August 2004
- The Club tournament was won by Dave Smith
for the Second Year, whilst Fred Wellings gets the Participation Trophy.
Thanks to Malcolm for organising it.
July 2004
June 2004
- Ian Snape successfully defended his Rose Bowl handicap quickplay cup
as England were failing in their quest against Portugal. Not many attended,
understandably enough... Alan Sands was second, Andy Heard third.
- Meanwhile, David Sandham wins the Verney Cup with 22 points, followed by
Alan Sands on 18 and John Lewin on 17.
- Not since the merger of the Beckenham and Bromley clubs many years ago have
chess players from Bromley played those from Beckenham in a competitive match.
But a very successful 12-board rerun of what must have been a hard-fought local
rivalry was re-enacted on June 3rd thanks to the organisation
of Malcolm Mourant (arbiter), John Lewin (Bromley) and
Fred Wellings (Beckenham)
- Despite the grades being against them, Bromley were victors by
4½ - 6½. Wins by
Dave Smith, John Lewin, Alan Sands, Ron Hale and Jonathan Woodall
versus Beckenham wins from Andy Heard, Chris Bernard and
Sue Farrington. Full result card.
May 2004
And the Winner is....
Mark Ruston's Kent Second team win the Lewis Cup by
4½ - 1½ against Tunbridge Wells. Congratulations to everyone in the team!
League Team News
- London League first team just fail to promote - it wuz the defaults wot done it!
- Wins from Griffiths, Vleeshhouwer, Jones & Hale enough to beat
London Division 3 champions. Great result, not quite enough for promotion.
April 2004
Semi Finals Dissapointment
- Match report from the oppostion is
here. Well worth the visit.
- Stevenson team go out to Tonbridge
by 3½ - 2½.
Checkout their website though -
really fancy!
Why Play Chess?
- This interesting article appeared in the April
2004 edition of Chess magazine,
which is published by The London Chess Center
in Euston Road. Reproduced with permission.
- It asks why should anyone want to play chess, and particularly children who have such
a wide range of competing interests.
- Includes nice picture of Lara Croft in full battle dress!
Reviewed in NIC
- Chess Endings Made Simple, an excellent little book by Ian Snape
of this parish, was reviewed by Matthew Sadler in
New in Chess this month.
- Arguably the best book reviewer in the most respected chess magazine in the world,
Sadler commented that it "fitted the bill perfectly". I'm sure Ian's got a few
spare copies if you want your own copy.
Kent Results
- Three teams made it through to the semi-finals, Mark Ruston's Lewis team,
Ron Hale in the Stevenson, and Malcolm Mourant in the En Passant.
Good luck guys!
March 2004
Online Chess
- There are two forms of online chess. In one, you play the game in real time,
almost as though you were facing an opponent over the board. In the other, you
play like a correspondence game: the games are played on the server, but you
play in your own time. So, you make a move when you login, and your
opponent replies when he logs in. The time limit is usually about a week
maximum between moves, but most people make at least one move once a day.
- One very good server for this kind of chess is
letsplaychess.com, based in Barnet chess
club, apparently. It's free to use, but for a tenner a year, the extras are well worth
the money.
February 2004
January 2004
B-File, Edition One
- January 1996 saw the first edition of B-File, the "Beckenham & Bromley
Chess Club Magazine". I was new to the club and bought a copy of this really well
turned out magazine. It turned up a while ago during a clear-out chez moi.
- B-File was produced by the much-talented Graham Wilson (where he?),
and includes 16 A4 pages describing the club, its members, editorials and, well,
see for yourself!
- Get B-File Edition One in
html
(1.8 Mb) or as a
pdf
(3.5 Mb, but easier to save).
- We're still looking for Edition Two ...
November 2003
Don't Get Too Excited!
- It's the Club Constitution.
Study Group Session Number Two UPDATED!!!
- Here's David Sandham's introduction
to what promises to be a very interesting event. Diagrams to browse as well.
New Members
- We are always pleased when new members join us, so a warm welcome to
Douglas Legg, Jonathan Woodall, Neil Cannon & Miguel Jimenez.
Leaving us are Jaideep unudurti, who returns to India, Bryan Cambray
- work committments; and Chris Bliss-Jones, who's doing a University
evening class.
Exciting Features of London League Rules
- The FIDE Laws of chess
tell you lots of stuff that you probably don't need to know, but the
BCF Rules for Rapidplay are just as important. Here's a
a few selected extracts.
- The time to make a sealed move is 15-minutes
(penalty: loss of game - and quite right too, or the bar will be closed!).
October 2003
Study Group, Meeting Report by David Sandham
- The first session of the Beckenham Chess Club Study Group met on October 23
and was hailed as a great success by those who were there.
We discussed the game
Reti-Alekhine, Baden Baden 1925,
a wonderfully imaginative and unexptected game.
There was so much to amaze at here that the whole evening was taken up with it,
with a hard core group of four or five, and others dropping
in and out through the evening. I'm sure we shall repeat the experiment.
September 2003
Norman Oliver
- It is with great sadness that we report the death of Norman R Oliver, who died
peacefully on Sunday 10th September, aged 59. Norman was the long-serving and
highly efficient secretary / treasurer of the London League: he will be much
missed by all who knew him.
- News on our premises, membership and a review of the year's playing successes.
Read it all in the Chairman's Letter.
August 2003
Bits 'n Pieces
- We hear that Alan Fraser took first place at the Thanet congress with
a perfect five: Good-on-yer-mate!
- Kent Summer Quickplay, A-Team Final Results
Cups and Club Championship, by Malcolm Mourant
- Dave Smith won the Club championship by a distance. It was good to see
one of our top players taking part so enthusiastically. Not only did he win 11 games,
but he also played more games than anyone else except Fred Wellings.
- The Participation trophy was a different matter altogether. There were 3 people
all within 100 points of each other, Derek Simmons, Malcolm Mourant and John Lewin
. After a recount, John came out on top.
- Altogether, 61 games were played by 23 different players. Last year the
respective figures were 54 and 21.
- Full details of this year's tournament and
Previous year's winners
The Richard Hobell Memorial Library
- Many of us will remember Richard Hobell, a long-serving member of the
club who died tragically young in December 2001. Richard's books have been
donated to the club and we are very pleased to make them available to be borrowed
by members. And what a collection - 259 separate items in all!
Thanks goes to Dave Smith, who catalogued them all, and to John Lewin
who maintains the collection.
More Summer Quickplay Results
- Nathan Alfred, skipper of the 'B' summer quickplay team, points out
an error in our previous report:
"an annoying loss to charlton 6.5-9.5" should actually read "annoying win" -
Xwe 'only' managed to beat them 9.5-6.5, when we needed 16! so we have
Xended up with four wins and one draw...& its still possible we canR
qualify for the semi-final!
- Sidcup beaten 11 - 5 by 'A' team (your webmaster's late inclusion being
responsible for 3 of these losses!); but not enough to qualify for the semi-finals.
Book Review, by David Sandham
- Want to improve your endgame play, but daunted by the large endgame encyclopedias?
Then read this review of Essential Chess Endings
(James Howell). Thanks, David, and also for the nice
diagrams as well, courtesy of Chessbase,
a first for BeckenhamChess (we have the technology, etc.)
Players Details
- Players for the season, grades etc.
And of course, thanks to bravenet.com you can
always fill in the guestbook...
