Armenia were the winners of the 20008 chess olympiad click here for news, Israel got the silver and the USA were third. Georgia won the women's event.
John Blore won the tournament on tie-break, after finishing equal with Chris Doran. It was played at the Town Crier by Chester railway station on 2008.11.08 and 2008.11.09.
Grandmaster Jan Werle of Holland was the winner of the European Union individual championship which finished 2008.09.18 in Liverpool. Click here for official website, and Click here for round by round reports.
Chris Doran of Chester chess club was involved in the big shock of round 1 when he beat an eastern European grandmaster, click here for the game, Click here for round 1 report. In round 9 the young Scottish girl Ali Roy, who is rated well below 2000 was playing Vytautas Vaznonis of Lithuania, who is a 2400 plus player. She was on the back foot for much of the game but eventually held on for an unbelievable draw. For Caergwrle Dave Bennion scored 4½/10 and John Gorman got 3½/10, the two met in round 6 when John converted a small advantage in the endgame to win, click here for game. John thus defeated his Chester league captain, and I will have to remember this the next time I select the team.
Grandmaster Aleksandria Kosteniuk is the women's world champion for 2008 after defeating Hou Yifan 2-½-1½ in the final. She beat Pia Cramling in the semi-final, Humpy Koneru was the other losing semi-finalist, click here for official website.
The British Championship was played in Liverpool from Sunday 2008.07.27 to Saturday 2008.08.09. Grandmaster Stuart Conquest was the winner who beat fellow grandmaster Keith Arkell in the play off after they had tied on 8/11, click here for official website. Keith is the honourary president of Caergwrle chess club, and did a simultaneous display at the Derby Arms a few years ago. Chester open champion Nigel Davies was among those finishing third, click here for his views on this. For a crosstable click here.
Steve Lloyd of Chester chess club won the under 125 tournament. Steve is a Chester chess league official, he runs the league web site and the Chester club web site, he also writes match reports for the press and is the league grading officer. There are actually some things he does not do in the league, though it may not seem like it. Mike Friel and Dave Dickson of Caergwrle were also competing in the under 100 tournament.
After 6 rounds seven players lead with 4½/6 grandmasters Nigel Davies ex-Wrexham, Stuart Conquest, Danny Gormally Mark Hebden, Gawain Jones, Bogdan Lalic, and international master Lawrence Trent. Elliott Auckland has a rating of less than 2000 and has scored over fifty per cent, I would doubt that this has been done before.
After 2 rounds grandmaster Nigel Davies, the Chester open champion leads with 2/2. Paul Townsend, Mike Surtees and Oliver Jackson who played at Chester are also competing. Amazingly apart from Nigel Davies, only Stephen Gregory and Lawrence Trent have 2/2 after a lot of the top boards in round 2 drew.
Grandmaster Nigel Davies ex-Wrexham won the Chester chess congress run by Caergwrle chess club at the Cheshire View, Plough Lane, Christleton near Chester. He finished with 4/5 after drawing with Oliver Jackson in the final round, and also had a half point bye on the Saturday evening. Mike Surtees and Oliver Jackson came equal second with 3½/5, the grading prize was won by promising young player Martin Brown of Widnes.
Paul Evans was the winner of the under 160 tournament, as was the case last year, and Brandon Clarke won the under 130 with 5/5. Caergwrle's Steve Barnett was the co-winner of the under 100 with Joe Dilworth. Rhyl players Denis Harvey and John Simmons won prizes in their sections.
There were four Caergwrle players in the open, Bob Clark finished with 2½/5, after a win, two draws, a loss and a half point bye. Dave Bennion scored 2/5 after a win two draws and two losses. Neville Layhe and Dave Dickson had lost all their previous games and met in the last round, victory went to Dave Dickson. Mike Friel got a fifty per cent score in the under 100 as he did at Rhyl. Click here for a report on the 2007 tournament.
I do have the scores of the games from the tournament, which I hope to publish on the internet one day. I can promise you that, possibly after the Caergwrle chess club expedition to Jupiter.
