Guildford Chess Club

Welcome to our world!

We aim to provide a safe and secure inclusive environment for all chess players to play and learn about chess.

We are one of the strongest chess clubs in the UK, with over 50 regular adult players and 100 juniors in membership, spanning the complete ability range from beginner to expert.

We currently field 20 teams across four leagues – the Surrey League, the Surrey Border League, the 4 Nations Chess League and the 4NCL Online. Some of our members also play for Surrey County teams and have represented England at both Junior and Senior levels.

Our regular club night is at 7.30pm on Mondays night for adults (earlier for juniors) from September to July at the Guildford Institute on Ward Street – we're closed in August and on Bank Holidays.

We encourage all our members to participate in the life of the club in some way.

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How the site works

Access to everything on the site is via the Navigation menu at the top of the page. Move the cursor over each item to reveal a drop-down menu with links to all the pages.

  • About – our constitution, contacts, gallery, history, library, membership, privacy policy, roll of honour, and safeguarding policy.

  • Activities – our calendar, coaching, junior club, league chess, and tournaments.

  • Directory – chess advice, games by club members, and links to the outside chess world.

And below on our home page, see our blog with all the latest news about the club.

It's easy to contact us. There's a contact form below for adults, and a contact form on our Juniors page for juniors.

Click on the club logo on the top left to return to the home page.

Latest news

Match reports

The ratings don't lie

In chess as in life, a rating advantage makes you favourite to win. It doesn't always happen but tonight in did, in the Border League Division 1 match between Farnham A and Guildford A. The Guildford team held a rating advantage of just over 100 points a board on average. Wins for Gwilym Price, Nigel Povah, James Toon and Seb Galer, and a draw for Alan Punnett.

The web manager defended the Queen's Gambit Declined on board 4 and reached an interesting ending with two rooks vs a queen and equal pawns. In these positions who is better tends to depend on king safety and the pawn structure. Tonight the two rooks were stronger, and the web manager was able to trade off both rooks for a queen and pawn, leaving him a pawn up in a king and pawn ending. This required some care but looked to be always winning.

Tags: November 2023,Surrey Border League

Match reports

Top of the league

Excellent news from Ward Street. In last night's Surrey Trophy match, Guildford 1 beat Kingston 1 by 4.5–3.5. The victory takes Guildford 1 to the top of the table after two matches played. The teams were evenly-matched on paper with Guildford rated 2049 on average and Kingston 2064.

All the decisive games went in favour of the higher-rated player, with Gwilym Price and Roger Emerson losing on boards 1 and 2, but Rolandas Lukosius, Ian Deswarte and Seb Twisk winning on boards 4, 7 and 8. Draws for Clive Frostick, Seb Galer and Julien Shepley on boards 3, 5 and 6.

The web manager did not see most of the games, but was interested to see Clive Frostick v Peter Lalic eventually reach the theoretically-drawn ending of king and knight v king and bishop. It is possible to construct a mating position whether either the knight wins or the bishop wins, so even though that was never going to happen, it's just as well that neither player lost on time.

Seb had the honour of defeating Stephen Moss, a keen player who is also a Guardian journalist in his spare time. So I expect that's one match report we won't be reading in the papers.

Tags: November 2023,Surrey League

Match reports

Crowthorne double-header

It was off to Deepest Berkshire for the annual attempt to locate the Crowthorne playing venue in the megalopolis that is Wellington College. To make it harder this time, they moved to another venue on the campus which was several miles to the north. Or west. Or somewhere.

Guildford fielded two rapidplay teams, Team 1 and Team 2, against our Crowthorne equivalents in this Border League double-header. Team 1 found it harder than we were expecting when Crowthorne fielded a very strong team headed by FM Richard Webb on top board. They outrated us by 200 points a board on average. So the final score of 5–3 to Crowthorne 1 was better than we expected. Our captain, Julien Shepley, contributed most of our points with two wins against Ken Coates on board 2.

The other match revealed the strength in depth of the Guildford squad as Team 2 outrated the Crowthorne team by 100 points a board. We made the most of the rating difference with a 7–1 win overall, again better than expected. This was Germany v Brazil in the 2014 World Cup all over again.

