This post will fall under the new Blog category (under the Home button, or just select from Categories), where this will cover non Hampshire Chess History items. This article is on my chess season (June 2024 to July 2025), which has consisted of one tournament, Southampton chess league, county and internal club tournaments.
I also played at the Fareham Rapidplay tournament, but have left this to classical chess. I have not included the 2025 John Kooner Cup, which started in April, as this will not complete until later this year.
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2024 / 25 Season
I am certainly playing more chess now than any time since the early 1990’s, when I first started playing competitive chess. The reason is that I now have more time as my daughters are grown up, and I am retired. I have played 126 classical and 6 rapid games in the last 36 months.
Being honest my chess has not improved in this period, and I probably have come to the conclusion that my best days are in the past (rating peak was 1997 at 155 (1863)), but on a giving day I think I am still capable to beating stronger players.
Between July 2024 and June 2025 I played in the following chess leagues / tournaments, and I have broken these down, looking at what went well and what was not great. I have also added a couple of my games.
- Chandler’s Ford 2024 Summer Tournament
- Chandler’s Ford 2024/25 Book Prize A section
- Chandler’s Ford 2025 John Kooner Cup
- Southampton Chess League
- Chiltern League County Season
- Bournemouth 2025 Congress
- Chandler’s Ford 2025 KO Tournament
- Chandler’s Ford Rated Friendlies
Chandler’s Ford 2024 Summer Tournament
This internal tournament is meant to be played over the Summer, but there were some congestion issues and my last game was played in December 2024. This year the name has reverted to the John Kooner Cup. The tournament was a 5 round Swiss, and I was probably in the top 5 rated players from the 32 entrants.
That said there were three players rated in excess of 1900 and one who is now 2232, and I did not think much of my chances. In the end I scored three and a half points from the five games, only losing in the last round to Iwan Cave, who won with four and a half points.
My best result was beating the improving junior Christian Westbrook in the fourth round. Beating juniors when they are young is key, as Christian has now passed 1800, and if he continues to improve should be over 1950 in 18 months or so. I have also noticed his endgame play has improved since this game where he made a couple of positional mistakes in a level position.
My performance rating for this tournament was 18291
| Played | Won | Draw | Lost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
Chandler’s Ford 2024/25 Book Prize A Tournament section A
This is an all play all tournament, played over the whole season. In fact my last game was just this week. The Book Prize is split into sections and this gives all club players the opportunity to either win their section, or to play well against the players rated approximately the same.
I played in the top section and had a good tournament, with 3 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses. According to LMS my performance rating was 18632. Not all the games in the tournament were completed, but Iwan won with maximum points, and I finished in joint 2nd with Bill Purkiss. Christian is only half a point behind, and has played one game less, so it is a moot point for the placings behind the dominant Iwan3.
CF 2024 / 25 Book Prize Tournament
| Played | Won | Drawn | Lost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
Southampton Chess League
Moving onto the Southampton Chess League I mainly played on board 2 in the B team, with one game for the A team.
Chandler’s Ford B team was fairly flat rating wise compared to other teams. The difference between our board 1 and 5 was often less than 100 points. This meant we were normally outrated on the top boards, but our bottom boards were the opposite. This can be seen with Bill, Eric and myself all scoring under 50%, whilst Alikhan and Christian scored much more heavily. They both also improved over the season, with their ratings increasing by more than 150 points.
We often had the pleasure of our games being completed, and watching Alikhan grind out a win at the end of the game, which meant with his win we either won or drawn the match.
For the B team I played seven games on board 2, two on 3 and one on 4 and my 1750 rating performance was about the same as my actual rating. I managed two wins, four draws and four losses. Two of the losses came from strong positions, which was disappointing, but strong opponents don’t fold from bad positions and look and take chances when on offer.
My best game was the one against Salisbury’s Richard Wright who played very aggressively in the opening, pushing his King side pawns for a good position.
I also played once in both the Rob Cup and Plate and lost both games. I have also included the pre season friendly against Fareham where the game was drawn.
| Played | Won | Draw | Lost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14 | 4 | 4 | 6 |
Chiltern League County Season
I played three times for the county and lost all three times. I cannot remember scoring this poorly for the county, as I normally do well in the longer games. The last game was most disappointing, as I was winning, but time pressure played its part in throwing away the win.
| Played | Won | Draw | Lost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
Bournemouth 2025 Congress
I just played the one classical OTB Congress, which was a pleasant experience in Bournemouth. I started with two wins against 1800 strength players, but then lost the next two games before withdrawing. The end was on Mother’s day and it allowed me to return home. Not ideal, but I think there is less stigma these days to players withdrawing from congresses (I was certainly not the only one who did this).
Both wins were pleasant, but the 2nd game was beating the Exchange French, which despite its dull reputation normally can turn quite tactical. In this instance it was Black who had all the fun.
| Played | Won | Draw | Lost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
Chandler’s Ford 2025 KO Tournament
I lost in the preliminary round to Eric Jones (1762) who played an excellent game. Not much to say about this tournament from my viewpoint.
| Played | Won | Draw | Lost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Chandler’s Ford Rated Friendlies
I played 3 rated friendlies at the club, winning two games and losing one. This was a game against Alikhan, who did the same to me as he had done to our opponents in the league, beating me from a level position in time trouble (I was white in the position below).
| Played | Won | Draw | Lost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
Summary
In the last season I played 38 OTB games scoring 46%. My opponents were rated between 1036 and 2239 and on the whole I performed a little under par, dropping a few points on my rating. Hopefully this year will see better results, but I was not that disappointed with my play.
In the past I have tended to draw too many games and this season this was under 25%. That said several games I lost from good positions and it would have been preferable if this was not the case.
| Played | Won | Draw | Lost | Perc. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 38 | 13 | 9 | 16 | 46% |
- Where the average is more than 400 points difference I have just taken my rating. ↩︎
- I calculated this as 1857 ↩︎
- As can be seen the rating performances on LMS where players are rated 400 points difference are a bit odd, as with 7 out of 7 if has Iwan’s rating less than his probable rating at the time of the games. ↩︎