Many chess clubs close at Easter with league games completed but Broadstairs continues throughout the year with only a two-week break in the summer and a similar one at Christmas. League results can be accessed elsewhere on this site – and congratulations to the Hargreaves and Walker Shield teams on winning their respective competitions – but this seems an opportune moment to update readers with the latest news from the club.
One of the reasons the club season continues until August is the number of competitions that need to be completed. The premier tournament is the Goodall Cup, named after W.F.Goodall, club secretary for fifty years in the last century. The club championship was first competed for in 1950 and after Mr Goodall’s death a few years later, his name was given to the trophy. David Faldon has either won or shared first place in the club championship for the past five years and is on course to win it again with nine victories in nine games. He does, however, have six more games to play including those against all his leading rivals, notably David Horton – in his fiftieth and final year at the club (he is moving away in the summer) – who has only dropped one and a half points.
The first round of the Summer Swiss has just taken place and there are four more rounds to go before the competition concludes in August. The knockout competition for the John Couzens Trophy is in its final stages and could have a new name on the trophy. Three players have shared victory in the past nine years but neither Alan Gosman nor Ian Hames has entered this year and Paul Carfrae has already been knocked out. Could this be David Faldon’s year? Finally, there is the Broadstairs Blitz for which a date has not yet been set but which is likely to be in late June.
Here is David Horton’s only defeat so far in the Goodall Cup this season, a fine win by Paul Carfrae.
White: David Horton (167) Black: Paul Carfrae (131)
Goodall Cup 2016