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To all members of Edinburgh Chess Club,

Chess in the Park has restarted at Leith Links after the redevelopment of the Cafe at the Croft, near the former Bowling Greens.

Chess Edinburgh and Lothians are assisting the Community Cafe and the group that previously organised Chess in the Park at Leith Links.

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Chess in the Park every Sunday from 1 – 4 pm at the Croft, Leith Links.

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Easy disabled access, off street parking and toilets available.

Limited sets and clocks are available, in which you can bring your own.

A family friendly venue and players of all abilities welcomed.

Stay for as little or as long as you like in which it is free of charge.

Please advise anyone that may find this of interest.

Best wishes

David Stewart, President, Chess Edinburgh & Lothians

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Dear Challengers Players,

The uncontested winner for this year’s edition of the Challengers is…
Snorri Kristjansson !!

Congratulations!

Some other great displays and performances, with some major upsets.

I hope you enjoyed the tournament. Please send me your own comments and suggestions. I’ll be taking them in into account to organise the next season, hoping to improve the overall experience e.g.:

  • Start a bit earlier in the season;
  • Provide extra time to play during holiday seasons / school breaks;
  • Better system to communicate results and arrange matches;
  • Arrange 2x dates at the club for recommended play from the start;
  • More systematic updates to the site;
  • More frequent updates for live rating!

Please add your own in the comments below!

Cheers to all, and see you around!

Andre Antunes, Tournament Organiser

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Club Blitz 2024 Championship
The end of season blitz tournament was again ably run by Andre on Tuesday 18th June over 10 rounds.

William Bennett being congratulated by everyone after winning!

The competition was contested by 19 players with the trophy (to be formally presented at the AGM in September) finally being won by recently returned club member (and Club Medallist in past years) William Bennett who achieved a score of 9/10.

William vs Ivar

William was closely chased into second place by Andre with a score of 8.5/10 and Graham took 3rd place from Findlay on a tie-break with both scoring of 7/10.

Andre vs Graham

A great time was had by all – an excellent evening.

The Edinburgh and Lothians leagues have recently been completed for the season, and our teams’ results were as follows.

Premier

Our 1st team relinquished their oft-held title to Edinburgh West 1, and finished 2nd, just a point behind.

Division 1

This year we had three of the six teams in this division and they finished in the top three places. The 2nd team won decisively with a perfect match score of 20/20, while the 4th team were second on 10/20, and the 3rd team a point further back. Well done to all.

Division 2

Having only been promoted from Div 3 last year, our 5th team secured a very fine 3rd place in this division, behind the winners Wandering Dragons 2, and runners up Corstorphine 1.

Division 3

Tiger Cubs inevitably varies in strength from one year to the next so it was no surprise that having won this division last year, they finished in 9th place this time. Many of their matches were very close and could easily have gone the other way and seen them finish higher.

We ran a 6th team for the first time this year, and for many of them it was their first taste of league chess, so it was no disgrace to finish in last place. Valuable lessons will have been learned and they can look forward to building on their experience for next year.

As part of its drive to support the take up of chess by women and girls, the club was pleased to host another She Plays To Win (SPTW) event in conjunction with International Master Lorin D’Costa during the February half-term. The event was made up of two 5 round Swiss-paired tournaments: one for FIDE rated players and one for Chess Scotland (CS) rated players. David Deary was Chief Arbiter and general support was provided by Jenny Wilson and Ian Whittaker.

Support was also provided by Chess Scotland.

Jenny kindly provided this event report:

Going into the fifth and final round of the FIDE rated She Plays to Win Invitational tournament at Edinburgh Chess Club on Wednesday, four of the eight players were on 2.5 out of five, making for an interesting pairing. The young women playing were all of a very similar rating and there had been many draws in the earlier rounds.

The computer decided that none of the joint leaders would be paired with each other, so there were many result combinations that could lead to a tie for first place. In the end Florence was the only one of the four to win her game and so was clear in the top spot. There was a tie for second place between Angharad and the unbeaten Elyzabeta, but Angharad had a better tiebreak so received the second place trophy.

 

In the CS graded section Shirya took first place with half a point lead over Maggie, and Melinda was a point behind her in third place.

Not only did the players have the opportunity to go through their own games with IM Lorin D’Costa, they could sit in on his analysis of the other games too. Despite the intense rivalry across the board the atmosphere of the tournament was friendly and supportive. There were players from primary and secondary school, University and beyond, and several different countries represented.


All the games from both sections are available to download

She Plays To Win is a UK Girls Chess Project to try and encourage more girls to participate and learn chess in a fun environment. SPTW is run by the current England International Women’s Chess Coach Lorin D’Costa who has successfully been coaching girls’ chess nationally and internationally for over 11 years.

[Pictures by Jenny Wilson and Ian Whittaker]