News

Patrick Ribbands

The Linton Chess Club is very sorry to report the death of Patrick Ribbands, who died at the age of 71 of a heart attack. He was a stalwart of Cambridgeshire chess for as long as anyone can remember. He played and captained teams for Linton in the Bury League for the past decade, and played a similar role for Royston in the Cambs and Herts Leagues. Before that he played for Cambridge City and was club president. He was a regular at local Congresses and also in the supporting events at the British Championships.

It will be as an indefatigable administrator that he will be best remembered and most missed. Among many other roles he captained the Cambridgeshire county second team for 30 years and was grading officer for 22 years. For the East Anglian Chess Union he was County Match Controller for 22 years and grading officer for 15 years. He initiated and ran the East Anglian Club Championship from 2008. At the time of his death he had just completed running this season’s event online. He had been Match Secretary in the Bury League.

Patrick was a kindly and gentle soul, who always made sure that there were plenty of opportunities for the lower-graded and junior players in events that he organised. He had a long history of coaching juniors, who have themselves paid tribute to the influence he had on them when they were starting out. He was always full of ideas, as evidenced by the Ribbands pairing system which he devised as an alternative to Swiss pairings, organising rapidplay tournaments to try it out! He will be greatly missed: as a club member always willing to fill a gap in the team sheet, as an organiser prepared to take most things on, and as a friend.

Paul Kemp

Linton Triumph in East Anglia Championships

The Linton chess club and players have achieved a clean sweep in the East Anglian Championships (covering Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire) by winning all three main events.  I’m sure this has not been achieved by any club before.

Over the weekend of 7/8 March Chris Davison won the individual title and Aarnavh Trivedi won the junior championship.  And on 15 March the Linton Tigers team of Ashley Stewart, Chris Davison, Kevin Clark and Paul Kemp convincingly won the team championship.

We also had success in the supporting events.  Yoav Pilowsky-Bankirer won the other junior award on 7/8 March, the prize for the best junior graded under 170.  And at the team championships the Linton Bears and the Linton Wolves both shared first place in their respective grade-limited events.

Paul Kemp

Winners of the Bob Jones Trophy

Sarah Weersing and Gavith Dharmasena are presented with the Bob Jones trophy which they won at the 2019 Bury St Edmunds Congress. They both scored 3.5/5 in the Major Tournament and were the highest-placed juniors from the Bury and Suffolk Leagues to score more than 50%. Making the presentation is Congress Secretary Steve Lovell (left) and Bob Jones, who was the Congress Director for 16 years.

Linton Success at Cambridgeshire Rapidplay

Fourteen Linton players competed in the Cambridgeshire Rapidplay at Whittlesford on 29 September, of whom seven were prizewinners.

In a strong Open Tournament two juniors, Giulio Sahinoz and Aarnavh Trivedi, shared both the junior prize and the grading prize, scoring 3/5.  This was remarkable in that in a field of 21 players everyone else was graded at least 15 points higher than them.

In the Major Tournament Mark Lim shared third place.  In the Challengers Tournament Patrick Ribbands shared third place, whilst Michael Osborn and Vikram Banerjee shared the grading prize. 

In the Minor Tournament Rob Davies shared second place.  Also competing creditably in the Minor were five Linton juniors, with newcomers Annchen and Cailynn Jones narrowly missing out on the prizes.

Paul Kemp

Double jamboree success for Linton

With the season having only just started Linton have already won two trophies.

On 5 September three Linton teams played in the Bury League Jamboree, a teams-of-four rapidplay competition. Linton Tigers (Chris Davison, Paul McMahon, Gavith & Kian Dharmasena) scored a magnificent 11.5/12.

In joint second place with Bury A and Cambridge were Linton Crocodiles (Paul Kemp, Oded & Yoav Pilowsky-Bankirer, Benjamin Varea) with 8.5/12. Linton Lions were next with 6.5/12 (Kevin Clark, Alan Richardson, Laurie Mercer, Patrick Ribbands). Thanks to all who played and particular congratulations to those who won all three of their games: Chris Davison, Gavith Dharmasena, Kian Dharmasena, Oded Pilowsky-Bankirer and Patrick Ribbands.

