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.

Map

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

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

Guildford FIDE Congress

Guildford FIDE Congress 2024

The Guildford FIDE Congress 2024 will take place at the University of Surrey over the weekend of Friday 12 April to Sunday 14 April 2024. The format will be very similar to this year's event – a 5-round Swiss tournament in three sections, Open, Major and Minor. All results will be submitted for ECF rating and FIDE rating.

We will start taking entries for the Congress in January 2024.

Tags: October 2023

Juniors

9th International Youth Chessmates Tournament

Two Guildford juniors, Ronit Sachdeva and Adam Sefton, were selected to play for the London team in the 9th International Youth Chessmates Tournament, which took place in Rotterdam on the weekend of 20–22 October 2023.

These events involve four teams of 10 players each in a 3-round all-play-all. The other teams in the 9th Tournament were Berlin, Paris and Sachsen-Anhalt. 

Played to a time control of G90 + 30 seconds a move, the event provided valuable experience for our juniors against some challenging European opponents.

Details of the event can be found here.

Tags: October 2023,Ronit Sachdeva,Adam Sefton

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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