Tag: Results

Leopards Retain First Division Championship

Linton Leopards retained the Bury League division 1 title with a game to spare in a topsy-turvy season. At Christmas the Leopards had suffered two defeats and one draw whilst rivals Cambridge Examiners had swept all before them to build up a healthy lead. Come the New Year fortunes were reversed, Leopards winning all their matches and Examiners going five games without a win.

The regular team consisted of captain Chris Davison and Liam Varnam, Paul Kemp and Alan Richardson, all of whom recorded a sizeable plus score of games won.

Attention now turns to division 2 where Linton Lynxes and Linton Llamas are in a close battle for the title.

League Chairman Ollie Lenton (centre) presents the First Division trophy to Leopards captain Chris Davison. In the back row (left to right) are the other three regular players, Paul Kemp, Liam Varnam and Alan Richardson.

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).

ALCA Juniors in Tournament Success

The Anglian Learning Chess Academy’s second annual tournament was held at Sawston Village College on Saturday 8 February. The tournament is open to all children and there was a good turnout, including entries as far away as Lincolnshire and north London.

Three tournaments were held: one for Year 3-5 pupils, one for Years 6-7 and one for Years 8-10. Academy players Antonio di Fruscia and Guy Parsons won the Year 5 & Under and Year 6-7 contests respectively, both scoring 4.5/5, with Neel Mishra coming an excellent second in the Year 8-10 group with 4/5.

Remarkably Academy players won the five youngest year group trophies as follows:
Year 3 Minh Nguyen Babraham Primary School
Year 4 Ivan Yu Stephen Perse
Year 5 Antonio di Fruscia Pathfinder, Northstow
Year 6 Guy Parsons Thriplow Primary School
Year 7 Yiqian Zhao Sawston Village College

Academy trophy winners (left to right) Guy Parsons, Minh Nguyen, Antonio di Fruscia, Ivan Yu and Yiqian Zhao

The Chess Academy is sponsored by Sawston Village College and the Linton Chess Club. We meet during term time at Sawston VC on Friday evenings between 6-8pm for a mixture of competitive chess and coaching. For further information and to register go to the Sawston Village College website and click on Parents; Clubs and Activities; Chess Academy.

Linton & Academy Success in Cambs Rapidplay

Six Linton and ten Academy players competed in the 19th Cambridgeshire Rapidplay at Whittlesford on 29 September. The outstanding performance was by Linton’s James Cole who shared first place in the Open tournament with 4/5, including a fine sacrificial win against international Master Alan Merry in the final round.

In the Intermediate Tournament Thomas Sha swept to victory with 5/5. In the Minor tournament Guy Parsons scored 4/5, sharing second place and completing our trio of prizewinners. Congratulations to them all.

Other players who scored over 50% and deserve an honourable mention were Linton’s Konrad Scheffler (3/5) in the Major tournament , and Academy members Ivan Yu (3/5) in the Challengers, Ray Lee (3.5/5) and Elliot Lingard (3/5) in the Minor. All four of them won either a rating prize or a junior (age) prize.

Jamboree Success For Linton Club

Linton got the new season off to a great start by winning the Bury League’s Jamboree on 5 September. Linton entered two teams, out of twelve teams competing. Linton Tigers ( Chris Davison, Paul McMahon, Vikram Banerjee and Michael Osborn) came first with 9/12, and Linton Pumas (Paul Kemp, Yoav Pilowsky-Bankirer, Alan Wadsworth and John Nevin) were third with 8/12. Sandwiched between them in second place were Bury A on 8.5/12.

Notable performances from the Tigers included 3/3 for both Paul McMahon and Vikram Banerjee, whilst for the Pumas all four players scored 2/3.

Before the event presentations were made to last season’s winners, in which the Linton club and players featured strongly. This included the division 1 championship (Linton Leopards), division 1 player-of-the-year (Chris Davison), division 2 player-of-the-year (Yoav Pilowsky-Bankirer) and division 3 game-of the-season (Michael Osborn).

2023/24 Review of the Season

Strong finish gives League success

This has been another successful season for Linton in the Bury Area Chess League. In division 1 the Leopards finished with five straight wins of 4-1 or better to win the League for the first time since 2015/16. Even more remarkably division 2 Linton Llamas retained the second division championship, coming from next to bottom with two matches to play by crushing their two main rivals. Our other sides also did well: first division Lions drew 8 of their 14 matches in a mid-table finish; Lynxes were third in the second division and Lemurs second in division 3. My thanks to all who played, especially the captains Chris Davison, Paul McMahon, Oded Pilowsky-Bankirer, Alan Wadsworth and Michael Osborn.

Other notable team successes included sharing the East Anglian Team Championship in the autumn, tying with a powerful Broadland side. This came after four outright wins starting in 2020. Linton were also winners of the Bury League team jamboree and more recently came second in the Cambridgeshire jamboree, with juniors as three of the four team members.

