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.