Huddersfield Chess Club started holding a 3 day congress in 2003 to mark their 150th anniversary. The success of this event led to it becoming an annual event although it was threatened due to loses in consequent years largely down to high venue costs but clashing events didn’t help. Last year our congress was given a British Championship qualifying place and also was the event determined the Yorkshire Champion. This years congress also had a clashing event with Hull’s rapidplay but with the Ukrainian Club providing a good venue it’s turned out that this years has become our best yet even though we didn’t quite match our first years entry of 120. We have now hopefully found our ‘slot’ in the chess calendar to be the last weekend in March, which incidentally was when our first congress was held - the YCA fixture list avoided this date being used this year.
It was good to see a lot of early entries this year - in previous years as much as 75% of entries have arrived during the last week which causes a lot of concern for the organisers but this year it was totally different with only around 20% coming in during the final week. Quite a few entries came via this website so may be this has made the difference this year! It was good to get the support from Nigel Davies GM again who has supported Huddersfield Chess Club for a few years now by coming over on a weekend to do training sessions. This year we decided to add an extra event with Nigel Davies GM doing a simultaneous on the Saturday evening. This gave the organisers a chance to take a break and play a game of chess and in total nine people attended with Antonio Aguirre being the only person managing to win his game. Richard Boylan, being the last to survive, managed a draw.
Going into the final round there was Nigel Davies GM, Stewart Haslinger IM and Jos Woolley in the Open all on 3.5 out of 4. Jos was having a good tournament having already beaten Mike Surtees in round 3 and drawing with Stewart Haslinger IM in round 4. In the final round he met Nigel Davies GM with Stewart Haslinger IM facing Michael Round. In the Major, Mike Lally, new to the congress, was leading the way with a 100% record but David Stephenson was close behind on 3.5. In the Minor, our new secretary, Robert Sutcliffe was on 4 points having just beaten Rafael Ortega in round 3. Conrad Jowett and David Buckell were close behind on 3.5.
Open Winners
In the end Nigel Davies GM was champion again but this year shared the honour with
Stewart Haslinger IM - both with 4.5. Jos Wooley shared 3rd place with Alan Byron
and Peter Shaw. There was one grading prize in the Open for the best U165 player
- this was won by Michael Round and Dennis Owen both with 3 points.
Major Winners
The Major was won by Mike Lally, the only person to have a 100% record followed by
Peter Jaszkiwskyj with 4 points. 3rd was won by Tim Turner and David Stephenson on
3.5. A grading prize for the best U137 player was shared by Andrew Barber, Richard
Boylan and Robert Clegg with 3 points. A second grading prize for the best U130 player
was won by Ged Chandler and Martin Brown (equal best junior) with 3 points.
Minor Winners
The Minor section was won by both Robert Sutcliffe and Conrad Jowett with 4.5 points.
3rd place was shared by David Buckell and Andrew Hards with 4 points. Grading prize
winners for best U106 was won by Angel Gonzales, David Sugden and Rafael Ortega with
3.5 points. The second grading prize for best U81 was won by Joseph Morrison and
Henry Broadley (equal best junior) with 3 points.
Thanks go to everyone who entered along with Chess Direct for supplying the equipment
and the book shop, the Ukrainian Club for the venue and bar, Jim Burnett and Rupert
Jones for helping with the controlling of the event and finally with everyone who
helped with the refreshments.