This success came just a week after Linton tied with Royston in the Cambridgeshire Jamboree, a similar event amongst all the Cambridgeshire clubs. The same Tigers team (as above) scored 10.5/12. Interestingly the Royston team (Kevin Clark, Paul Kemp, Simon Jackson and Patrick Ribbands) also consisted of Linton members who have dual club membership.

Paul Kemp

6 Sept 2019

Linton Llamas win division 2 of Bury League

In a nail-biting final round of fixtures the Linton juniors stormed to a 5-0 victory to overtake long-term leaders Linton Loris and earn promotion to the first division.  This was the Llamas second successive promotion, having won division 3 the previous season.  The team is pictured alongside captain Nate Weersing: from left to right it is Abbey, Aarnavh, Gavith and Kian, together with Sarah (not pictured).

Linton also finished second in division 1 and division 2 and third in division 3.  The Lapwings team won the Roger Goldsmith competition’s second division.  All-in-all another successful season!

Gavith

Review of 2017/18 Season

The Linton club had a successful season and Linton members achieved distinguished themselves in local and national events. We have a particularly strong junior section, and as I write this three of them (Gavith and Kian Dharmasena and Aarnavh Trivedi) are preparing to represent England in the European Junior Chess Championships in Poland at the beginning of July.

First the team news. We narrowly failed to win all three divisions of the Bury Area Chess League, finishing a close second in divisions 1 and 2. However we were first and second in division 3, and expect to have both teams promoted as we enter two additional sides in division 3 for the 2018/19 season. Kian Dharmasena was the third division’s player-of-the-year, scoring eight wins, one draw and no losses.

The Linton Lions and Linton Tigers each won their respective sections of the grade-limited Roger Goldsmith Tournament, with the Lions winning the final. Three teams played in the East Anglian Club Championships, gaining two second places and one third in their respective divisions, a very creditable performance as four juniors made their debuts for the club.

There were many individual highlights, so apologies for those I have missed, but in rough chronological order I’ve picked out the following. In September Giulio Sahinoz, Aarnavh Trivedi, Gavith and Kian Dharmasena (together with Cambridge player Arnav Srivastava), playing as Cambridge Knights, won the 4NCL Junior Congress against stronger and older junior players. In January Aarnavh, Gavith and Kian repeated their success, playing this time with Arnav Srivastava and Julia Volovich from Cambridge.

Following on from winning the Danish Girls’ Championship Abigail Weersing scored 5/5 in the Minor Tournament at the Bury St Edmund’s Congress, the only player to get a perfect score. Twelve Linton players competed in the Cambridgeshire County Championships in November, with Peter Koiza coming second.

Moving into 2018, Gavith Dharmasena and Julian Ray shared first place in the Under 170 East Anglian closed championships. Later on, fourteen club members played in the East Anglian Congress at Newmarket. Kian Dharmasena came third in the Under 170 tournament, while Mel Kirwan and Michael Osborn finished second and third in the Under 130 tournament.

Finally, congratulations to Gavith Dharmasena (again) for winning the club championship with a perfect score of 6/6. We look forward to the next season!

Paul Kemp

Annual General Meeting

Paul Kemp reported on a very successful season for the six Linton teams, winning division 3 and the Roger Goldsmith tournament and also coming second in these competitions and divisions 1 and 2. The club also entered three teams in the East Anglian Club Championship and acquitted themselves well.

Paul presented the results of the club championship, which was won by Gavith Dharmasena on 6/6, followed by Julian Ray on 4.5 points. It was agreed to run next year’s championship as a five round Swiss, with an additional trophy (the John Dawson trophy) to be presented annually to the highest-scoring player in the lower half of the draw.