Beckenham & Bromley Chess Club 7-Round Blitz Tournament on 8 May 2024

Details: Beckenham & Bromley Chess Club will be holding a 7-round blitz tournament open to all comers at 7.15pm on 8 May 2024.


Venue: The Parklangley Club, 44A Wickham Way, Beckenham BR3 3AF. We have a spacious, light room on the first floor with access to the Parklangley bar and catering.


Time Control: 7 minutes + 3 seconds a move from move 1. This should ensure the tournament finishes around 10.00pm.


Entry Fees
(a) Beckenham & Bromley Chess Club Members – free.
(b) Petts Wood and Lewisham members – £4
(c) Others – £6

Prizes
1st – £50
2nd – £20
U1800 – £20


Rating: The tournament will not be rated by FIDE but will be rated by the ECF (free to bronze and above members).


Entry Procedure: Please:
(a) Pay the appropriate fee directly to:
Beckenham & Bromley Chess Club
Sort Code: 30-91-35
Account No: 03370405
(b) Notify the organiser by email – ian@ianlsnape.myzen.co.uk
Entries close at midday on 7 May 2024.
Entries after this time will not be accepted.

Captain’s report: B&B 5 vs Gravesend 3

It’s been a while since I wrote a report on a Beckenham and Bromley team match.

However, this week’s visit to Gravesend for team 5 in the Harvey was special.

The team’s previous top boards – Eoin Moore and Alan Sands – were unavailable, the latter due to his upgrading following a string of sparkling results. Ehsan and Yash couldn’t make it.

Fortunately Andy Dovey and John McKenna – starting their playing seasons late – were prepared to brave Gravesend. I was able to add Ian Mills, Tony Foreman, Nick Glanvile, and myself for the six boards.

Now the pattern of the Gravesend 3 team had been to play four strong top boards and meet the grade qualification with two lesser grades on 5 and 6.

Last Tuesday, they followed the same pattern and our strategy for victory was to win the bottom two boards and hope that we got enough from the top 4 to see us over the line.

Marina – their top board – has lost only one game in ten matches but was the first to accept a draw as Andy secured the first half-point of the evening.

Tony won convincingly.

My own game – nothing but defence for me for over two hours eventually reached a real drawn position to my great relief.

John and Nick agreed draws with an advantage if anything.

Ian Mills with two minutes on the clock was battling with a queen and a rook up but an opponent who did not resign and was duly mated.

Amazingly, the strategy had more than worked. With four considerable grade deficits, we could not have expected the 4-2 victory that keeps us top of the league.

That is a team performance. Very grateful thanks for playing.

Match card: https://ecflms.org.uk/lms/league_fixture/203536

(Martin Newman)

Happy Holidays

Although the “Banana” gambit was widely considered unsound by most serious players, its popularity persisted for many years in some of the most exclusive gentlemen’s clubs.

This treasured photograph from the ’60s shows Master K. Ayers playing his arch-adversary and illustrates the complicated positions the Banana can give rise to.

Wishing all members of our own chess club a very happy time at Christmas!

(Martin Newman)

4NCL Online season 8 wrap up

Last night season 8 of 4NCL came to an end with exceptional results for our teams:

In division 4, Beckenham finished second in their group, won the semifinal match and drew the final one. We’ve been placed second following the board count tiebreak. That means Beckenham gets promoted to division 3 undefeated this season, scoring +5,=4!

https://www.4nclresults.co.uk/2023-24/media/online/8th/prog-div4.html

In division 5, it was a tale of two teams: Bromley did quite well and finished joint 3rd (4th after the tiebreak) with +4, =2, -1 and clinching the promotion to division 4! West Wickham, on the other hand, had some fierce challenges to face and finished 27th out of 32 with +2, -5.

https://www.4nclresults.co.uk/2023-24/media/online/8th/prog-div5.html

I’d like to thank each and every one of you who took part in the teams, please take a deserved break and I hope to see you back in action for the new season, starting on 23rd January 2024!

