CONGRESS REPORT
80 Entries at the final count with 56 in the Championship and 24 in the Challengers.
This enabled us to add two extra prizes of an additional £40 rating prize in the Championship and a fourth place prize of £40 in the Challengers.
The Challengers was won by 7 year old Krish Keshari with a perfect score of 6/6. He had travelled all the way from Reading and I think he said he was going to give some of his winnings to his dad for petrol money but I can't be sure.
Jon Armory from Tunbridge Wells flew the flag for the Adults and came second equal with Louis Buckland on a score of 5/6. Fourth place on very creditable scores of 4/6 was shared by our very own Lucy Hopkirk and Benjamin Pearce with another well known player from our Zoom days of Aidan Burnside of East Grinstead Bookshop and a new player to over the board chess Pujan Soni from Eastbourne.
We also issued commemorative Crowborough Medals to all the juniors competing in their very first Adult tournament.
The Championship was graced with a very strong field including reigning Champion David Norton and a strong contingent from Worthing of Russell Granat and Dave Graham as well as the British Under 14 Champion Arjun Kolani and regular winner of many Sussex Junior events Mohammed Ismail to name just a few.
It wasn't easy for Russell Granat but with 6 wins on the bounce he claimed the Joe Berberich Trophy from in Second place on 5/6 David Norton and Mohammed Ismail.
In the race for the Albany Cup presented to the best score by a Crowborough Club Player, Jon Lawrance the first winner in 1987 and last winner in 2019 scored 4/6 but was pipped to the post this year by our current 1st Team Board One Arjun Kolani.
The Veteran Prize was shared between regular competitor Paul Kelly of Hastings and John Bennett of Streatham while the Under 16 prize was shared between Arjun Kolani and Ted Filby.
There were some great performances by players to win their respective rating sections as well as others who achieved some personal best performances.
All the Prize Winners can be seen from the above link and from the detailed results Column D shows the average rating of the players opponents and Column F shows the difference between their score and expected score so for example Toby Appleton score a magical 1.91 points more than was expected and Oliver Stockham was 1.63 higher than expected. For unrated players new to chess column F shows their tournament performance. All results are submitted to the English Chess Federation and these results should be reflected in the March ratings.
Finally the Easter Eggs for Best Club performance was claimed by Bexhill with a team mostly consisting of the Merchant family who entered four players.
Total Prize
Fund
£775.00
SPONSORED BY WEALDEN DISTRICT
COUNCIL
Thanks as always goes to the organisers and helpers from Crowborough Chess Club who are all volunteers.
Special thanks to Keith and Thomas who manned the refreshments downstairs and Gill who ran the Registration Desk. Also to Jonathan as Tournament Controller and Arbiter even though in has latter role after an illegal move he managed to add two hours to one persons clock instead of two minutes. Myself and Catherine managed the pairings and thanks to everyone who helped clear up at the end. Finally with the Community Centre we could not ask for a better venue and great help from their team of Steve, Suzanna and Julie.
DAVID FRYER
