All posts by Ian Whittaker

OMEN’S INTERNATIONAL NORM TOURNAMENT

Wednesday 15th To Sunday 19th February 2023

As part of its bicentenary celebrations Edinburgh Chess Club is hosting the “She Plays To Win” (SPTW) chess tournament, being organised by International Master Lorin D’Costa, promoting the attainment of Woman International Master (WIM) norms.

This is an invitational 10 player WIM all-play-all (double rounds at 10am and 3pm with on Sunday one final game). There is a stellar international competitors list:

Edinburgh based Grand Master Ketevan (Keti) Arakhamia-Grant, is one of Scotland’s leading players having participated in eleven chess Olympiads representing first USSR, then Georgia and finally Scotland and who has won the Scottish Open Championship 3 times.

Two of Slovakia’s top women players: Woman International Master (WIM) Svetlana Sucikova, currently undertaking her research work in Scotland, and Woman FIDE Master (WFM) Monika Rojickova.

Luxembourg WIM chess player, chess YouTube streamer and commentator Fiona Steil-Antoni

Dutch WFM Maaike Keetman, who is also vice president of content (and author!) for Chessable

A strong contingent of English players including WFM and English Women’s Chess Champion (in 2017, 2019 and 2021) Louise Head, who is currently undertaking her doctorate at Edinburgh University, along with Kamila Hryshchenko, who was part of the GB team at the World Congress of Chess Composition 2022 in Fujairah, and Woman Candidate Master (WCM) Zoe Varney, who was the English U20 Woman Champion in 2019.

From Andorra WFM Andrea Henderson De La Fuente is competing

Last but not least is Suzie Cooke who is also one of Scotland’s top players and who represented Scotland at the recent Olympiads in Chennai.

A FIDE all-play-all Challengers event is also being run in parallel with players from England, India and Scotland.  Arbiters are International Arbiter Alex McFarlane and FIDE Arbiter David Clayton.

The event is also being supported by Chess Scotland.

SPTW 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.

s part of its bicentenary celebrations Edinburgh Chess Club hosted a Schaakstad Apeldoorn team from the Netherlands over the weekend of July 15 to 17th, 2022. 

The visitors had a very strong 10-man team, led by Team Captain IM Merijn van Delft, which included 2x IMs and 2x FMs!

We held a Blitz tournament on the Friday evening and then a 10-board match between an Edinburgh Club team and the Apeldoorn Schaakstad Club team on Saturday afternoon followed by dinner.

Altogether there were 27 players in Friday’s Blitz (3 minutes plus 2 seconds per move) with most players managing between 8 and 11 games in the evening.

The visitors were on fire with IM Merijn van Delft scoring 10/11 so he was declared the winner followed closely in second place by IM Nico Zwirs with 8/9. Highest scoring Edinburgh player was Willie Rutherford on 7.5/9.

The 10 board match (1.5 hours each per game plus 30 second increments per move) on Saturday was closely fought with the Edinburgh club eventually narrowly winning by the close margin of 5.5 to 4.5

The event was sponsored by Broadex Technologies with Edinburgh Napier University Conference & Events providing a sponsorship discount for the visiting team’s accommodation.

Broadex is a high-tech company with an engineering team and production facility in Livingston Scotland and headquartered in China.

replay of the original Edinburgh vs London correspondence chess match started last month (June 2022) over 42 boards inspired by the famous Edinburgh – London correspondence match from 1824.

Things are being done a little differently this time! Moves are being made online, and we are playing individually against a London side using the ICCF web server. The CC match is running from 2022 (the bicentenary of the club’s formation) through to 2024 (200 years since the original CC match started) with a standard CC time control of 10 days for 50 moves and allowing the use of computers. On each board we are competing against our opponent twice i.e. as white and black.

Both teams have fielded strong squads with representatives from both the OTB and CC worlds. For Edinburgh Club we are being led by two Scottish Champions and FM’s: Club President Neil Berry is on board one vs SIM Clive Frostick and Graham Morrison is taking up the following three boards playing against IM Jo Wharrier, SIM John Rhodes and GM John Brookes respectively!

Further down the board list we have players such as the current Scottish Correspondence Chess Champion CCM Al Buchan, CCM Peter Bennett and past ICCF President IM Alan Borwell. We are also delighted that a guest player for the club is chess historian SIM Tim Harding who has utilised the club’s archives for his work in the past.