Individual achievements

Abigail Weersing was awarded the title of FIDE master for her performances, culminating in the European Club Cup in October. Ruben Evans was the joint British Under 16 champion in the British Championships last summer, qualifying for the senior championships this summer.

For their perfomances in the League Chris Davision was named first division player of the season, and Yoav Pilowsky-Bankirer second division player of the season. Our warmest congratulations to all of them.

Anglian Learning Chess Academy

In September we launched, in partnership with Anglian Learning and Sawston Village College, a chess academy to develop chess enthusiasts in Year 6 to Year 10 – late primary to mid-teens. Meeting at the College on Friday evenings in term-time we combine competitive chess with coaching, we had two teams in the Cambridgeshire Schools League, and ran a one-day tournament for local juniors (not just ALCA members) in early March.

There is no doubt that the standard of chess has improved over the year and two of the juniors have already made their debut in the Linton senior team. My thanks to the organising and coaching team of Paul McMahon, Alan Richardson, Mauricio Varea and Anthony Chan, and to the legacy of the late Patrick Ribbands which provided the funding to enable this to be set up. We are determined to maintain and build upon Linton’s reputation for developing junior talent, which has seen six of them selected to represent England in the past decade.

NB There are separate posts below on the East Anglian Team Championships and the success of Abigail and Ruben. The Anglian Learning Chess Academy has several web pages on this website which give further information on the Chess Academy.

Linton shares East Anglian Team Championship

The Linton club was attempting to retain its title of East Anglian champions for the fifth successive time at Bury St Edmunds on 22 October. Well, we kept one hand on the trophy, sharing it with long-standing rivals, Broadland. Usually there is a good entry in the Open Championship, but with a lot of events on at this time of year it was a straight battle between Linton Tigers and Broadland. After two rounds Broadland had a commanding two point lead, but a late Linton fightback in round 3 left the scores all square at 6-6. Congratulations to the team of Chris Davison, Alan Richardson, Konrad Scheffler and Anthony Chan for an excellent result against the higher-rated Broadland team.

The numbers in the two supporting rating-limited tournaments made up for the Open entry, with record numbers in the U6400 category in which the Linton Zebras played. Seeded eighth out of nine teams the Linton Zebras came third with 7/12, just half a point behind the joint winners Bury St Edmunds and St John’s, Norwich. So another good performance from the team of Simon Marsden, Nate Weersing, Ben Varea and John Nevin, with John winning all three of his games.

The Championships are named after their founder and long-time organiser (and Linton member) Patrick Ribbands who sadly passed away in the spring of 2021. In his memory and from his legacy the Linton Chess Club has provided a magnificent shield for annual presentation to the winners of the Open Tournament. The photo below shows the Linton Tigers team of (left to right) Alan Richardson, Chris Davison, Anthony Chan and Konrad Scheffler.

Linton Prizewinners at Bury St Edmunds Chess Congress

Five Linton players competed at the Bury St Edmunds Chess Congress on 7&8 October, all of them scoring 50% or better. Chris Davison scored 3.5/5 in the Open Tournament to finish fourth, just behind three International Masters. Just behind him was James Cole on 3/5 and English U16 champion Ruben Evans on 2.5/5. Ruben was awarded the Bob Jones trophy as the highest-placed East Anglian junior player competing.

In the Major Tournament Anthony Chan and James Briginshaw both scored 2.5/5 with James winning the giantkillers prize for his win over a much higher-rated competitor.

Ruben Evans receives the Bob Jones trophy from Congress Director John Wickham.

Rapidplay Success for Linton Players

At the annual Cambridgeshire Rapidplay on 24 September Linton members were prizewinners in the three main tournaments.

In the Open Chris Davison was undefeated with 4/5, finishing second behind International Master Alan Merry. Chris also won the Jack Taylor trophy for the highest-placed Cambridgeshire player. Linton’s James Cole shared third place with 3.5 points.

James Briginshaw won the Major Tournament winning all five games, playing resourcefully in some complex positions. Konrad Scheffler, with 3.5 points, shared third place despite losing to James in the final round.

Finally, in the Challengers Tournament Nate Weersing shared second place with an unbeaten 4/5.

Congratulations to our five prizewinners!

Bury League Jamboree Success

The Linton club won this season’s first trophy, retaining their Jamboree title at Bury St Edmunds on 7 September. 13 teams took part with Linton Tigers in first place and our other team, Linton Panthers third. The Tigers (Chris Davison, Alan Richardson, James Briginshaw and Anthony Chan) scored a remarkable 11.5/12 points, with Alan, James and Anthony winning all three of their games. For the Panthers Paul Kemp, Paul McMahon, Konrad Scheffler and Vikram Banerjee all won two games for a total of 8/12.

Tigers captain Chris Davison receives the Jamboree trophy from organiser Bob Jones.