Alongside the Hampshire Individual Chess Open and Major a competitive Minor tournament was also taking place. This was won by Tom Philidor who only took up chess a couple of years ago – a huge achievement.
Although the Hampshire Individual Chess Championship was the main event, the Major had the largest amount of entries (41) and was hotly contested with a number of experienced players as well as a number who had improved greatly in the last few years.
In 1997 there was a huge upheaval for the Hampshire Chess Association when the majority of the officers resigning. Not sure of the reason for this but it was obviously something which seemed to come out of the blue and there was no transition process. For this reason Hampshire did not play in the WECU … Read more
The 1999 Hampshire Individual Championship was held at Eastleigh Unity Club, which at the time was my club’s home venue. This was a good building to hold a small tournament, but the management never really understood the conditions which chess needs to be played. As a club we had issues with a band practicing on … Read more