ticehurst with 4.5 from 5 points, Steve Merchant 5 from 7 Bill Tracey 5 from 7, Luke Chapman making his debut at the age of 12 and winning his first match for the club, but especially Bill Luxton who, in his first season for the club won 6 drew 2 and lost just one while playing 7 times on board one.
Next season, with the amount of members that have expressed an interest in playing, we are hoping to enter 4 teams. Please let me know if you wish to play next season.
The 17 members who played this season are Andrew Fleming, Janis Petersons, Steve Blewitt, John Kimber Leo Woning, Bill Luxton, Bill Tracey, Steve Merchant, Phil Swain, Alan Ticehurst, Alfie Reed, Luke Chapman, Michael Hayward, Sam Merchant, Mark Rich, Derek Cosens and Andy Nguyen.
The next season will start in October.
Bill Tracey
N.B. Bexhill chess club would like to express their gratitude to Bill Tracey for another season of excellent captaincy. Many thanks Bill. Your dedication and hard work is very much appreciated.
Match report from our captain Bill Tracey:
Thursday 20th April saw our 3rd team play their final team match of the season.
We travelled to Haywards Heath to take on their 2nd team. Our team, in board order was Bill L, Bill T, Alan and Derek.
Alan and I finished at almost the same moment.
My opponent played a dubious opening and I was able to establish a good position. This advantage was then greatly increased when he blundered his Queen! He played on for a few more moves but then resigned.
Alan had a very similar game as he too built a strong position, when his opponent blundered his Queen and a few moves later he resigned.
Bill on 1 was next to finish. Bill had a shocking journey to the venue, the Police had closed a road which meant his journey taking almost two hours, which caused him to arrive slightly late. I think that this clearly affected his opening, but he fought well in a difficult position and eventually accepted his opponents offer of a draw.
Derek was last to finish. He played very well against a determined opponent and eventually won by checkmate.
Final score Haywards Heath .5 Bexhill 3.5
This means that we have finished the league unbeaten with 8 wins and a draw.
Well done to all who played for the 3rd team this season.
A full report on all 3 league teams will be published shortly.
Match report from our captain Bill Tracey:
On Tuesday 18th, Bexhills 1st team made the short journey to Hastings to play their 1st team in our final league match.
Hastings, as expected, put out their strongest team as they are in with a chance of finishing 2nd in the league.
Our team, in board order was Andrew, Janis, Andy and Michael.
Janis was first to finish. He played the Dutch against his opponents English and came out of the opening with a slight advantage.
Unfortunately his opponent, rated 250 points higher played a very strong middle game and eventually gained a point for Hastings.
Michael played very well against an opponent out rating him by 350 points but eventually had to concede.
Andy has recently gone over 1900 rating points, an outstanding performance by an 11 year old.
He fought hard right to the end but did get into time trouble. His opponent, rated 165 points higher,
eventually gained the upper hand and won another point for Hastings.
Andrew on board 1 continued his fine season and gained a very solid draw against Hastings’ top player. Again there was a big rating difference, this time of 210 points so this represents a fine game by Andrew.
Overall Bexhill were out rated by over 1000 points and yet halfway through the match all games were still competitive.
