Hampshire Individual Chess Championship 1968

The 1968 Hampshire Individual Chess Championship (for the 1967 / 68 season) was held at Southampton University the last weekend of October and the first weekend of November 1967. There were five rounds each weekend, and the tournament was won by the unbeaten AC Barton with seven wins and three draws.

Tournament
Games
Acknowledgements and Sources
Summary

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 format used for the 1968 Championship was a ten round Swiss, played over two weekends at Southampton University.

The Hampshire Bulletin detailed the structure where I notice you had to bring your own clock and entrance fee was 10 shillings (20 shillings in a pound, approx. £11 to £12 today).

In total 14 players entered the 1968 Championship. I would have thought Marshall Thompson would have gone in as a big favourite, due to his high grading, but there were a number of talented juniors, as well as two other previous champions, in Squadron-Leader Leslie Vine (1952 and SL Russell 1935!). Being graded at 140 my assumption was that SL Russell was past his prime, but as his rating was 158 a few years later, this was probably a bit of a blip. He also played in a side event in the 1981 WECU Championship and still had a rating of 128.

SL Russell played for the County team from 1929 to 1972 and Leslie Vine 1936 to 1972. Both seem to have stopped representing the County when we moved from the SCCU to the WECU. As there are a number of years in the 1940’s and 50’s where I have no match results, their total games played is probably far more than these numbers.

The winner of the Championship was AC Barton with an excellent eight and half points from his ten games. This included wins against Marshall Thompson and the strong junior Seth Saverymuttu (who won the next two championships). He was one and a half points ahead of the the three players in joint second, Gerald Bennett, Marshall Thompson and Mike March.

Players

AC Barton 160
AR Cullinane 167
RA Storey
F Grumbley
W Makar 153
Gerald H Bennett 160
GL Pritchard 150

Players

Mike March 160
SL Russell 140
S Sriharam
Marshall WJ Thompson 197
MR Johnson 148
S Saverymuttu 159
Sq-Ldr L Vine 163

The Hampshire Bulletin for Nov 1967 included the Final Table and Jan 1968 had two games which I have used in the article.

Final Table

There was an Under 18 and Under 16 Hampshire Junior Championship this year as well. I think this was held in Kinson, which is now in Dorset, with Seth Saverymuttu winning the under 18 and D Powers the under 16 title. I don’t have any additional details on this though.

Games

Two games by the Champion were included in the Hampshire Bulletin, and I give these below with light commentary.

Summary

The brief report in the Hampshire Bulletin mentioned that it was disappointing that several of the Hampshire ‘Heavyweights’ were not present, but as mentioned I don’t think this detracts from the performance of AC Barton. Any Championship with Marshall Thompson and strong younger players, such as Seth Saverymuttu and Gerald Bennet is going to be hard to win, let alone by one and a half points.

I thought I would try to identify the other strong Hampshire players referred to by George Kilmister, who were not in the championship. You will always have strong players missing from the Championship, especially if you have to give up two weekends to play chess.

DE Lloyd 196
WH Pratten 194
PM Collins 190
Mike Dymond 190
Michael Ventham 188
John Patience 187

AM Edmunds 183
PH Collins 182
John Jones 181
PF Habershone 180
John Wilkinson 179
Arthur Brameld 174

AC Barton beat Saverymuttu, Thompson and Bennett. Barton’s grade may have been only 160 but this would increase to 181 the following season. This was the same for Bennett and Saverymuttu, whose grades would increase 30+ points in the next couple of years.

With these young players improving, and the influx of strong University players in the next couple of years though, this was probably good timing for Mr Barton to win his one championship, but it was certainly well deserved.

AC Barton held a number of Hampshire Officer roles, including being the Match Secretary and the Individual Championship Co-ordinator for much of the 1960’s and 70’s. He played for Hampshire more than a 100 times from 1956 to 1976, and after a break of 14 years played one more game in 1990 (presumably as a late replacement). He was still graded 137 in that game, which an obvious drop from his highest rating of 181, but still impressive. His record against Berkshire and Buckinghamshire was particularly impressive.

In the Hampshire Bulletin for Jan 1964 there was a know your committee addition, which included a small amount of information on AC Barton. He would have been 48 when he won his championship.