The south Wales international is from 2008.07.05 until 2008.07.10 click here for official website.
The Rhyl tournament, north Wales' biggest event, took place 2008.05.16 to 2008.05.18. Paul Townsend won the open and the £300 first prize, equal second were Mike Surtees and ex-Caergwrle player Ian Campbell. Martin Burns of Stockport won the under 155 or major and £250, John Hunt who used to be the regular top board for Rhyl came second. Mike Lee of Colwyn Bay won the under 120 or minor and £200. Click here for scores from the 2008 tournament on Rhyl's website.
This was not a good tournament for the Caergwrle players, with Dick Martin, Dave Dickson and Wolfgang Lenze, all losing all four games. Mike Friel faired better winning two and losing two of his games.
Plovdiv, Bulgaria hosted the 2008 individual championships, click here for official website. Tiviakov is the European champion, England's Jones finished with 6/11 and Wells had 5½/11 in the main event in what was a very tough tournament. England's Jovanka Houska scored 7/11 in the women's event, after she had been only half a point off the lead. The young Ukrainian player Lahno won it, Jovanka was one point behind her going in to the last round. She lost her last round game in what was a disappointing end to a good tournament for her.
Leighton Williams and James Cobb were the co-winners of the 2008 Welsh championship played at Easter. For Caergwrle Dave Bennion lost to Leighton Williams in round 1 and Dave Jameson lost to him in round 7 the final round, suffering the same fate as some grandmasters. Click here for a report on the Welsh chess union website. Dave Bennion's round 5 game against Carl Davies appeared in the Daily Telegraph and Dave Jameson's game against Tom Brown has appeared in the British Chess Magazine.
The Wijk Aan Zee tournament, sponsored by Corus started 2008.01.11 and finished 2008.01.27. Click here for official website.
Dave Jameson was in Poland in December and in January he played in Gibraltar, we are not sure if he is still a British citizen, click here for official website. There has been a Chinese invasion this year with some very strong Chinese players playing. Dave scored 4/10 in the main event though performed better in the challegers 2 tournament, winning three losing one and also a half point bye, click here for details.
David Jameson has been playing in the European rapidplay individual championship in Warsaw, click here for official website. Dave scored 7/13 in what was a very large tournament. He will also be playing in Gibraltar beginning 2008.01.22, click here for a list of entrants. Dave plays for Caergwrle in the Wirral league but he will be captaining Colwyn Bay, Caergwrle's nearest rivals, when they meet on 2008.01.08. Click here for some of his games.
David Jameson won the wrexham rapidplay which took place Sunday 2007.12.02 at Gresford memorial hall.
The league individual championship took place 2007.11.10 to 2007.11.11
at the Town Crier opposite Chester railway station.
Jeff Smith established a new record by winning
it for the fourth time.
Thus beating, your webmaster's record of three wins,
why did you have to do that, Jeff?
Dave Jameson has also won it three times.
There is a report on the Chester website.
If you go to the Chester league website,
then go to links and then the Chester club site
you should find it,
click here,
to get to league site.
recent previous champions
2006 David Jameson Colwyn Bay
2005 Haydn Parry Buckley-Mold
2004 Jeff Smith Capenhurst
2003 Graham Bromley Chester
2002 Jeff Smith Capenhurst
2001 David Jameson Colwyn Bay
2000 David Jameson Colwyn Bay
1999 Tim Everrett Chester
1998 David Bennion Caergwrle
The European championship finished 2007.11.06 in Crete, Greece,
Russia finished first, Armenia second and Azerbaijan third.
In the women's event Russia came first followed by
Poland and Armenia.
Click here
for the official website.
Wales were 37th with +1=2-5, which about justified their seedimg.
England finished 16th with +4=2-3, Michael Adams
went through unbeaten, he had three wins, two in the last two rounds.
Charles Morris of Wrexham was playing for Wales,
he scored +2=0-4 and was the only Welsh player to improve his grade.
Tim Kett had a good couple of draws against 2400+ opposition,
click here
for the Welsh games.
Charles also runs
the South Wales Dragons in the national league, or 4NCL.
