Hampshire Chess Congress 2023

[GrahamStuart]

The Hampshire Chess Association 2023 Congress was held at the Lysses Hotel in Fareham on the 3rd to the 5th November 2023 with a record 90 entries playing across three sections.

Iwan Cave (Chandlers Ford) retained the Hampshire Individual Championship and the Silver Rook Trophy on tie-break from Tom Bird (Portsmouth). Two other players also finished level on 4½ points from the six rounds.

The Open section was run as a FIDE rated event for the first time, resulting in a big increase in players competing for the first prize over recent years.

Last year, Iwan became the youngest winner of the Hampshire Individual, a tournament that has been running since 1930, and is now a two-time champion before the age of 17. Iwan now has his eye on Tony Corkett’s record of 10 Championship titles. Iwan is representing Wales in the World Youth Chess Championship from 12th to 25th November.

The major was shared by Brendan O’Gorman (DHSS) and Edward Blanden (Emsworth) with Edward winning the Peter Marshall trophy.

In the minor section, another junior and former Pilgrim’s School pupil, Freddie Christou-Moore finished clear first with 5 out of 6, and as the highest scoring Hampshire qualified player in the section he also won the Parsons cup.

The Gillian Moore Cup – was shared by Helen Archer-Lock (So’ton Uni) in the Major and Rosamund Hale (Southampton) in the Minor with 3½ points

The John Dunleavy Memorial Prize for the best game in any section will be announced later, on the Hampshire website – www.HampshireChess.co.uk

Finally, the Hampshire Chess Association would like to say a big thank you to Kevin Thurlow for his work at this year’s congress. Kevin is a well known arbiter on the UK chess circuit, and has been our arbiter for many years. This weekend he announced our event was his last ever congress as an arbiter.

Additional details are available from the HCA Website and photos from the Hampshire Chess History Website where a full article including games from the Open and Major will follow at a later date.


https://www.hampshirechess.co.uk/hampsh ... s-results/

https://hampshirechesshistory.co.uk/202 ... s-gallery/

[GrahamStuart]

The Hampshire Chess History Website completes articles on previous Hampshire Individual Chess Championship. The article on the 2023 Open tournament, which includes the Individual Championship is now completed (Major and Minor to follow when time allows).

https://hampshirechesshistory.co.uk/ham ... ship-2023/

Previous tournaments where articles have been completed are also included on the website.

https://hampshirechesshistory.co.uk/ham ... mpionship/