The 1966 Hampshire Individual Chess Championship (for the 1965 / 66 season) was held at Eastleigh the weekend of the 10th to 12th December 1965, generally in accordance with a resolution passed at the 1965 Annual General Meeting; the format was a Swiss Tournament with 14 participants. The tournament had a number of the leading Hampshire players, but on the same front was missing some of the strongest players such as Marshall Thompson.
Update: 11 Oct 2024. Roger Paige’s report from his Hampshire County Games 1950-1970 book has been added. This gives additional information on the tournament and the players.
Contents
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.
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 1965 / 66 tournament was controlled by Hampshire veteran Leslie Vine (squadron leader) who was himself a former champion (1952) and first played in the 1939 championship.
This looks to be the first time the championship was held as a weekend Swiss congress, as stated in the article in the Hampshire Bulletin, which was produced by the Hon. Secretary JEC Grant. A fine article it was as well, although I think some of the pairings for the rounds were not recorded correctly. This has made it difficult to determine all the round by round scores, but I have done my best!
It had been hoped to hold the tournament at Bournemouth, but as no controller volunteered, the Secretary of the Association had to call on Leslie Vine (who had proposed the resolution). He gave him a free hand but every assistance including the duplication and distribution of the informative letter and helpful advice on the telephoned reports of progress.
Hampshire Bulletin – 1966 – JEC Grant
Fourteen players duly entered, and a five round Swiss Tournament was held. The County Rate of play (24 moves per hour) was used with the time Controls as long as possible. It was considered that in the limited time unfinished games would have to be adjudicated – a weak point. In the event only one game was submitted. This indeed gave the Controller an anxious mid-day break, but he was thankful to find his decision was the same as the players had found for. themselves.
The Tournament resulted in a clear win for Mr. MJ Dymond of Portsmouth who was the only competitor not to lose a game.
For the second place, Mr. GW Daw of Southampton and Mr RA Collins of Southampton University had equal scores each having three wins a draw and a loss.
Mr WH Pratten, the President of the Hampshire Chess Association, who very kindly attended the beginning and end of the tournament examined the scores of these two players’ opponents in accordance with the Sonneborn – Berger. system and declared Mr. Daw the runner up.
This decision was important, as the winner and runner up have the right to play first and second boards for the County until the next Championship. Mr. Hussey of Lilac Road Southampton very kindly attended the Tournament and took a number of photographs. The one of Mr Dymond was published in the “Southern Evening Echo”.
The results of the tournament with round-by-round scores are shown below. The first round was seeded and certainly vindicated gradings, the result being almost entirely as expected.
Although Mr Wright had a poor score some of his games were very hard and he resigned sometimes when there was a lot of play left. The tournament was remarkable for the increase in strength of Messrs. Dodwell and Bennett as it progressed.
Mr Collins was perhaps unfortunate in coming up against that fine game game from Mr. Daw.
Our thanks are due to Mr. Crewe for providing the scores duplicating system. The scores of the games (with light notes) are set out in the following pages.
On the whole, it would appear. that the weekend ‘Congress’ experiment has proved successful and, given more time and wider publicity, should next year attract an even larger entry.
It is certainly a shame that the Southern Evening Echo only has archived scans on the British Newspaper Articles up to 1910, as otherwise the photo of Mike Dymond would be available, and maybe even an article? In addition, the Portsmouth Evening News is currently included up to 1961 and hopefully soon they will cover this period. They had a very active Chess column and this will be a fantastic source for material from the 1960’s to 1980’s.
Moving forward to the HCA Committee Meeting in March 1966 it seems that the decision to change the tournament to a weekend congress was not approved by the committee and that decisions made at the AGM should be adhered to. That said, the fact that the tournament was being organised after it could not be held in Bournemouth was more important than the structure.
