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

A close contest

Our first team was strong for this Surrey Trophy match against Wimbledon and we outrated them by over 100 points a board on average. So the final score of 5–3 in our favour was what we might have expected on paper. In fact the match was much closer than that.

Six of the eight games finished inside two hours. Alan Punnett lost on board 4, James Toon won on board 6, and there were draws on boards 1, 2, 3 and 7 for Gwilym Price, Nigel Povah, Clive Frostick and Julien Shepley.

The last two boards took much longer to finish. They did not look promising. Rolandas Lukosius was the exchange down on board 5, in an ending with bishop and pawns v rook and pawns. Trevor Jones was passively-placed in a complicated middlegame on board 8. It seemed that a draw was the best we could hope for in both games, and we might even lose. But both players showed admirable fighting qualities to keep the games going. Admittedly with some help from their opponents, in desperate time trouble…

First, Trevor's opponent blundered, overlooking a tactic that won the exchange and then a piece. Then, Rolandas's opponent managed to misplay the ending completely, allowing Rolandas to establish a passed pawn on the 7th rank that was defended by his bishop, resulting in an easy win.

This win keeps us top of Division 1 with three of our eight matches played.

Epsom Derby

Guildford and Epsom are not exactly next door. In fact sometimes, for example approaching midnight on Monday 20 November, it feels like we are in different universes. See the end of this post for more details.

In another sense, it feels like we are local rivals. We have now played Epsom four times in different competitions this season and it's still only November. So these matches feel like derby matches. Epsom have knocked us out of two cup competitions (the Alexander Cup and the Lauder Trophy), and we could only manage a draw in a heavyweight league encounter in the Surrey Trophy (Division 1).

So tonight it was very satisfying that we finally came out on top, in a close-fought Ellam Trophy match (Division 3). We won this match 3.5–2.5. That was probably a fair result since we outrated them by over 100 points a board. But the outcome was in doubt until quite near the end. Wins for James Toon, Seb Galer and Peter Hegarty, a draw for Julien Shepley, losses for Mike Morgan and Richard Duncalfe.

There was a nice finish on board 1 tonight. White (to play) is much better in the diagram position and there are various ways to press home the advantage. Our board 1 took the artistic route, sacrificing a piece with 35.Ng5! exf4 36.Qe5! when 36…Qxe5 allows 37.Nf7 mate, 36…Qd7 (or other evasive action) allows 37.f7+ and mate follows, and 36…Nxf6 drops the queen to 37.Qxc7. White could also have played 36.Qe8, which wins a bit more slowly.

That was when the fun stopped. The journey home was back north up the M25 to J10, then south on the A3. But at some point between driving to Epsom before the match, and driving home again afterwards, someone decided to close the road at the M25 junction and a long diversion was in place which involved travelling north up the A3 towards London and away from Guildford. The only good way home was to continue northwards up the M25 past the junction and head back via Woking, which doubled the journey time. Clearly someone in the Highways Department plays chess for Epsom.

My Image

Setting the pace

Following the example of Guildford 1 who recently defeated Kingston 1, last night Guildford 3 defeated Kingston 3 in the Centenary Trophy (Division 4 of the Surrey League). Wins for Malcolm Twigger-Ross, Peter Horlock, David Carpenter and Rory Davies, draws for Tony Garrood and Richard Duncalfe. The score of 5–1 was better than we might have expected as Guildford 3 held a rating advantage of only 50 points a board. Guildford 3 are currently top of the Centenary Trophy league table.

That was an away match. Back at home base, Guildford B beat Camberley A 4–1, and Guildford F lost to Crowthorne C 3–2, both matches in the Surrey Border League, and both going the way of the higher-rated teams. The Beginners and Improvers groups combined for a lively session led by Mike Gunn (this is clearly where the party's at), while next door the Internal Rapidplay continued its remorseless progress. 10 sessions, 30 rounds, and it's still only November. Latest standings on the
Tournaments page.

Finally, one of the games from last week's match against Farnham A (Tim Davis v James Toon on board 4) is now available to play through on the
Games page.

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.
Page 1 / 1

Contact us

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