The London team is being captained by Phil Beckett (who has been described as one of the “unsung heroes” of British Correspondence Chess – see Austin Lockwood’s bio on welshccf.org.uk) and amongst other things he currently acts as International Secretary and British Championship TD for the EFCC and also runs the Handicap Tourney for the BCCA.

The Edinburgh team captain Andre Antunes was pleased to report last week:

“We’re now 2 weeks into the match, and we already have some initial results! That’s incredibly fast for correspondence chess.

James Addison won both his games against Joyce Evans, and I also won one game against David Elwood, making the current score 3-0 in our favour. Still a lot to play, but definitely a good start!”

The club is very grateful for the assistance of Gordon Anderson (International Secretary, Treasurer and ICCF delegate at the SCCA) for helping to organise the event on the ICCF server and to Phil Beckett for arranging the London team.

For the full team list and current results see iccf.com.

We are delighted to give advance notice of some events being organised in the run up to Edinburgh Chess Club’s bicentenary in November:

Schaakstad Apeldoorn

Weekend 15th-17th July 2022: One of the Netherland’s top team, Schaakstad Apeldoorn (www.schaakstad-apeldoorn.nl), is visiting Edinburgh for a chess weekend.  We are planning to hold a Rapid Event on the Friday evening followed by a match against the Edinburgh Club’s team on Saturday afternoon.

She Plays To Win with IM Lorin D’Costa

Saturday 3rd & Sunday 4th September 2022: Edinburgh Chess Club, along with International Master Lorin D’Costa (from “She Plays To Win”), is planning to hold a chess weekend in support of women and girls in chess.  We’re running a number of events at the club’s premises over the weekend including: scheduled training sessions for both beginners and experts, 5-round female-only tournament(s) (15 mins each on the clock), simultaneous displays with Lorin and other chess experts.  Attendance can be for one day or both days.

Scotland Civic Trust’s Door Open Days

Saturday 24th & Sunday 25th September 2022: As part of its bicentenary celebrations Edinburgh Chess Club is joining Doors Open Days which is Scotland’s largest free festival that celebrates places, history, and culture.  The general public will be offered access to the club celebrating its history with displays from its library and archives.

Chess plus Simultaneous Display by GM Paul Motwani

Saturday 29th October 2022: Grand Master Paul Motwani, Scotland’s first GM, is delighted to present a great day of chess for juniors and adults alike including a simultaneous display.   Through his games, puzzles and books Paul is admired for making chess more easily accessible for thousands of adults and children.

In all cases further details with be announced in due course on the club’s web site

Ian Whittaker, Curator

On Saturday evening the club played a return match against the Mechanics Institute of San Francisco played over 10 boards on chess.com (2 games on each board: 15 minutes for the game with 2 second move increments) .

The game was broadcast (and recorded) on Twitch with commentary by a great line up made of GM Nick de Firmian, FM Paul Whitehead, WCM Allyson Wong along with MI’s Chess Director Abel Talamantez and MI’s General Manager Dr Judit Sztaray.

We lost 14-6 in the end against a strong side, but managed some good performances. The top two boards ended equal with FM Neil drawing both his games on top board against IM Josiah Stearman whilst Adam deserves special mention for winning one game against GM Patrick Wolff. Berislav managed half a point versus IM Elliott Winslow. Ian held US National Master Mike Walder to a draw in their first game but whilst fighting hard in their second game got into time trouble and lost defending an opposite bishops endgame.

Some games from the match, annotated by GM Nick de Firmian, are in MI’s recent newsletter.

Message from Abel and the Mechanics’ Chess Team:

Hi Neil,

We wanted to give thanks to you and your team for helping organize the club match. It is great to have this kind of positive interaction between our clubs and communities, and we look forward to continuing to engage and collaborate in the future.

Edinburgh’s Team:

Neil Berry (thebalernobull)
Adam Bremner (AllStarShark)
Berislav Marusic (Sunshine1978)
Henk Bulthuis (henkbu)
Ian Whittaker (scotsgeek)
AJ Rushing (anacampserote)
Calum McGillivray (Penguin89C)
Ross Blackford (Ragnar006)
Robert Kane (fiercebadger)
Ian Johnston (SplashLeChat)

Full results can be found here on Chess.com.