Your webmaster Dave Bennion plays in this,
as does Richard Dineley of Wrexham,
click here
for the official 4NCL website.
Vishy Anand has won the world championship
in Mexico City,
click here
for official website.
It was a 14 round tournament with 8 players
playing each other with black and white.
Click here
for the official website of the world championship qualifying tournament
which Michael Adams played in failing to qualify.
Dave Dickson, Mike Friel and John Sutcliffe have not won the world title in the Isle of Man. The tournament finished 2007.09.30 Dave Dickson played in the under 175 tournament and John Sutcliffe and Mike Friel played in the under 130, John Sutcliffe went through the tournament unbeaten, click here for their results.
In the main event there was a six way tie for first place, between Mateusz Bartel, Zahar Efimenko, Vitali Golod, Mikhail Kobalia, Michael Roiz and Yuri Yakovich, all with 6½. Click here for official website.
The Chinese team played a match against Great Britain finishing 2007.09.09 in Liverpool resulting in a 28-22 win for the Chinese. There was also an open tournament running alongside which Dave Jameson was competing in. He beat John Littlewood in the final round, most famous for almost beating Botvinnik in 1961. Click here for some information on him.
The British championship took place in Great Yarmouth,
the winner was Jacob Aagaard who is Danish and resident in Scotland.
It is believed that Stewart Haslinger will get his
Grandmaster title after this.
Click here
for how Caergwrle's John Sutcliffe did in the under 125 section.
Your webmaster, Dave Bennion has been away competing in the US open in Philadelphia, New Jersey, USA, scoring 5/9, incorrectly reported as 4/9. I started with two wins, then there was a rather bad run of five games without a win, and finished with two wins, scoring +4=2-3.
The Chester chess congress took place 2007.06.30 to 2007.07.01 at Cheshire View, Plough Lane, near Christleton near Chester, organised by Caergwrle chess club. The under 210 section was won by Mike Surtees from Bolton after he agreed a quick draw with Harry Lamb in the final round. This gave him a score of 4/5 giving him the first prize of £160 outright, equal second were Harry Lamb and A Khandelwal, with 3½/5. For scores on English website click here.
Paul Evans was the winner of the under 160 section with a score of 4½/5 winning by a clear point. He had four straight wins in the first four rounds and then a draw with your webmaster, Dave Bennion in the final round. There was a four way tie for second place on 3½ points between C Vassilou, Noel McLaughlin, R J Frith and Dave Bennion all receiving £30. E A Taylor was the winner of the under 130 with a score of 4½. Winner of the under 100 was Tom Clements the only one with a clean score of five out of five. Tom is from the 3Cs or Children's Chess Club.
Something did go wrong at the beginning of the tournament, the boards were numbered wrongly resulting in the first round starting late. Dave Welch was away organising the 4NCL (national league) rapidplay and so Peter Purland was chief Arbiter. There was a woman arbiter, Glenys South who is Peter Purland's sister, and she has previously controlled in tournaments mostly in the north west. The competitors had the unusual sight of a controller doing embroidery, not that I am trying to say there is anything wrong with embroidery.
North Wales' main tournament is Rhyl which was held from 2007.05.18 to 2007.05.20 at Rhyl Town Hall. Andrew Nicol Denis Harvey and Ian Lloyd ran it this year.
Caergwrle's results from the 2006 tournament:-
Dave Jameson open 3.0 5
Dave Dickson open 0.5 5
Neville Layhe minor 4.0 5
John Sutcliffe minor 3.5 5
Mike Friel minor 2.5 5
The Welsh Championships were held at Easter 2007.04.06 to 2007.04.09 held in the Vale hotel, Hensol, near Cardiff. Dave Bennion scored 3½/7 and Dave Jameson scored 3/6. Click here for a report on that.
Dave Jameson also played at Blackpool held 2007.03.16 to 2007.03.18 which describes itself as the biggest weekend tournament in Britain and has an internationally rated section. It was not one of Dave's better tournaments obtaining just one draw, click here for official website.
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