Chess on the beach 2023 is a wrap! What an amazing day and once again we were blessed with beautiful weather! Thank you so much to everyone who came and made this such an incredible day.
The day began around 10am when we descended on the De la warr to begin set up. Massive thanks to Bill Tracey, Bill Luxton, John Kimber and Mike Chapman for helping with the set up. Extra special thank you to John for lending us his giant chess pieces for the day and to Mike for helping him transport them.
Massive thank you also the De la warr and the staff for hosting us and being so friendly and welcoming.
The days events kicked off at 11am with a new addition to our event; The Bughouse cup! We were thrilled to have 8 teams enter in our first attempt at running this kind of event. We split the eight teams into two groups of four and started with an all-play-all group stage that saw each team play all the other teams in their group twice. (Swapping colours for the second game.)
Group 1. Round: 1. 2. 3. Total
- Lee and Leo – ‘The Balls’ 0-0. 0-0. 0-0. 0
2. Seb and Sam – ‘The Merchants’ 1-1 0-1. 1-1. 5
3. Luke.C and Harry – ‘The two losers’ 1-0. 1-1. 0-0. 3
4. Lara and Stefan – ‘The Knights’. 0-1. 1-0. 1-1. 4
Round 1= 1 vs 2, 3 vs 4. Round 2= 1 vs 3, 2 vs 4, Round 3= 1 vs 4, 2 vs 3.
‘The Merchants’ and ‘The Knights’ progress to the semi-final.
Group 2 Round: 1. 2. 3. Total.
- Luke and Andy – ‘Chu’. 1-1. 0-0. 1-1. 4
2. Rose and Samuel – ‘The smashers’. 0-0. 0-0. 0-0. 0
3. Gavin and Tobias – ‘The Dragons’. 1-1. 1-1. 1-1. 6
4. Zebediah and Steve – ‘Zeb and Zob’. 0-0. 1-1. 0-0. 2
Round 1= 1 vs 2, 3 vs 4. Round 2= 1 vs 3, 2 vs 4, Round 3= 1 vs 4, 2 vs 3.
‘Chu’ and ‘The Dragons’ progress to the semi final.
The semi-finals were a fast and furious, best of three 5+3 epic battle!
The first semi final saw the formidable Merchant brothers battling it out against ‘Chu’, the two England juniors. The games were intense but the might of Chu was too great and the Merchants were defeated 2-0.
The second semi-final saw the mighty dragons take on the knights who had just arrived down from London! Again there was some dramatic swings in the games with both teams playing some aggressive moves. But in the end, the all out attack, especially from Tobias was too much and the dragons won with a decisive 2-0 victory.
Deep breaths were taken and steely gazes glared as we headed into the final showdown…. Chu against the mighty undefeated dragons!
As the sun shone down, pieces flew as checks echoed around the pavilion… the ruthless attacking play from Tobias continued and the dragons soared to a decisive 2-0 victory, ending the tournament as overall winners with 10 successive victories! What an impressive performance dragons!! We hope they will return next year to defend their title and someone will have to step up and attempt to slay the dragons!
Many congratulations to this years runners up, Luke Freeman and Anh (Andy) Nguyen ‘Chu’ and to the Chess on the Beach, Bughouse Cup Champions 2023: THE DRAGONS, Gavin Knott and Tobias Taylor.
Bughouse cup 2023 Runners up – Luke and Andy.
Another new addition for this year was ‘The Puzzle Challenge’. We had 10 puzzles which you had to solve as many of as possible in the fastest time possible. We kept a leaderboard throughout the day with the top five scores on, with the priority being number of correct answers and using time as a tie break. The board at the end of the day looked like this;
Congratulations Andy for being this years puzzle champion! 10 out of 10 in only 3 minutes and 22 seconds!
After the dust settled, the afternoon settled into a hum of giant chess, social chess, beginners learning chess, chess variants, people meeting old chess friends, people meeting new chess friends and the slow building of anticipation of the upcoming Bexhill beach Blitz.
The new kid on the block this year in our variants was ‘duck chess’. A variant in which players use a small duck to block certain squares. It was very popular and our little ducks had a wonderful day!
At this point I would like to extend a massive thank you to Karen Burgess for the ducks, many of these wonderful photos and for a much needed and very well timed cup of tea on the day!
Last year we had 34 enter the Blitz tournament. More than we anticipated, illustrated by the fact that we used every single chair available! This year we managed to secure a few more chairs and we still maxed out! 48 people turned up to enjoy the fast and furious experience that is the Bexhill Beach Blitz! (We had EXACTLY 48 spaces!) This meant that other people wanting to play social chess ended up playing standing up and some sitting on the floor! There were people playing chess everywhere! The image of all those people enjoying chess in that iconic location under the blue sky with the sea behind, was stunning and will stay with us for some time.
Thank you so much to all the members of Bexhill chess club who came down and supported this event. All the members of local chess clubs who came down. And all the people who travelled from all over the county, London and beyond to be a part of our celebration of the chess community.
