This fine building is the Lysses House Hotel in Fareham, venue for the 2018 Hampshire Chess Congress which took place last weekend. The High Street in which the hotel is situated is an impressive road with some imposing Georgian buildings which can only have been built by very wealthy businessmen, possibly important navy officials from nearby Portsmouth. It is the first year the hotel has been used for this congress and the building has an interesting history. It was built in the early 1800s for Stephen Barney, a local solicitor whose main claim to fame was in his position as Recorder at the trial of the Mutiny of the Bounty and his portrait hangs in the entrance to the hotel. The building remained in the Barney family until 1946 when it became an independent boys’ school. It is now a 3-star hotel and boasts 21 en-suite bedrooms and a selection of conference rooms to cater for up to 100 delegates.
As a chess congress venue, Lysses (pronounced ‘Lizziz’) definitely has charm. The games were played in small rooms and there was tea, coffee and biscuits available throughout the weekend for a small contribution. As some of the players were staying at the hotel, dinner on Saturday night was from 5.00-6.30 in order for it to be completed in time for Round 4 starting at 7.00. A sample menu was available to view on Saturday afternoon. The congress consisted of six rounds with three games on Saturday which is not to everyone’s liking as suggested by the twenty or so byes taken for Round 4. Perhaps they were residents who favoured a more leisurely evening meal.
It was a pleasant surprise to see Kevin Thurlow as Arbiter with Karen assisting him, and I understand he has been controlling this congress for some years. There were three sections: Open, Major (U160) and Minor (U125). Not surprisingly, there was a large contingent of local players. Your correspondent managed to find some form at last and this is one of his better games. Black fell into severe time trouble and eventually resigned with only seconds left on the clock.
White: Robert Page (144) Black: Jeremy Hudson (132)
2018 Hampshire Chess Congress Major
The latest Game of the Week is a topsy-turvy battle from last week’s Hargreaves Shield match against Folkestone. As Andy Flood said in his report, the match was in the balance for a long time and deciding the winner on Board 4 was by no means clear. Have a look at the following game which, while by no means faultless, is entertaining and appropriately full of fireworks. It also eventually proved to be a crucial win both for Michael and Broadstairs.
White: Robert Twigg (77) Black: Michael Doyle (90)
Hargreaves Shield v Folkestone (a)
Broadstairs 3 Folkestone 1
| 1 | Chris Stampe (124) | 1-0 | Alec Nicol (136) |
| 2 | Gary Hilleard (118) | 1-0 | David Erwee (100) |
| 3 | Andy Flood (110) | 0-1 | Andrew Haycock (97) |
| 4 | Michael Doyle (90) | 1-0 | Robert Twigg (77) |
Andy Flood writes:
The match at Folkestone was always going to be tricky, given that last year a stronger team only managed a draw, and so it proved. The exception was Gary Hilleard with the black pieces on Board 2, who quickly overcame his opponent with clever tactics that saw him win a pawn and rook in exchange for a bishop, then dominating his game for an early win and thus retain his remarkable 100% win record for Broadstairs in league chess games. The game on Board 3 was evenly balanced and Mike Doyle on Board 4 had a slight positional advantage which he was developing but Chris Stampe on the top board was soon a pawn and then two pawns down.
As the evening drew to a conclusion, Mike Doyle appeared to be in trouble from a developed dominant position when his opponent broke through onto the 7th rank with his queen and rook. Meanwhile on Board 3 I forced the exchange of queen for two rooks and soon had my own rooks on the 7th rank with the intention of forcing a mate following a sacrifice of a piece. However a slight miscalculation and solid play by my opponent meant that I lost my game and, as last to finish, feared that the team had suffered a 3 -1 defeat.
But no! resolute strong defending by Mike Doyle had fought off the attack and had enabled him to go on and quickly beat his opponent, and Chris Stampe had managed to win on time against his higher graded opponent on the top board. A tricky match indeed but one that was won by Broadstairs 3-1.
Are you feeling a touch of déjà vu when you look at this picture? Haven’t we seen this photo before? Is the Webmaster losing his marbles? No, it’s simply a game of spot the difference. If you have not read the earlier article on Website of the Year click here and see if you can see a difference between the two photos. If you don’t want to know the answer, look away now.
Those who you who read the original article will know that there was an error on the original trophy concerning our website address. The ECF agreed to produce a corrected version and did not not want the first trophy returned so we are now the proud possessors of both an official Website of the Year trophy and an unofficial imperfect one. The club will keep one copy and the Webmaster the other but who should have which?
While all the excitement of the latest photo session was taking place, Andy Flood, supreme commander of the Thanet Chess Congress, casually announced that actually he, too, had received a similar trophy for Congress of the Year 2018 so watch this space for more shameless self-promotion in the near future.
Meanwhile, what’s happening at the club, you might be wondering. Well, this season promises to be one of the closest club championships in living memory. David Faldon (175) has won or shared the Goodall Cup every year since he joined the club in 2010. However, he has some genuine competition this year with the arrival of Trefor Owens (167), Arnaud Wisman (155) and Shany Rezvany (163). Other new members have already made their mark: Paul Johnson (116) won his first four games in the Goodall including victory over Shany, and Richard Clement (128) beat Trefor in his first game. Perhaps this is David’s tactic: lie in wait and let the others make enough mistakes so he can coast home as usual. We shall see.
Just when you thought it was safe to enter the chess club….once again, we shine the spotlight on someone’s misfortune, a player making the sort of move that makes us all think ‘There but for the grace of God go I’. This week’s example may make you feel even better because although it is a bit of a cheat in that it was not played recently, it does feature two top players, thereby proving that yes, even chess grandmasters appear human at times. The game was played in the World Senior Team Championships last year between Alexander Huzman and our own Nigel Short. Nigel was recently a candidate for presidency of FIDE but stood down at the last minute to support the successful candidate, Arkady Dvorkovich. Until recently, Nigel was the oldest player in the Top 100 but as he is currently 101 he can quite fairly claim to be the oldest player in the Top 101. Here at Broadstairs Towers we are not entirely sure what Twitter is but we know that Nigel is a regular ‘tweeter’ or ‘twit’ or whatever the word is. After England’s fine performance at the Olympiad, he tweeted his congratulations, adding that it was a good thing he was not called upon.
The featured position is instructive because it is one where mere mortals like your correspondent would probably stare at the position for a long time watching the clock go down and eventually agree a draw even though it is clear that Black is on top. In the analysis that accompanied the position, it was suggested that White might have had a chance had he played 43. a4 b4 44. a5 Kc7 45. Ba4 Nfg5 46. Nf4. Instead he played 43. Kd1? How would you answer that? Perhaps it is obvious but if not, it is a lesson for us all not to take anything for granted. If you haven’t got it yet, try to work out Black’s reply which forced resignation before looking at the answer below.
White: GM Alexander Huzman (2571) Black: GM Nigel Short (2652)
World Senior Team Championships 2017
Black’s reply was 43…Bxd4! If 44. exd4 Nc3 is mate.