Category: East Anglian Club Championship

Double Success in East Anglia’s Club Championships

The Linton Club and the Chess Academy were both winners in East Anglia’s premier club championship held in Bury St Edmunds on 9 March. Between us we fielded a team in each of the three tournaments, and shared first place in two of them.

The Open championship was won jointly by Broadland and Linton Tigers, so the magnificent Patrick Ribbands trophy will be shared as it was last year, when the same teams also tied. Chris Davison, James Cole, Steven Riley and Konrad Scheffler formed the Linton team, with Steven winning all his three games.

The U7200 Linton Bears team comprised Paul Kemp and Mark Lim (Linton) with Guy Parsons and Neel Mishra (Chess Academy), finishing just under halfway.

The U6400 was a triumph for the ALCA Foxes, who despite being near the bottom of the rankings, shared first place with the Bury St Edmunds B team. Led by Thomas Sha and including Ethan Lui, Ivan Yu and Leeladharahas Kanchi they scored 8.5/12 in a field of 12 teams, with Ethan and Ivan both winning all their games. And on top of that Minh Nguyen filled a vacancy in the Broadland B team also winning all three games.

Altogether 7 ALCA juniors played, four of them still at primary school. I know that some were apprehensive about playing in a largely adult tournament, but they all scored at least one point and got a good feel for playing in a proper chess tournament. Well done.

Paul Kemp

ALCA Foxes, joint winners of U6400 Tournament. From left to right Ethan Liu, Thomas Sha, Leeladharahas Knachi and Ivan Yu, together with arbiter John Wickham.

Linton Tigers together with two Broadland team members, joint winners of the Open Tournament. From left to right Steven Riley, James Cole, Konrad Scheffler, Steve Moore (Broadland), Chris Davison and Martin Walker (Broadland).

Review of the Season 2022/23

This has been one of the most successful seasons I can recall. First and foremost six new members joined during the season are now regular League players: James Briginshaw, James Cole, Peter Jones, Simon Marsden, Konrad Scheffler and Greg Thompson. Without them we would not have achieved the same success over the board.

In September Linton won the Bury Jamboree. Whilst this is not unusual, this season we won every game, a perfect 12/12. A much more significant challenge was defending the East Anglian Club Championship in November. We entered a team in each of the rated sections: the Tigers (Liam Varnam, James Cole, Alan Richardson and Mark Lim) won the Open with 8/12, the Zebras (Paul McMahon, Neil Greenwood, Simon Jackson and Michael Osborn) shared first place in the U7200 with 7/12 and the Pandas (Anthony Chan, Simon Marsden, Ben Varea and Greg Thompson) romped home in the U6200 with 9.5/12.

In the Bury League the Lions were second in division 1, the Llamas and Leopards were first and second in division 2, whilst the Lynxes won division 3. The Llamas deserve a special mention. After a shaky start they won every match in the second half of the season with Ruben Evans winning the division 2 Player-of-the-Year award, closely followed by Anthony Chan. High-scoring Linton players in the third division were Vikram Banerjee (8/9) and Greg Thompson (9/11). In the Roger Goldsmith tournament the Larks finished second in division 1. In division 2 the final match saw a remarkable 3.5-0.5 win for the Lapwings against a stronger Bury team, which resulted in a triple tie for first place between the Lapwings, the Linnets and Bury Beehive. All in all a highly successful season!

A memorable Christmas treat was provided by Anthony Chan who kept us busy over the festive season with a puzzle collection to work through. And throughout the season we ran the club championship, with Paul Kemp winning the Jim Carr trophy, and Nate Weersing the John Dawson trophy for lower-rated competitors.

Away from the chessboard the club received a substantial bequest from the estate of Patrick Ribbands, who passed away in 2021. At the club’s AGM on 2 May it was agreed that the club would remain open throughout the summer for the Ribbands Rapidplay summer special and a programme of special events; a significant investment would be made in junior chess, perhaps in partnership with local schools; and the club would support and sponsor other local chess events and tournaments that benefitted Linton members.

In conclusion I must thank the club’s officers, especially Michael Osborn, our Secretary/Treasurer, and the team captains: Paul McMahon, Oded Pilowsky-Bankirer, Alan Wadsworth, Michael Osborn, Alan Richardson, Anthony Chan and Nate Weersing.

Paul Kemp

Linton Are East Anglian Champions Again

Linton Chess Club are East Anglian champions again after winning the EACU Patrick Ribbands Team Championship for the fourth year in a row. Not only did we win the Open Championship but also won the two supporting rating-limited championships, repeating our triple success of three years ago!

This was the fifteenth team championship, now named in memory of club member Patrick Ribbands who founded and ran the event until his untimely death two years ago. Linton entered a four-player team in each of the separate championships: Open, Under 7200 rating, and U6400 rating.

In the Open Linton Tigers were third seeds, but beat the top seeds 4-0 in the opening encounter. A narrow victory and narrow defeat in the remaining rounds was enough for victory for Liam Varnam, James Cole, Alan Richardson and Mark Lim with a score of 8/12.

The Linton Zebras U7200 team of Paul McMahon, Neil Greenwood, Simon Jackson and Michael Osborn scored 7/12 to share this title with Lowestoft. Last year they similarly shared this title.

Anthony Chan captained Linton Pandas to the U6400 title along with Simon Marsden, Ben Varea and Greg Thompson. They were all unbeaten and finished with an impressive 9.5/12.

My thanks and congratulations to all who took part.

Paul Kemp

Open winners (r to l) Liam Varnam, James Cole, Alan Richardson and Mark Lim with organiser Paul Kemp.
U 6400 winners (r to l)) Simon Marsden, Ben Varea and Anthony Chan (other team member Greg Thompson not present) with Paul Kemp.

Linton Chess Club Online

It is now just over a year since playing over-the-board chess became impossible and we transferred our activities online. Initially we played internal club competitions, but seeking fresh opposition we joined the newly-formed Iceni (East Anglian) League in the early autumn of 2020. As of April 2021 we have 35 members in our online club on chess.com, and are the most active East Anglian club in online chess.

Iceni run both a rapidplay League (in three divisions) and a standard play individual championship. Our successes so far include our second team twice winning division 2 of the League, and our first team coming second once. In the individual championship both Chris Davison and Aarnavh Trivedi have won the top division once.

Perhaps our most notable success has been retaining the East Anglian Club Championship online that we won over-the-board in March 2020. There were five divisions, and Linton fielded teams in every division, giving opportunities for players of all standards to gain experience.

Currently we are continuing to play in Iceni competitions and hoping to be able to return to the chess club and playing face-to-face at the beginning of September, in time for the new season.