Final Table
We are lucky that a large amount of the games from the tournament were included in the Hampshire Bulletin and these have been included in the article. Less fortunate was the fact that as these are in descriptive notation adding these into Chessbase has been a slow process for me. But ensuring we have these games makes the effort worthwhile. We have been very fortunate that Arthur Brameld has inputted the games for the more recent tournaments for Hampshire.
The winning of the tournament was Mike Dymond who died in 2022. Mike March and Arthur Brameld provided his obituary and unlike some chess players he was a larger than life character.
In addition to Mike, the following participants won (or would win) the Hampshire Individual Championship. The main player missing from this year’s competition was the 9 time winner Marshall Thompson, who would be back to win the following year, as he had done the previous year.
- Alf Edmonds – 1962
- John Wilkinson – 1964
- Arthur Barton – 1968
- Gerald Bennett – 1973 & 1983
Round 1
The first round was seeded, and it seems most of the games went as expected. I have copied the games from the article into Chessbase, although I think there were a couple of typos. I am also not an expert on the old descriptive notation, but have tried to re-create when the moves did not make sense! I have located some of the player’s grades, apart from PJ Dodwell. The top seeds were MJ Dymond and AM Edmonds, although RA Collins and JR Wilkinson were not far behind.
Each of the games are below the table with light annotations from Mr JEC Grant and myself (computer assisted).
As per the JEC’s Grant’s report the majority of the games were won by the stronger player with the exception of G Daw beating Peter Marshall (although very little between the grades). In this game Peter had a stronger position, but blundered into a mate (maybe missing that Qf2 was checking?). Instead of the played Ra2, playing Rf1 would have maintained White’s advantage.
| Player | Grade | Result | Player | Grade | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AS La Lond | 154 | 0 | MJ Dymond | 188 | 1 |
| AM Edmonds | 186 | 1 | PJ Dodwell | 0 | |
| RA Collins | 176 | 1 | GH Bennett | 150 | 0 |
| GL Pritchard | 151 | 0 | JR Wilkinson | 174 | 1 |
| PL Marshall | 169 | 0 | G Daw | 162 | 1 |
| TJ De Buriatte | 162 | ½ | AC Barton | 169 | ½ |
| D Wright | 153 | 0 | JE Crewe | 164 | 1 |
I have used Chessbase to create the game files, you should be able to see all 7 games below, moving between them using the various options. Any issues let me know, but to show all games round by round this seems better than the normal app I use, although I have used this for individual games.
Round 2
Six players had won in the 1st round, but only one of these would win in the 2nd round with Daw beating Collins. From the players who had lost in the first round, Pritchard and Bennett won their games. Bennet had the upfloat to meet De Buriatte who had drawn in the previous round, whilst Pritchard beat AS La Lond who remained the only player on zero.
We pick up the Daw – Collins game on move 16 when although Daw was already winning, he played a nice sacrifice to crash through. As one of the higher rated players this loss would have been a big blow for Collins, as it would be very difficult to win a five round tournament when losing in the 2nd round.
This round also saw a Morra Gambit and as this is an opening much beloved to my club I have to show this. The John Grant annotated game is given in the chessbase file below the 2nd round result, but I have added some of my own notes to the one below, whilst keeping John’s as well.
| Player | Grade | Result | Player | Grade | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JE Crewe | 164 | ½ | MJ Dymond | 188 | ½ |
| G Daw | 162 | 1 | RA Collins | 176 | 0 |
| JR Wilkinson | 174 | ½ | AM Edmonds | 186 | ½ |
| GH Bennett | 150 | 1 | TJ De Buriatte | 162 | 0 |
| PJ Dodwell | ½ | D Wright | 153 | ½ | |
| AS La Lond | 154 | 0 | GL Pritchard | 151 | 1 |
| AC Barton | 169 | ½ | PL Marshall | 169 | ½ |
Round 3
In the third round Mike Dymond beat John Wilkinson, AM Edmonds did the same against G Daw and J Crewe beat GL Pritchard. These three players took the lead with two and a half points from their three games.
