Press Report 28th January 2024
This month’s internal Homan league saw 13 games played bringing the season total to 72 games. The top 4 players, Steve Levy, David Archer, Cathy Black and Phil McConnell, proceed to two semi-finals, played over two legs, with the semi winners reaching the grand finale. Good luck to all.
In our internal “Cookworthy” knockout trophy semi-finals, Steve Levy prevailed over David Archer, whilst the second semi-final, between Tony Tatam and Phil McConnell, proved to be a marathon of two draws, followed by a tightly fought decider in which Tony finally prevailed. The game came down to a single “blunder” with Phil mis-handling an attack on his Queen, leading to mate in two. (Full analysis at https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/pgn/3y4ysW5qCA?tab=analysis).
Our Cookworthy trophy is named after William Cookworthy (1705 – 1780), a Quaker Minister, successful pharmacist and an innovator in technology. He was the first Britain to discover how to make hard-paste porcelain, similar to that imported from China. William was offered a no cost apprenticeship, by the Bevan Brothers, two Quaker apothecaries, with a successful business in London. As the family had no spare money. William walked from Kingsbridge to London to take up the offer.
The first meeting of the two-game Cookworthy final, was a game of two halves. In the first half, “Steve dominated the game using his experience & skill”, in the second half “Steve used his skill & experience to dominate the game”.
For the Torbay Chess Leagues…
Our Division 1 team had a draw against Newton Abbot (N.A.) away, followed by a loss at home, leaving N.A 2nd overall with Totnes 1st and South Hams joint 3rd.
Our Division 4 team beat N.A 4:0 securing the Division 4 title. /p>
In the rapid play tournament South Hams prevailed over Totnes, winning the contest 5½ to 1 to secure the competition trophy.
On 2nd May we played Plymouth in the TCL knockout “White Knights” tournament. A great evening at the Regal, with six closely-contested games. After wins by Steve on Board 1 and Lance on Board 6, with Cathy and Phil drawing on Boards 2 and 3, the score was 3-1 to South Hams, but with the situation not looking good on the remaining two boards. What would happen if the score ended up 3-3? We couldn't consult the TCL Comp Sec, Tony Tatam, as he was playing on board 5 for Plymouth. Fortunately, the Plymouth team had another arbiter in the form of Graham Mill-Wilson, who confirmed that South Hams would win on a tie-break mechanism known as "board count". For each team you add up the winning board numbers to give a "board count". The team with the lower board count is the winner. With South Hams board count on 7 (6+1) and Plymouth's anticipate as 9 (5+4), South Hams were able to celebrate victory (quietly!) while the last two games complete with Plymouth (as expected) winning both. A special mention to Lance Howarth, who beat an opponent ranked 265 rating points above him - a great win without which we would have been defeated.
This gave South Hams three titles of the 4 four they contested, what a year !
Last Thursday, prospective new member Natalie joined us at the Regal. Natalie explained she isn’t very experienced and is only just getting into chess, having played a few “bots” on chess.com. South Hams all-star, Cathy Black, kindly agreed to give Natalie some coaching. As they started to play Natalie was heard saying, “I can only play as white!”. However, this was completely overshadowed by one of established members having a senior moment asking, “Can you castle our of check?”. Do worry, as requested, we won’t mention your name Alan.
As we all know, no you cannot castle “out” of check, nor “into” check, or indeed “through” check, nor as it happens if either piece involved (King or Rook) has already moved.
Dates have been set for the Evening and All-day summer Jamborees, where South Hams club members and invited local players meet at a members’ house in Dartmouth, to enjoy a few games of rapid play, with fish & chips for lunch. What a day!
In other South Devon chess.
At the inaugural Bovey Tracey chess weekender, controversy broke out during the lunch break quiz at the first question of “how many squares are on a chess board?”. Was it 84 as was initially judged, or 204 as decided on appeal? To keep proceedings cordial both answers were awarded a point. Let’s all hope this event goes from strength to strength.
Two fast chess events where held by Devon County Chess Association (DCCA) at the American Hall in Exeter. The morning consisted of an individual Blitz tournament, 7 rounds of 5 minutes for all moves, plus 3 second increments after each move. The afternoon was a team competition, 6 rounds of 10 minutes with an additional 3 seconds after each move. South Hams’ Ben Wilkinson and Trevor Hurt paired up with Tim Fox and Hazel Welch from Seaton to form a 4 man team. Trevor was our only representative at the recent East Devon congress at Exeter’s Corn Exchange. He went on to win 4 games out of 5, and came joint 3rd. His prize money was a slight increase over the £35 cost of entry. One player, Seaton's afore mentioned Tim Fox was so distracted by having to pay £18 parking for the day, he couldn’t relax and so lost the first game due to lack of focus. An all day breakfast at Wetherspoons fortunately calmed him down for the afternoon session.
And finally, this week, as I was on the local beach playing chess against Sparky, my pet Jack Russell, a lady approached and said how clever my dog was. I told her not to be so impressed, it wasn't that clever, I was winning 3 games to 1!
Anyone wanting further information about the club check out our website at www.southhamschessclub.com or ring Phil McConnell on 01803834135.
The club meets every Thursday at the Regal Club, Kingsbridge at 7pm. We will shortly be having our summer break, the club will re commence in September.