Club President to play in Women's World Championship

Snodland Chess Club's President, IM Jovanka Houska has qualified to play in the Women's World Championship.

Jovanka has been very supportive to Snodland Chess Club and has played simultaneous displays and given lectures, as well as judging our annual game of the year competition and playing in all of the Snodland Rapidplay tournaments.

Jovanka has been preparing for the tournament with GMs Stuart Conquest and Gawain Jones. She will be taking Stuart Conquest with her as her "second". In the first round Jovanka will be facing the Polish IM Iweta Rajlich. Jovanka has a good record against Rajlich and they have very similar Elo ratings. Rajlich's husband is the developer of Rybka, the strongest chess-playing programme in the world, so you can guarantee that she will be well prepared too. If Jovanka wins this first match, then she is likely to face the highest rated player in the tournament in round 2, Koneru Humpy, of India.

The tournament is a 64-player knockout, with just two games played in each round, except the final, which is over four games.

You can follow the games live on http://wwcc2010.tsf.org.tr/ and the first round will be played on Saturday 4th December.

Snodland 3 vs Maidstone 4 : 3.5-2.5

As usual with matches between Snodland and our nearest rivals Maidstone, it was an extremely hard fought affair.

I can't really comment on what happened in most of the games as I was concentrating too much on trying not to lose to George Hollands, but James Hart-Dyke deserves a big round of applause for winning in his first competitive game for Snodland.

Pete Hickey got a very nice position against Douglas Smith and had a significant material advantage but wasn't quite able to make it tell after he lost a pawn whilst in time trouble.

Snodland 3 vs Folkestone 2: 4-2

Snodland scored a very nice 4-2 win over Folkestone in the En Passant Cup.

First to finish was Tyrone Jefferies who outplayed his opponent to win inside 90 minutes.

Rob Thompson then held an endgame a pawn down to score a good draw and put Snodland on the way to victory.

Zibby Koncki then beat an extremely strong opponent with a nice tactic despite being very short of time.

David Lettington scored a win when his opponent made an inferior bishop move and then decided to try a sacrifice to get back into the game. However, solid play was the order of the day and David's material advantage told.

David Fowler then scored a solid draw and by now the match was clearly won with Snodland leading 4-1.

The last game to finish was Chris Marshall's. Chris played well in the opening, but was facing a very strong opponent who fought back and eventually overcame Chris' defensive forces.

Tunbridge Wells 1 vs Snodland 1: 3.5-2.5

This was a disappointing result, as it appeared that we might have been able to hold the match at one point.

Steve Giddins scored a solid draw on baord 1 in his first game for the club. Although Steve had an advantage out of the opening, it wasn't enough to convert into a win.

Ben Spink scored a smooth win over his opponent on board 2 and at the same time made amends for a loss to the same opponent last year.

Zibby Koncki played well on board 3 and had an advantage in the opening but then ran short of time and his opponent caused complications that allowed him back into the game.

Peter Turner had a difficult game on board 4 and Richard Bedwell scored a nice win.

David Fowler won on time on board 5 when his opponent still had 9 moves to make before the time control and the position appeared fairly even.

David Lettington achieved a nice position on the black side of a Sicilian Defence but once pieces were swapped off his opponent showed superior endgame technique and won. This brought to an end an unbeaten run of 17 games for David.

Medway 4 vs Snodland 6: 2-2

The match between Medway 4 and Snodland 6 was extremely close on all 4 boards. Richard Mallery played extremely well and gave Alan Evans a tough gam. Richard was at a material disadvantage for a long time but fought well and eventually won back his piece. However, Alan's superior pawn structure was decisive.

Neil Miners had a very difficult game against David Langford and fought on from a position that looked bad to a tough Queen and 4 pawns vs Queen and 3 pawns ending, but David's pawns were too strong.

Pete Hickey was involved in a complex tactical melee that saw Pete avoiding the several tactical landmines laid by Isaac Oluwole. Isaac's King was too exposed in the centre of the board and Pete capitalised.

The position below is the final position from David Lettington's game with Baron-Vahl Amos. David, with the black pieces, had built up pressure early on and had a significant advantage when Baron lost on time. The game is near to winning for black, but both players were so short of time that anything could have happened.

Snodland Club Championship

The latest positions in the Snodland Club Championship qualifiyng groups are above.  The top two players in each group get a place in the A-league, the next two get places in the B-league and the last two get places in the C-league. So far, Zibby Koncki, Hugh Broadbent, Ben Spink and Chris Marshall have earned places in the A-league.

Steve Giddins' BCM blog

A link to Steve Giddins' BCM blog has been added to the links list below. Click on it to read the latest about Magnus Carlsen's withdrawal from the World Championship.

Snodland 2 vs Sevenoaks 1: 3-3