Just behind them were G Daw and RA Collins on two points.
In the Mike Dymond game, a hasty move by Black caused defensive issues, with the Black King being on a dangerous diagonal.
| Player | Grade | Result | Player | Grade | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AM Edmonds | 186 | 1 | G Daw | 162 | 0 |
| MJ Dymond | 188 | 1 | JR Wilkinson | 174 | 0 |
| GL Pritchard | 151 | 0 | JE Crewe | 164 | 1 |
| PL Marshall | 169 | 1 | GH Bennett | 150 | 0 |
| RA Collins | 176 | 1 | AC Barton | 169 | 0 |
| TJ De Buriatte | 162 | 1 | PJ Dodwell | 0 | |
| D Wright | 153 | 0 | AS La Lond | 154 | 1 |
The scores at the end of round three were:
Open Round 3 Table
| Name | Score |
|---|---|
| MJ Dymond | 2½ |
| JE Crewe | 2½ |
| AM Edmonds | 2½ |
Round 4
Mike Dymond took on Alf Edmonds (who as an aside I lost the one time I played him in the Southampton Chess League in 1994) and JE Crewe lost to the upfloated G Daw. Therefore Mike Dymond took the sole lead with three and a half points from four games, whilst Geoffrey Daw was in second place on his own half a point behind.
I was supplied the annotated Mike Dymond win, which was probably key to his championship win, defeating the 2nd seed. Worth remembering that Alf Edmonds was the Hampshire Individual Champion in 1964 and Southampton Individual Champion four times between 1965 to 1969 and was probably playing at his highest level in this period.
D Wright’s poor tournament continued when from a slightly worse position he blundered a piece and resigned.
| Player | Grade | Result | Player | Grade | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MJ Dymond | 188 | 1 | AM Edmonds | 186 | 0 |
| JE Crewe | 164 | 0 | G Daw | 162 | 1 |
| JR Wilkinson | 174 | ½ | RA Collins | 176 | ½ |
| D Wright | 153 | 0 | AC Barton | 169 | 1 |
| PJ Dodwell | 1 | AS La Lond | 154 | 0 | |
| GH Bennett | 150 | ½ | GL Pritchard | 151 | ½ |
| TJ De Buriatte | 162 | ½ | PL Marshall | 169 | ½ |
Round 5
The last round paired the 1st and 2nd placed players, which meant Daw had to beat Dymond to win the championship. However, as the report by JEC Grant at the start of the article mentioned, the two top players in the championship had the honour of playing on the top two boards for the County. This seems to have been important to Daw, as the game was drawn in 17 moves. I give the game below.
meanwhile RA Collins beat Alf Edmonds to join Geoffrey Daw on three and a half points for shared 2nd place. Hants Chess Legend Wilf Pratten checked the tie-break and recorded the 2nd place with regards to the County 2nd board place as belonging to Daw.
Lower down Pritchard, Dodwell and La Lond all finished with wins.
But the game of the round was PJ Dodwell’s crushing win against Peter Marshall’s Pirc, which is well worth playing through.
| Player | Grade | Result | Player | Grade | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G Daw | 162 | ½ | MJ Dymond | 188 | ½ |
| RA Collins | 176 | 1 | AM Edmonds | 186 | 0 |
| JR Wilkinson | 174 | ½ | JE Crewe | 164 | ½ |
| AC Barton | 169 | ½ | GH Bennett | 150 | ½ |
| GL Pritchard | 151 | 1 | TJ De Buriatte | 162 | 0 |
| PJ Dodwell | 1 | PL Marshall | 169 | 0 | |
| AS La Lond | 154 | 1 | D Wright | 153 | 0 |
Summary
This was the first time the Hampshire Individual Championship was held as a weekend tournament, replacing the normal six month tournament where players would play at clubs or homes. There are pros and cons for both versions, but we are certainly more used to the weekend Swiss these days.
