Blog Discontinued

This blog has now been succeeded by a new general blog, which can be found at our club's website. Happy Blogging!

Peter Benson v Duncan Roy

Yes folks, I'm so pleased to have got a draw against Peter Benson in a Challenge Shield match today that I'm blogging the game. Please note that you won't be able to see this game if you are viewing it from inside the club website: you have to view the blog on a separate page...

Buy my chess stuff

I'd like to claim that the selling of all my property on eBay is for purely spiritual reasons - me turning Zen on y'all an' that - but the truth is that it is also motivated by financial reasons and practicalities.

For those of you who would like to chance to buy my chess stuff or the just plain nosey, I'm auctioning everything via this page:

http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/mr_duncan_roy/

There's a couple of chess books there already. I'm trying to put everything on a seven day auction. I expect that by the middle of next month everything I own but don't absolutely need (gotta say that or else some smart arse will ask why I am still wearing my trousers) will either listed for sale or sold.

Haste ye Back

Does anyone know when the Hastings Weekend Congress is this year? If it is the first weekend of the year, I doubt very much whether I will bother to go because that would mean playing the first match a couple of hours after finishing the night before...

London Chess Classic 2010 Dec 8th-15th

I know it is a long way off, but I do recommend attending this event if you can. Sue and I had a really good day there last year (this was my glowing report http://brightonchess.blogspot.com/2009/12/london-chess-classic.html) . To make things more exciting there is a change to the line-up this year, instead of Ni Hua will be the World Champ himself, 'Vishy' Anand! So the line-up is Anand, Kramnik, Carlsen, Nakamura, Adams, Short, Howell, McShane; as a British chess fan I don't honestly think one could wish for more, excepting possible the inclusion of the GingerGM ;-)

More details in the press release here:
http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/anand-carlsen-kramnik-in-london-chess-classic/

Brighton and Hove wins McArthur Cup second year in a row!

For those who haven't yet seen the Match Reports Blog, Brighton and Hove have retained the McArthur Cup with a 3½- 2½ win against .... hmmm .... not sure exactly, can you enlighten us further Paul? Hastings and St. Leonards by any chance? Anyway, well done!!

PS Paul has confirmed that, as last year, their old adversary Hastings and St. Leonards were indeed the defeated finalists. Thank you, Paul.

Yep, seeing all the updates here too. Thanks Duncan.

Denman Cup Chart

Simon, just checked at this end and it looks okay to me. I presume that you did refresh your page? What is your ISP?

Competition Charts

Thanks for doing these Kevin.

Duncan - The Denman Cup chart appears to have failed to update.

Thanks for doing the others.

Percentages PlayedDenman Cup: 61%Eric Cohen Cup: 73%Plummer Knight: 56%Challenge Shield: 45%Club Championship: 27%

Thanks to Kevin Gee, our tournament controller, we have updated competition charts which are now online. We're now less than two months away from the closing date of the competitions.

Buster GM

4th Weald Chess Congress 2010

Jonathan Tuck asked me to draw attention to the 4th Weald Chess Congress being held in Copthorne Prep School on 10th - 11th July. I have some entry forms for the notice board.

Match against Dieppe 25th September

Olivier has emailed with the names of the Dieppe team for September - there are fifteen names - so the eight people currently on the Brighton and Hove list are definitely in the team. Seven members of our team are still being sort so please contact me if you want to play.

PS Simon is also on the list. Still six places left. (Duncan please can you add Simon? Ta.)

MSCL AGM last night

A productive AGM was held in Uckfield last night. Brighton and Hove were represented by Paul Selby, Simon Hayward and myself. (We could have had more but numbers generally were down on last year. Did some one mention football?) For a quick summary of what was passed and what wasn't see the MSCL website.

A note this morning from John Herbert of Hastings and St. Leonards reads:

I was disappointed that no concession was made to Hastings last evening.I would like to suggest that all Clubs be asked whether, irrespective of a hitherto unwrritten Rule, they would be willing for their teams to play Away fixtures v Hastings at Hastings. The response may be sufficient to keep Hastings in the MSL at least for another season.
I have not forgotten Bexhill, but at the moment Hastings is the big issue.

Perhaps league players would like to consider this one? We would obviously like to take your views into account when the committee considers our response. (It was pointed out at last night's meeting that the road to Hastings has been vastly improved in recent years.)

Dieppe Match web page

I've updated the page for International Matches (under the News & Events menu tab), so that it has an up to date list of applicants for the team and links to the Dieppe Chess Club website, the original page and a translation of it. When will the team be announced Sue? It would be good to know when we'll know by sure whether we get into the team.

US Championship

The US championship is coming to a close with a last round showdown today between Gata Kamsky and Yuri Shulman , these two players are a point ahead of the field.

Current champ Hikaru Nakamura yesterday lost his chance to remain in contention after going down to a killer move from Shulman. The position shown is from this game just before the axe fell. After being checked white has just played his king to h1, can you find the tactic for black?

Nakamura - Shulman, 2010 US Championship, St. Louis.

Position after 26. Kh1

From your International Correspondent

Chessbase have published the first part of an interesting interview with Anand discussing who helped him prepare for his recent battle with Topalov. www.chessbase.com