Hampshire Individual Chess Championship 2015

The 2015 Hampshire Chess Championship was held at Eastleigh College between 6th and 8th November 2015. It was split into 3 sections with in total 58 players participating. The Open tournament saw Tony Corkett wining the Hampshire Individual Championship for the 9th time which tied Marshall Thompson’s championship titles.

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Contents

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For a list of the winners of the Hampshire Individual Championship and links to any articles I have written, the table on the Hampshire Individual Championship is the best place to look. In addition, the table on the Hampshire Tournaments will detail these and any other tournament articles I have completed. Both of these are available from the menu at the top of the site as well.

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Tournament

The Hampshire Individual Chess Championship has used numerous formats in the last 90 odd years, from the Knockout format in 1930, qualifying sections e.g. 1932 to the current Swiss tournament held over three days. The format used for the 2015 Championship was a six round Swiss. Non Hampshire players were welcome to enter, but were not eligible for the Hampshire trophies.

In total 13 players entered the 2015 Championship, with four of these graded in excess 200 this was going to be a tough tournament to win.

Round 1

With the lowest graded player being 162 it would have been unusual for a complete sweep by the top players in round 1. This proved the case as although the top two seeds won, David Pye, Paul Hackman and David Fowler were all held to draws by their lower rated opponents.

I have picked a couple of games, the first one is a well played sacrifice by Gavin Lock against Tom Bird. We pick the game up from the sac on move 18.

The second is the Matthew Chapman / Paul Hackman game where it may have been that White was short of time, or decided that being 34 points lower graded it was sensible to accept the draw, despite being a pawn to the good. It can be painful losing from a better position and this will happen more often when your opponent is stronger and maybe this went into the decision.

Player	Grade	Result	Player	Grade	Result
Philip M Stimpson	173	0	Anthony R Corkett	215	1
Rowan M Brown	212	1	Horia D Bogdan	172	0
Doug Butcher	166	½	David E Pye	208	½
Gavin R Lock	201	1	Tom Bird	166	0
Matt Chapman	162	½	Paul Hackman	196	½
David W Fowler	176	½	David R Heath	162	½
Jasper Tambini	190	1	Controller Bye

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Round 2

Top seed Tony Corkett took a bye in the second round, which allowed Rowan Brown to move into sole place by beating Gavin Lock in an Advanced French opening. I give this game with computer analysis, although some of its comments are meant to be human like! But the computer certainly thought it was an entertaining game (which is was).

Paul Hackman was the other winner, beating David Fowler. Of the three draws the Bogdan – Chapman one was the longest, with the game drawn after 69 moves of pushing by white. In the following position Black is just about to play Bxg5 and White has no more chances after the Bishop retreats to f6.

Player	Grade	Result	Player	Grade	Result
Rowan M Brown	212	1	Gavin R Lock	201	0
David E Pye	208	½	Jasper Tambini	190	½
Paul Hackman	196	1	David W Fowler	176	0
David R Heath	162	0	Doug Butcher	166	1
Tom Bird	166	½	Philip M Stimpson	173	½
Horia D Bogdan	172	½	Matt Chapman	162	½
Anthony R Corkett	215	½	Bye

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Round 3

The 3rd round saw the top two seeds clash and the game was agreed drawn after 20 moves. In the final position the computer gives Black a small edge, but an understandable result, as this kept Brown half a point ahead of Corkett.

Boards 2 and 3 were more combative. David Pye played the Nimzowitsch defence. After the game went into unchartered waters White built an advantage, but exchanging rooks on move 31 was probably a mistake, as this allowed Black to free his position.

The game went into a even but tricky ending, where White made a couple of errors allowing Black to create a huge passed e pawn.

The Tambini – Hackman game was a complicated French Advance, where Tambini broke though in the end picking up Black’s pawns whilst avoiding Black’s threats.

Player	Grade	Result	Player	Grade	Result
Anthony R Corkett	215	½	Rowan M Brown	212	½
David E Pye	208	1	Matt Chapman	162	0
Jasper Tambini	190	1	Paul Hackman	196	0
Doug Butcher	166	½	Gavin R Lock	201	½
David W Fowler	176	½	Tom Bird	166	½
Philip M Stimpson	173	½	David R Heath	162	½
Horia D Bogdan	172	1	Controller Bye		0

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Round 4

Rowan Brown continued his winning ways against Tom Bird, with a nicely played game with Black.

Meanwhile Tony Corkett suffered a setback losing to Horia Bogdan in a complicated Rook and pawn ending.

Player	Grade	Result	Player	Grade	Result
Tom Bird	166	0	Rowan M Brown	212	1
Horia D Bogdan	172	1	Anthony R Corkett	215	0
Philip M Stimpson	173	½	David W Fowler	176	½
David R Heath	162	0	Matt Chapman	162	1
David E Pye	208	½	Bye
Doug Butcher	166	½	Bye
Jasper Tambini	190	½	Bye
Gavin R Lock	201	½	Bye

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Round 5

Going into round 5 on Sunday morning Rowen Brown (3½) was half a point ahead of Justin Tambini (3), whilst Horia Bogdan, Doug Butcher and David Pye were all on 2½ points. Meanwhile Tony Corkett, Matthew Chapman and Gavin Lock were back on 2 points.

