Hampshire Chess Individual Championship 1934

The 1934 championship had the same format as 1933 with two sections of six players, with the top two players moving to the final. An all play all was completed in the final between the four players.

The preliminary sections had the following players:

Section I

HA Way
FJH Elwell
HD Lloyd
JS West
FS Tinkler
WR Dickinson

Section II

WJ Fry
AB Coe
SL Russell
FL Taylor
GP Britton
W Turner

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.

Preliminaries

Unfortunately there was not a record of the individual results in the Hampshire Chess Archives although it did have the total for the winners. From the British Newspaper Archives I have located a couple of results and have added these to tables for completeness, but this has not allowed full results.

In Preliminary I from the table supplied by F Taylor Portsmouth’s HA Way and Southampton’s FJH Elwell scored 4½ and therefore they drew against each other and won their other games. The other players were HD Lloyd (Portsmouth), JS West (Portsmouth), FS Tinkler (Southampton) and WR Dickenson (Winchester).

The players that went through from Preliminary II were 1933’s champion WJ Fry and fellow Southampton Chess club player AB Coe. There were not enough results to work out the results but I have added the ones from the Hampshire Advertiser and the total of the two players that progressed. SL Russell (Broughton), FL Taylor (Old Tauntonians), GP Britton (Taunton School) and W Turner (Broughton) were the other players in Preliminary II.

Final

The Hampshire Chess Archives did have the individual results from the final and Frank Elwell won his 3rd championship, finishing half a point ahead of the 1933 champion WJ Fry. I was unable to locate much information on the tournament, as I think the Hampshire Advertiser from June concentrated more on Cricket results than chess. In September though it did supply the crucial FJH Elwell win against WJ Fry which I have included with the Newspaper’s annotations.

The game was a high quality one and ended with a tactical sequence where White could have won the Exchange but went into a line where it looks as if he is winning a safe pawn with an attack. Black had calculated deeper though and could temporarily sacrifice his Queen. After winning the Queen back though, he also picked up a Bishop for a winning position. The game carried on until move 80, but the moves after move 40 were not supplied.