Congratulations to Ashley Thorpe for winning our monthly online Blitz Arena.
May Blitz Arena
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Lecture and Blitz event is a great success!
Many thanks to all of those who came along to the excellent “Logic in Chess” lecture by FM Steve Giddins who gave examples from games of Fischer and Karpov on how to use strategic principles to guide tactical decisions.
The lecture was then followed by at 10-round blitz tournament. The A-section was won by Kushal Jakhria with a score of 8.5/10, and the B-section was won by Victor Skurko with a score of 8/10.
The only two juniors present walked off with the prize money! Congratulations to them both.
Hard-fought match ends in victory for Snodland
A very nice win for the club, which puts us in a good position with one game to go in the Harvey league.
Great win for Ashley, playing his first game for the club!
A bit of a shame that our other win came due to a ringing mobile phone, but the remaining five games were incredibly hard-fought.
Another close match…..
A very close and hard-fought match vs Medway last week….but not quite the result we hoped for!
Especially exciting was Ian’s game where he had a tremendous sacrificial attack that seemed to have broken through, but his opponent defended superbly an eventually won.
Tiviakov scores 26-0 in simul!
We were delighted to welcome GM Sergey Tiviakov to Snodland for a “simultaneous display”…..which Sergey won 26-0 !
Congratulations to Volodymyr Mylovanov, who won a prize for the best game.
Many thanks to everyone who took part, and to Kent County Council for providing funding to purchase the chess sets that were used.
Photos from the event can be found here:
Another win…..four in a row!
Anther nice win for Snodland, this time vs Weald of Kent.
Particularly impressive was Ian Whipp’s win on board 1 against a much higher-rated player.
Victory vs Maidstone in the Tom Fuller Cup
A nice 2.5-1.5 win versus Maidstone in the KCCA Tom Fuller Cup.
Micheal continued his excellent run of form and quickly got a winning position. David’s opponent missed a tactical shot early in the game and struggled to hold from that point onwards.
Close match vs Hastings
In our 400th league match, and 50th match vs Hastings, we were pipped at the post.
Hastings fully deserved their 3.5-2.5 victory, but all of the games were competitive, and the result could have gone either way.
Top board Patrick had a complicated game with lots of interesting tactical possibilities, and held his higher-rated opponent to a draw.
Board 2 saw an initial edge for black, but David then equalised and gradually expanded on the Queenside and won an extra pawn.
Nick had a solid looking defensive position on board 3, and was a whole rook up after a nice sacrificisl attack from his opponent. However, with the clock against him, it became difficult to hold.
Neil’s game on board 4 was very tense, with possibilities for both sides, but a slightly open King position made it difficult to defend.
Ian had a comfortable win on board 5 after gaining an early material advantage.
Rodney’s endgame was an interesting study in how to play an endgame with the same coloured bishops.
Our 400th match
Tonight’s qualifying tie in the Mid-Kent section of the Harvey Cup against Hastings, will be Snodland’s 400th match as a club!
Our first match was held against Phoenix on Tuesday 25 April 2006, a friendly held at the Queen Charlotte Pub in Rochester High Street. In the subsequent 18 years Snodland only played Phoenix once more, in the 2010-11 season. Although Snodland lost its inaugural match 4-2 to Phoenix, the result was reversed in the second match – the final of the Stevenson Cup, as Snodland secured the club’s highest ever trophy in the Kent League following a 3.5-2.5 victory.
Over the years Maidstone have been Snodland’s most frequent opponents, at present the Snodland-Maidstone derby has been played 84 times. Our second most frequently played club are Medway, who we have faced over the board on 68 occasions. Five players have represented Snodland in over 100 games – Neil Miners, Rob Thompson, David Lettington, David Fowler and Peter Hickey have all reached over a century of ‘caps’, while the late George Hollands played for Snodland 93 times.
Snodland have played our 400th opponents, Hastings, 49 times, with 28 wins for Snodland, 19 for Hastings and 2 drawn matches.
Match result vs Rainham
A slightly disappointing result last night, as we had promising positions on all four boards at one point.
Congratulations to Rainham on their 2.5-1.5 win.
A fantastic result for Rodney, whose opponent outgraded him nearly 400 points.
Snodland Chess Club 