The tournament being held over five rounds was a lot less than the longer tournaments over six months. This was also changed later, with the tournament being played over two weekends, which does give more time to allow for to comeback from a loss. That said, Mike Dymond was a deserving winner, just dropping the two draws.
Roger Paige Report
Roger Paige had a report on the tournament in his Hampshire County Games 1950-1970 which I give below. This explains why D. Wright and AS LaLond played each other twice.
There were similar initial difficulties in arranging this tournament this year, the format being the key issue. In the end a 5 Round Weekend Swiss was arranged under the control of L.E.Vine. Play ran from 7pm Friday December 10th until the last round beginning at 7.30 pm Sunday December 12th.
Rounds 1 to 3 were to be played at Toynbee School, Eastleigh, and the final 2 rounds on Sunday at Railway Institute, Eastleigh. In the end the competition was highly successful and the full result was as follows:
| No | Place | Player | Rd1 | Rd2 | Rd3 | Rd4 | Rd5 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | MJ Dymond | W13 | D4 | W6 | W5 | D2 | 4 |
| 2 | 2-3 | G Daw | W10 | W3 | L5 | W4 | D1 | 3½ |
| 3 | RA Collins | W12 | L2 | W7 | D6 | W5 | 3½ | |
| 4 | 4 | JE Crewe | W14 | D1 | W8 | L2 | D6 | 3 |
| 5 | 5-9 | A Edmonds | W9 | D6 | W2 | L1 | L3 | 2½ |
| 6 | J Wilkinson | W8 | D5 | L1 | D3 | D4 | 2½ | |
| 7 | AC Barton | D11 | D10 | L3 | W14 | D12 | 2½ | |
| 8 | GL Pritchard | L6 | W13 | L4 | D12 | W11 | 2½ | |
| 9 | PJ Dodwell | L5 | D14 | L11 | W13 | W10 | 2½ | |
| 10 | 10-13 | PL Marshall | L2 | D7 | W12 | D11 | L9 | 2 |
| 11 | T deBuriatte | D7 | L12 | W9 | D10 | L8 | 2 | |
| 12 | GH Bennett | L3 | W11 | L10 | D8 | D7 | 2 | |
| 13 | AS LaLond | L1 | L8 | W14 | L9 | W14* | 2 | |
| 14 | 14 | D Wright | L4 | D9 | L13 | L7 | L13* | ½ |
*This seems to have been a pairing of convenience as the 2 players had already met.
Throughout the tournament Dymond, the only undefeated player, never looked like losing a single game, showing the right amount of steadiness and aggression. The runner-up, G.Daw, adopted rather passive openings and then had to play too aggressively. In such a short tournament one loss can make all the difference, as was the case with Collins who came third, his second round loss to Daw meaning he was always having to play catch-up. Daw’s win left him in first place on his own but he then lost a long struggle to Edmonds.
This victory left Edmonds, Dymond and Crewe on 2½ and it was in the fourth round that the matter was decided. Daw beat Crewe to regain ground but the game of the tournament was Dymond’s excellent miniature win over Edmonds. This meant that Dymond could only be caught if he lost in the last round and he took no chances, forcing a draw against Daw. Edmonds blundered his game away against Collins
Games
The games I have from the rounds are detailed after each round, but in totality can be found here as well as a pgn file (have to add as a text file and you may need to amend to a pgn prefix?)
Gallery
The following documents were in the Hampshire Chess Archives. The original entry forms, the cross table with additional hand written comments.
Document
The original document from the Hampshire Bulletin from which I have based the article on. The full bulletin will be added to the Hampshire Chess Publications in the future.
Please do leave a comment if you have additional information or questions on the tournament.
Acknowledgements and Sources
- Hampshire Chess Archives
- Britbase for photograph of Gerald Bennett
- Arthur Brameld and Mike March for original information and photos on Mike Dymond
- Roger Paige for his original summary of the tournament
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