HCA Individual Championship

The HCA Individual Open and U125 Championships were held the weekend of 10^th November 2000. Both tournaments were a success, with a 17% increase in entries from last year.

This was due to several contributing factors, a superior venue, more publicity and the continuity of the event being the major ones.

It has to be stated, that the new venue of Eastleigh College was a huge improvement. The playing hall was large enough to comfortably hold twice as many players, had excellent lighting conditions and best of all, no band playing on Saturday night! With the intention to have the same tournaments and venue in 2001, it has to be hoped that a further increase in entries is seen again. A provisional date of 9^th –11^th November is planned.

 

The first round of the Open tournament saw some interesting pairings, not least Fraser McLeod having white against top seed IM James Sherwin (a player who has drawn against Bobby Fisher). After Fraser lost a pawn, he grimly held, until the extra pawn began to count.

 

McLeod,F (160) - Sherwin,J (208) [A65]
Hampshire Individual Championship (1), 11.11.2000

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f3 0-0 6.Bg5 c5 7.d5 e6 8.Qd2 exd5 9.cxd5 Re8 10.Nge2 Na6 11.Ng3 Bd7 12.Be2 Nc7 13.a4 a6 14.a5 Nb5 15.Nxb5 Bxb5 16.0-0 Bxe2 17.Nxe2 Rb8 18.b4 cxb4 19.Qxb4 Nxd5 20.Qd2 Bf6 21.Bxf6 Nxf6 22.Rfd1 d5 23.exd5 Qxd5 24.Qc3 Qg5 25.Ng3 Rbc8 26.Qb2 h5 27.Rd6 Qc5+ 28.Qd4 Qxd4+ 29.Rxd4 Re5 30.Rb4 Rc2 31.Rxb7 h4 32.Nf1 Ree2 33.g3 h3 34.Rb6 Nh5 35.Rxa6 Rg2+ 36.Kh1 Rxh2+ 37.Nxh2 Nxg3+ 38.Kg1 Rg2# 0-1

The final position was a very pretty mate!

 

The second round had the first major upset; with reigning champion (for the last two years) Dominic Tunks going down to Ian Stenhouse of Southampton Chess Club. This left two players on 2 out of 2. James Sherwin and Mike Yeo.

This game was obviously going to have a big impact on the tournament, especially with Dominic losing his previous game. My initial thought on this game was that James Sherwin had investigated a previous game of Mike’s against an Argentinean IM E.Mendez. But Mike has told me that

[While I had done a small amount of preparation on Friday night for my game against Sherwin, I had rapidly reached the conclusion that he varies his openings so much nowadays that it was better to get some sleep rather than waste more time!  He confirmed that he had never played 4....Qb6 before, but knew that it was "rather trendy"!  He also said that he hadn't got a clue what to do after 5.Nb5 which suggests that he hadn't done any preparation either!]

So it seems that I was incorrect in my original assumption! Anyway I will let you decide on the actual game, which is given below. But by winning this game with Black, it seemed that James Sherwin was going to very difficult to stop.

 

Yeo,M (190) - Sherwin,J (208) [B32]
Hampshire Individual Championship (3), 11.11.2000

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Qb6 5.Nb5 a6 6.Be3 Qd8 7.N5c3 e6 8.g3 Nf6 9.Bg2 Be7 10.f4 0-0 11.e5 Ne8 12.Nd2 d5 13.exd6 Nxd6 14.0-0 Qc7 15.Nce4 Nf5 16.Bf2 Rd8 17.c3 b5 18.Qe2 Rb8 19.g4 Nd6 20.Nxd6 Bxd6 21.Bh4

 

Bxf4 22.Bxd8 Bxh2+ 23.Kh1 Nxd8 24.Rad1 Bd6 25.Ne4 Be7 26.g5 Bb7 27.Qh5 g6 28.Qg4 Bxe4 29.Bxe4 Qe5 30.Rg1 Rc8 31.Rd7 Bxg5 32.Qxg5 Qxe4+ 33.Kh2 Nc6 34.Rgd1 Ne5 35.Qe7 Qe2+ 36.Kh1 Qf3+ 37.Kg1 Qg3+ 38.Kf1 Qf4+ 39.Kg2 Qf3+ 40.Kg1 Nxd7 0-1

This was confirmed when James Sherwin defeated Ian Stenhouse and Jeremy Fraser Mitchell in round 4 & 5 respectively. In fact the only player not to lose to James Sherwin was his 6^th round opponent Jessie Gilbert. This was not a short draw either, the game lasted for 35 moves and Jessie obtained a well-deserved draw.

 

With space being short, I will only give one more game, which is not from one of the winners, but is an exciting win by Andrew Smith of Cosham Chess club against Anna Partington, which finished in mate!

 

Smith,A (142) - Partington,A (139) [B00]

Hampshire Individual Championship (5), 12.11.2000

1.e4 Nc6 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 g6 4.Be3 Bg7 5.c3 Bd7 6.Bc4 e6 7.0–0 Nge7 8.Re1 b6 9.Nbd2 Na5 10.Bf1 0–0 11.Rc1 d5 12.e5 Qe8 13.c4 c6 14.b4 Nb7 15.c5 b5 16.Bd3 a5 17.a3 a4 18.Nf1 Nd8= 19.Qd2 Nf5 20.Bg5 Ra7 21.g4 Ne7 22.Bf6 h6 23.h4 Kh7 24.h5 Ng8 25.Nh4 25...Bxf6 26.exf6 Nxf6 27.hxg6+ Kg7 28.g5 Ng8 29.Ng3 hxg5 30.Qxg5

 

Qe7 31.Nh5+ Kh8 32.g7# 1–0

The prizewinners in the Open were:

 

HCA U125 Tournament

Alongside the Open a successful under 125 tournament was held. This was to encourage players who would not normally play in the Open to enter. Bearing in mind Hampshire’s recent results in the national U125 championship, this was always going to be a hard fought tournament. The eventual winner was John Stables from Southampton Chess club. Although John was ungraded, it should be noted that his results from the previous season indicated that he would be eligible for this tournament.

The prizewinners were:

Click for the web site report.

County Teams

The under125 has changed captain’s, but not their winning ways. Mike Garrod of Portsmouth Chess Club has taken over from Ken Retallack. A big thank you is due to Ken, who has taken this team from humble beginnings all the way to the National Finals last year. Mike Garrod can be contacted on 023-9283-8506.

The team have again qualified for the National stages by comprehensively beating Dorset 11½ - 4½. Individual wins were obtained by:

 

 

The open team are still playing matches in the both the WECU and the Chiltern League, with mixed results. Dominic Tunks is the match captain.

Web Site

The HCA web sites continues to grow. I have posted all the results I have received and the Portsmouth results are fully up to date. I am still having problems receiving all of the Southampton results, but I would like to thank everyone who has sent in results.

If you have any of the missing results, please e-mail or send to me at the address below.

Future Newsletters

With the Web site now fully functional, I will not now be producing three newsletters a year.  The newsletters will be on a more ad-hoc basis, with the next one coming out around September. If anyone would like to publish an article, either for the newsletter, or the Web site, please supply by e-mail or post.