4NCL Online season 8 – Call for participants!

The 4NCL Online season 8 is due to start in September 2023 and you’re invited to participate in one of the 4-board teams representing our club. Beckenham is playing in division 4 this season and Bromley and West Wickham, in division 5.

The competition is a 7-round tournament with the potential for playing semi-final and final rounds at the end of the season (for division 4 only). The dates are as follows:

RoundSeason 7
112-Sep
226-Sep
310-Oct
424-Oct
57-Nov
621-Nov
75-Dec
SF12-Dec
F19-Dec

The games are played on Lichess platform at 7:30pm, the time control is 45 minutes with 15 seconds increment from move 1. he games are valid for ECF Online grading. All the rules can be found here: https://www.4ncl.co.uk/data/onlines6/4ncl_online_rules.pdf

There is no registration fee for B&B 2023-2024 members. If you’re interested in playing for one of the teams, send your Lichess handle to Rudy Padovan by 31st August.

Beckenham v Bromley – It’s a tie!

We had 22 players which is a record. Some Beckenham players had to play for Bromley because of uneven numbers. In spite of every single board rating being in favour of Beckenham, the match ended as a draw which was very pleasing. It was played in a very good spirit.

Thanks are due to all those who helped to set it all up and also put it all away afterwards. 

Results in full here.

Malcolm Mourant

John Duggan wins the Holloway Trophy (Rose Bowl) 2023

John Duggan got to keep the Rose Bowl for another year after a 12-0 sweep. But it was not without challenges. With the handicap system in place, he stood up to the daunting 1.5  vs 8.5 min situation.

There were 3 other games with this time control, matching rating extremes as far as 2167 vs 950. 29 players engaged in 107 games, with the time evenly split in only 26 of them.

Ian Snape, Sam Barlerin, Arthur Gray, Conrad Allison, and Evaldas Baltrunas also made it to the final stage.

Congratulations to John and all that participated.

Al Martins

A big thank you to Al for organising it and developing a system that could accurately build the pairings and, most important, the handicap time split in a swiftly manner!

Beckenham and Bromley 3 wins the En Passant Cup Finals

Our club name is going to be inscribed once again in the En Passant Cup following our triumphs both by 4-2 in the Semifinals (against Maidstone) and the Finals (against Weald of Kent):

https://ecflms.org.uk/lms/node/141388
https://ecflms.org.uk/lms/node/142207

I’d like to thank each and everyone who played for the team this season, in order of number of appearances: Roy Batchelor, Steve Madden, Arthur Gray, Sam Barlerin, John Lewin, Adrian Davey, Robin East, Nick Glanvile, Neil Lang, Callum Hayes, Martin Smith, Evaldas Baltrunas, Yash Shankar, Chris Bernard, John McKenna, Danny Loughnane, and Henry Smith.

I hope you had great fun and are willing to battle to defend our title next season!

Beckenham and Bromley Blitz results

There were no players in the 1750 to 2050 rating band reflecting the Stevenson Semi Final match being scheduled on the same night. Nevertheless, 26 players participated.

The results were:

1st Ian Snape 7/7 (Prize £50).

2nd Jean-Baptiste Jugand 5 and Sonneborn-Berger tie break of 20 (Prize £20).

3rd Anthony Langley 5 and Sonneborn-Berger tie break of 18

4th Mark Smith 5 and Sonneborn-Berger tie break of 15

5th David Rogers 5 and Sonneborn-Berger tie break of 10.5

Best U1800 Anthony Langley (Prize £20).

However, the heroes on the night were the:

(a)    Arbiter, Ryan Foster, who, after the pairing software crashed in round 2 did the pairings for the last 6 rounds manually under great stress; and

(b)    Players who wore the delay in round 2 with good grace and were fantastic at the end (delayed to 11.00pm) helping to clear away very quickly.

Ian Snape

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