Club member Geoff, intrepid journalist and chess-patzer, never turns down the opportunity to mix a pint and chess by interviewing actor, comedian and fellow chess-patzer Kevin James Doyle for Chess Magazine when Kevin appeared in the Fringe!
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.
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]
Dear Club Member
First of all, another success to report. Last weekend the club defeated Edinburgh West 6-2 in the final of the Richardson Cup, Scotland’s premier team competition.
Activity over the next few months:
Best wishes,
Neil, President
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.
Following up on the previous post here are the final placings and a short summary by Alan Scrimgour.
Scotland finished in 23rd position out of 42 teams, winning 4 matches and losing 5.
The players’ score were:
| Peter Jamieson | 4½/7 |
| Alastair White | 2/6 |
| Alan Scrimgour | 2½/7 |
| David Levy | 3½/7 |
| Raj Bhopal | 6½/8 |
It was good to finish with a win after a hard competition.
We all agreed that the tournament had been well run with friendly and
efficient arbiters in a spacious playing hall, the hotel was excellent and
Dresden an excellent location with many cultural attractions that would
make for a good city break destination.
Full report: www.chessscotland.com/news/european-seniors-dresden-2022/
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.