Anyway, on to the Blitz results! It was a fabulous 90 minutes of play with new friends being made, old friends battling it out, and a wonderful spirit of play with good sportsmanship and good humor all round. At the end of play, we tallied up the results which were as follows:
(3 points for a win, 2 for a draw and 1 for a loss.)
Player: Wins. Draws. Loses. Total
- Luke Chapman. 8 = 24. 6 = 12. 2 = 2. 38
2. Mark Rich. 11 = 33. 1 = 2. 1 = 1. 36
3. Harry Morter. 7 = 21. 5 = 10. 3 = 3. 34
4. Rose Burgess. 9 = 27. 0 = 0. 4 = 4 31
5. Ant Giles. 8 = 24. 1 = 2. 1 = 1. 27
6. Oli Froom. 8 = 24. 0 = 0. 2 = 2. 26
Tobias Taylor. 7 = 21. 1 = 2. 3 = 3 26
Matthew Redford. 7 = 21. 1 = 2. 3 = 3. 26
Alan Ticehurst. 6 = 18. 2 = 4. 4 = 4. 26
Vaibhav 6 = 18. 1 = 2. 6 = 6. 26
11. Gavin Knott. 8 = 24. 0 = 0. 0 = 0. 24
12. Luke Freeman. 7 = 21. 0 = 0. 2 = 2. 23
Zubin Schweitzer. 7 = 21. 0 = 0. 2 = 2. 23
Sebastian Merchant. 5 = 15. 0 = 0. 8 = 8. 23
15. George Taylor. 5 = 15. 1 = 2. 4 = 4. 21
Mitch Mitchell. 5 = 15. 0 = 0. 6 = 6. 21
Samuel Merchant. 4 = 12. 4 = 8. 1 = 1. 21
18. James Lumsden. 6 = 18. 1 = 2. 0 = 0. 20
Bill Luxton. 5 = 15. 1 = 2. 3 = 3. 20
Hugh Osborne 5 = 15. 1 = 2. 3 = 3. 20
Vaspan 5 = 15. 1 = 2. 3 = 3. 20
22. Steve Blewitt. 5 = 15. 1 = 2. 2 = 2. 19
Anh (Andy) Nguyen. 5 = 15. 1 = 2. 2 = 2. 19
Lawry Rhodes. 5 = 15. 0 = 0. 4 = 4. 19
Ollie Milner. 4 = 12. 1 = 2. 5 = 5. 19
Timmy Nguyen. 4 = 12. 0 = 0. 7 = 7. 19
Samuel Devine. 4 = 12. 0 = 0. 7 = 7. 19
John Kimber. 3 = 9. 3 = 6. 4 = 4. 19
29. Rasa Norinkeviciute 5 = 15. 1 = 2. 1 = 1. 18
Michael Hayward. 5 = 15. 0 = 0. 3 = 3. 18
Bill Tracey. 4 = 12. 1 = 2. 4 = 4. 18
Stefan. 3 = 9. 0 = 0. 9 = 9. 18
William Strachen. 0 = 0. 0 = 0. 18 = 18. 18
34. Robert Wall. 4 = 12. 1 = 2. 3 = 3. 17
Leo Ball. 3 = 9. 0 = 0. 8 = 8. 17
Jeremy Cubison. 2 = 6. 1 = 2. 9 = 9. 17
37. Lee Ball. 3 = 9. 1 = 2. 5 = 5. 16
38. Guy Lahiffe. 4 = 12. 0 = 0. 3 = 3. 15
39. Henry Anslow. 1 = 3. 2 = 4. 7 = 7. 14
Lara. 1 = 3. 0 = 0. 11 = 11. 14
41. Mary Schweitzer. 3 = 9. 0 = 0. 4 = 4. 13
David Schweitzer. 2 = 6. 2 = 4. 3 = 3. 13
Zebediah Taylor. 1 = 3. 2 = 4. 6 = 6 13
44. Ben Short. 2 = 6. 0 = 0. 5 = 5. 11
45. Jaxson Foster 1 = 3. 0 = 0. 7 = 7. 10
46. Deedee Houghton. 2 = 6. 1 = 2. 1 = 1. 9
Tony Demarco. 1 = 3. 0 = 0. 6 = 6. 9
48. Albie Houghton. 0 = 0. 0 = 0. 5 = 5. 5
Trophies were presented to the winner and the runner up and medals were presented to the rest of those finishing in the top ten. Arbiters awards were presented to Lara and William Strachen for demonstrating great spirit and tenacity.
Massive congratulations to this years champion, Luke Chapman who has been working very hard to achieve this fantastic achievement.
Thank you to everyone for supporting this years event. So many people made this happen and it is so wonderful for us to see chess thriving in Bexhill and to see so many people of all ages out enjoying chess. Thank you once again to the DLWP for hosting us. Special thank to Sussex Junior Chess for your support. Thank you to everyone at Bexhill chess club that supported the event. Thank you to everyone who attended and enjoyed the day in the spirit it was intended.
We very much look forward to seeing you all again next year!
Many thanks.
The Merchants. (Sharon, Steve, Sebastian and Samuel.)
P.S. Massive apologies to anyone who has a misspelt name or a missing surname. Please do contact me for any corrections or additions.