Rowan Brown survived a bad position playing White in a Scotch game to defeat Jasper Tambini. This win meant Rowan had won the tournament with a round to spare, as he was 1½ points ahead of the trailing 5 players on 3 points. These included Jasper, David Pye and Horia Bogdan, who drew their game and Tony Corkett and Gavin Lock who won theirs. This was relevant as Rowan Brown was not eligible for the Hampshire Championship, but the majority of these players were.

Below these players David Fowler had a pretty win against Matthew Champman with a nice temporary Queen sacrifice allowing him to win the exchange and the game.

Player	Grade	Result	Player	Grade	Result
Rowan M Brown	212	1	Jasper Tambini	190	0
David E Pye	208	½	Horia D Bogdan	172	½
Anthony R Corkett	215	1	Doug Butcher	166	0
David W Fowler	176	1	Matt Chapman	162	0
Gavin R Lock	201	1	Philip M Stimpson	173	0
David R Heath	162	½	Tom Bird	166	0.5

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Round 6

Rowan Brown did not take his foot off the pedal, beating David Pye with Black. In the fight for second place Tony Corkett defeated Jasper Tambini and Horia Bogdan did the same to David Heath whilst Gavin Lock took down David Fowler.

In a tactical melee Rowan Brown won against David Pye nicely.

I decided to put Tony Corkett’s game through Stockfish as this would provide much better analysis than mine (not easy to annotate on much stronger players games!). As SF states this was a wild game. It would seem in the end that White pushed too hard for the win, as from a safe pawn up Tambini blundered into a mating net.

Player	Grade	Result	Player	Grade	Result
David E Pye	208	0	Rowan M Brown	212	1
Jasper Tambini	190	0	Anthony R Corkett	215	1
Horia D Bogdan	172	1	David R Heath	162	0
David W Fowler	176	0	Gavin R Lock	201	1
Matt Chapman	162	½	Tom Bird	166	½
Doug Butcher	166	½	Philip M Stimpson	173	½

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Games

All the games from the Open games can be downloaded here.

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Open Final Position Summary

Rowan Brown with his 5½ points finished a clear 1½ points ahead of the three players in 2nd place. The Hampshire Congress is always two tournaments in one, with all Hampshire players having an eye on the Hampshire trophies, and with his last round win the Silver Rook was won by Tony Corkett on tie-break from Gavin Lock and Horia Bogdan. This was Tony’s 9th Hampshire Individual Championship and he was the only player who took half a point from Rowan.

The under 175 prize and Len Walters Trophy was won by Horia Bogdan with his 4 points.

The prize winners of the Open Tournament were:

• 1st Rowan Brown (5½)
• 2nd Tony Corkett (4) who also won the Hampshire Individual Championship, Gavin Lock and Horia Bogdan U175 and Len Walters Trophy (4)

As the basis of this is from the ECF rating site crosstable, which does not take into account byes the rankings do not match the final real positions. But to amend this I would have to recreate the numbers for each player, which I have not done. But the table can be sorted to allow you to do this.

Rank	Name	Grade	Rd 1	Rd 2	Rd 3	Rd 4	Rd 5	Rd 6	Score
1	Rowan M Brown	212	4+	3+	2=	10+	13+	6+	5.5
2	Anthony R Corkett	215	8+	bye =	1=	4–	9+	13+	4
3	Gavin R Lock	201	10+	1–	9=	bye =	8+	7+	4
4	Horia D Bogdan	172	1–	5=	bye +	2+	6=	12+	4
5	Matt Chapman	162	11=	4=	6–	12+	7–	10=	2.5
6	David E Pye	208	9=	13=	5+	bye =	4=	1–	3
7	David W Fowler	176	12=	11–	10=	8=	5+	3–	2.5
8	Philip M Stimpson	173	2–	10=	12=	7=	3–	9+	2.5
9	Doug Butcher	166	6=	12+	3=	bye =	2–	8–	2.5
10	Tom Bird	166	3–	8=	7=	1–	12=	5=	2
11	Paul Hackman	196	5=	7+	13–	0	0	0	1.5
12	David R Heath	162	7=	9–	8=	5–	10=	4–	1.5
13	Jasper Tambini	190	bye +	6=	11+	bye =	1–	2–	3

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Gallery

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HCA Summary

Hampshire’s Chess Association Secretary’s John Wheeler’s report on the 2015 Congress is below. Many thanks to John for sending all his reports for the HCA Archives, as although I had some of these, not being active in the HCA (or any Chess at this time I did not have this one).

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Acknowledgements and Sources

• Hampshire Chess Archives
• British Chess Rating System
• John Wheeler

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