Home | Guildford Chess Club - Surrey Border League

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

26.11.2023 Annotated games

Annotated by the winner

The Games page was in danger of becoming My Collected Games by James Toon, so it's good to see a new face in the room. Gwilym Price annotates his win against Kevin Richardson on board 1 in the Farnham 1 v Guildford 1 match on 9 November.

Tags: Gwilym Price,Surrey Border League

09.11.2023 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

01.11.2023 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!