By the time we left, Storm Ciarán had arrived and the rain was coming down in sheets. So that was a good opportunity to practise our aquaplaning skills on the drive home. It was interesting to discover that the Border League Division 3 match between Godalming A and Farnham C was called off when the away team decided it was too risky to travel. We Guildfordians are made of sterner stuff!

Tags: November 2023,Surrey Border League

Match reports

On winning and not winning

Is it possible to win and lose the same match? Yes, in the Stoneleigh Trophy (the Surrey League handicap rapidplay competition). Last night Guildford took on Dorking at our home venue. This was two successive 4-board matches involving the same players. Guildford won these matches by a convincing 6–2 score overall. But we outrated the opposition by 261 points a board. Under the handicap rules, with a rating advantage of this magnitude, we needed to score 7–1 simply to draw the match. As we fell short of that, the league table shows that we scored zero match points and Dorking scored one match point. There is a certain Alice in Wonderland logic to this. Maybe we should field a team of juniors in this competition as they are the one category of players who are consistently stronger than their rating.

Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, Guildford D took on Woking B in Division 4 of the Surrey Border League. This was a straightforward fight where ratings are ratings and winning is winning. We were outrated by 70 points a board on average. So it was very satisfactory to win the match 3–2, with the result in balance until David Carpenter won on board 3 in the last game to finish.

Away from league chess, the Beginners group continued upstairs with a session led by Mike Gunn, and the internal rapidplay tournament completed stage 8 (with 24 rounds in total now played). The latest overall standings table is on the Tournaments page.

Tags: October 2023

Match reports

If you don't shoot you don't score

It was a tale of two matches at the Guildford home venue last Monday night.

In the Surrey League, Guildford 3 took on Guildford 4 in the Centenary Trophy local derby. Guildford 3 had an average rating advantage of nearly 200 points a board, so it was not surprising that they won the match 4–1. This was in contrast to the earlier derby match between these teams on 9 October, where the rating difference was less than 50 points a board and the match finished a 3–3 draw.

In another part of the playing area, the chess equipment stayed unused. Guildford were due to host Fleet & Farnborough in the Surrey Border League Bell Trophy knockout competition, but the away team failed to turn up so Guildford took the match 5–0 on default.

Tags: October 2023

Match reports

SL D1 – Epsom 1 v Guildford 1

It was disappointing to go out in the 1st round of the Alexander Cup on 25 September, losing 6–4 to Epsom. We did better in our next meeting, starting our Surrey League Division 1 campaign with a 4–4 draw at their venue – a good result given that we were outrated by 70 points a board on average.

Nigel Povah and Gwilym Price both went down to very strong opponents at the top end (Graeme Buckley and Peter Large), but Clive Frostick managed to draw against Susan Lalic on board 3.

New signing Rolandas Lukosius, James Toon, and Tim Foster all won their games. James's game against a strong junior is featured on the Games page of the website.

Julien Shepley drew against Robin Haldane (always a tricky opponent). Unfortunately for us, Liam Ireland was unable to hold the ending in the last game to finish and Epsom managed to draw the match.

Tags: October 2023

Match reports

SBL D2: Farnham B v Guilford B

Guildford B opened their Border League Division 2 campaign with a 2.5–2.5 draw away against Farnham.

James Toon had a heavyweight draw with Clive Frostick on board 1. The players followed mainline Neo-Catalan theory for quite a while. James had some pressure but Clive defended well and in the end James had nothing better than liquidating to a drawn ending.

Julian Shepley lost quickly on board 2 to a kingside tactic.

Tim Foster developed strong central pressure on board 3, forcing a pawn to d7 and winning the exchange to force resignation.

Alex Thompson had a tragi-comic game on board 4. He played well to reach a better major piece ending, then traded down to a winning rook and pawn ending, then exchanged rooks to reach a pawn ending where his opponent found a drawing resource. He then went wrong in a difficult position and lost.

Neil Crosswell's opponent on board 5 seemed to be holding until the middlegame but overlooked a finesse and lost a piece, after which the ending was easy.

We outrated them by a quite a lot on average, so maybe this was one that got away.

Tags: October 2023

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Contact us

This form is for enquiries from adults. For juniors please use the contact form on our Juniors page.

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