Dundee City was represented in this year’s Glorney Cup by Euan Dawson and Ben Volland. The event was held last week in Ireland at the Carrickdale Hotel and Country Club, Dundalk. The competition this year (as most years) was fierce with France, the Netherlands, England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales competing. Scotland were the lowest graded team and were always going to find it tough and so it proved. After 5 rounds the championship was won on tie-break by France over the Netherlands. England came 3rd, Ireland 4th and Scotland a very creditable 5th above Wales. All the games can be found at the Glorney site on the CS home page and the scores can also be found separately on ‘Chess Results’. Both Euan and Ben scored a very creditable 1/4 against very tough opposition. Well done both.

The Scottish Championships were held this year in Dean Church Hall, Stewart Melville College, Edinburgh. The Open Championship ran alongside several other events including an U-1850 tournament and an U-1500 tournament. In the main event there were 64 entrants. Dundee’s competitors this year were Alastair Dawson and Declan Shafi. After 9 gruelling rounds the Championship was won by GM Matthew Turner on 7/9. Alastair did well this year to make 28th place with 4.5/9 and a TPR of 1968. Declan performed excellently scoring 6/9 and coming 9th with a TPR of 2148. Details of the tournament can be found in ‘Chess Results’.

LADDER tournament starts tomorrow evening and running from 25th June 2019 – 5th May 2020.

Click here for latest Rankings

1. The Chess Ladder is a form of competition where each player is assigned a position (rank). A lower number means higher rank on the ladder (better position).
2. The goal of the competition is to move up the Ladder, ultimately to the #1 position (highest rank). Players move up the Ladder (i.e. improve their rank) by winning Ladder games. Players move down the Ladder (i.e. lose their rank) when they lose Ladder games, and when other players move up the Ladder ahead of them.
3. Check Table to see where you are on the ladder and who you can challenge. (Ladder Table able will be updated as soon as results are notified before next club night.)
4. Players can challenge a player up to 3 places higher than them (the list for a particular evening will be made up only of the players who turn up on a particular club night.)
5. Time control is 30 minutes each player. (lower ranked player gets White first time they play then Black next game,)
6. You can only play a player once on the same club night. If you are challenged before 8:30 pm (and you do not have a league/other match that evening) you must accept or lose a place in the ranking. So, if  you already have a match arranged. i.e. Club championship or TAFCA match then you clearly cannot be involved in the Ladder that specific evening). Challenges after 8:30pm are by mutual consent and can be rejected without any penalty.
7. After each Ladder game has ended, both players are assigned new positions on the Ladder, depending on their current positions, and the result of the game:
   1. If the winning player has a lower rank than the losing player, the winning player is moved up to just above the losing player’s position.
   2. If the winning player has the higher position, positions remain unchanged,
   3. In case of a draw, the player with the lower position is moved up by one and the other player keeps their current position. If the players are next to each other in the ladder, their positions remain unchanged.
8. A player can lose their rank (i.e. move down the Chess Ladder) between completing their games, due to other players moving up the ladder after winning their games (i.e. moving up in front of the player).
9. Any new players joining the tournament are placed at a position in the Ladder at the discretion of the tournament organiser.

The Chess Club will be open this summer for the Ladder Competition on four evenings – Tuesday June 25th, Tuesday July 30th and Tuesday August 27th – all at 7.30 pm as well as Tuesday September 3rd, the latter to coincide with our pre-season administrative meeting.

The club will only be open on the 25th June, 30th July and 27th August during the summer. Alastair Dawson will be running a ladder tournament on these nights.

Four of the world’s top Super-Grandmasters were in Fife this weekend, 24-26th May 2019. World Champion Magnus Carlsen together with Chinese GM Ding Liren, former World Champion Vishy Anand from India as well as Russian former World-Champion contender Sergey Karjakin were at Lindores Abbey, Newburgh, competing in a Rapid-play event. The event was hosted by Lindore Abbey whisky distillery and won by Magnus on 3.5/6. Full reports can be viewed on the Chess Scotland home page as well as on a series of videos on You Tube most notably those of Chess India.

In a tense finish in Rd 5 of the Club Championship Declan Shafi won his match against Alastair Dawson while David Findlay also won a long and bruising encounter with Euan Dawson. The results mean that both share this year’s Club Championship on 4.5/5. Many congratulations to both players.

The final round of the Dundee Club Championship is now underway. With David Findlay having overcome Euan Dawson is a closely fought match, David now sits on 4.5/5. Alastair Dawson (3) is paired against Declan Shafi (3.5) in the final. The result of this match will determine whether Declan ties with David for the championship title or whether David wins the trophy outright.

David Findlay 3.5 (4.5)        1-0             Euan Dawson 3.0 (3.0)

Alastair Dawson 3.0 (3.0)    0-1             Declan Shafi 3.5 (4.5)

Paul Shafi  2.5 (2.5)              0-1              Frank Stevenson 3.0 (4.0)

Ray Flood  2.0 (3.0)              1-0 def.      Jim Anderson  2.5 (2.5)

Laurenziu Archip 2.0 (3.0)   1-0 def.     Murad Abdulla 2.0 (2.0)

David Sim  2.0                                         Alan Borwell 2.0

Others: Peter Gibson (1.5) vs Andy; Christine Sim (1) vs Alan Woodcock (1.5); Robert Burnett (1) vs Jean Chalmers (1) and Zdenek Swaczyna (1) vs Norrie Carroll (1).