The 1973 Hampshire Individual Chess Championship was held over two weekends, the 27th/28th January and 3rd/4th February 1973 at Southampton University. Gerald Bennett won his first title, ahead of a number of strong players.
Photograph above of Gerald Bennett in 1974, sourced from Britbase.
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 Details
The tournament was played just before the Hampshire Bulletin came to an end, and the report in the last article was very brief, which I give below with the crosstable from the event.
Note: I have re-created this in a table as well and noticed that TI Cowling was missing a win against SM Willey which I have added in the table detailed later in the article.
The format of the tournament was 8 rounds, played over 2 weekends (27/28 Jan and 3/4 Feb) at Southampton University. With 19 players and 4 graded over 190 (2 over 200) this was a strong competition, and no player went undefeated.
Gerald Bennett – 1st Place
Gerald Bennett won by half a point ahead of Sunil Weeramantry. Gerald Bennet was already a very strong player at this time, and he continued to improve as a player, and would be joint winner of the first BCF Grand Prix with Tony Miles in 1974. Gerald was prominent in Hampshire for a number of years and was the President in 1994. Surprisingly for a player who became an FM and was rated in excess of ECF 215, he only won the Hampshire Individual championship two times, this year and 1983.
Gerald Bennett scored 6½ points from his games, dropping a draw against nine times winner Marshall Thompson and losing to PM Collins.
In this season Gerald also won the Hampshire Lightning event and the Southern Counties Chess Union Individual Championship (he also won this in 1973/74).
Gerald chess career only just crossed mine in Hampshire, although I did play him in the 1994 championship, when he outplayed me in an equal ending.
Rather than just have one game of Gerald Bennett, see below his win against a much stronger player, future British Chess Champion (1981) Paul Littlewood, from the 1976 British Championship which was held in Portsmouth. Littlewood played the rare Sicilian Wing gambit, but Bennett held onto the extra pawn and won a nice ending.
Sunil Weeramantry – 2nd Place
Sunil the future Stepfather and trainer of Hikaru Nakamura was a student at Southampton University in the early 1970’s. By all accounts he was far more interested in chess than studying his law degree.
Sunil lost to Gerald Bennett, which was obviously a key game in determining the championship. He dropped draws against Iain Stenhouse and PM Humphries, and won his other 5 games. He also was the only player to beat Marshall Thompson.
PM Collins – 3rd Place
In third place, a further half point behind was PM Collins, who lost to Sunil and dropped half a point to Bob Cullinane, Marshall Thompson and RV Willey. I am not that familiar with Collins, but there were three strong Collins who played for Hampshire, RA, PM and PH Collins. PM Collins first played for Hampshire in 1960 and was a Southampton University player. PH Collins played for Hampshire from 1968 to 1971 and was graded slightly lower, but still a strong player around 180.
RA Collins was active for Hampshire from 1964 to 1968 and was graded in the high 170’s. If anyone knows the relationship (if any) between the strong Collins players, please do let me know.
From the Jan 1973 Hampshire Bulletin PM Collins was playing on board one for the Schools / College team against the Adults in the SCL Golden Jubilee Match. But this team did include teachers and the assumption is that PM Collins would have been one of them? He was the Hampshire League Secretary in 1973 and played for Hampshire from 1960 and would have been a bit old to still be a pupil!
Bob Cullinane – Fourth Place
Bob Cullinane was in 4th place, losing to the first two placed players and drawing with PM Collins and Marshall Thompson. This is another player I know little about, although I know he was well known in the Portsmouth Chess area.
A breakdown of the top three players results.
GH Bennett 6½/8
- S Weeramantry – 1
- PM Collins – 0
- AR Cullinane – 1
- JF Coles – 1
- I Stenhouse – 1
- MJW Thompson – ½
- JA Coburn – 1
- RA Lockyear – 1
S Weeramantry 6/8
- GH Bennett – 0
- PM Collins – 1
- AR Cullinane – 1
- I Stenhouse – 1
- TI Cowling – ½
- MJW Thompson – 1
- PM Humphries – ½
- SM Willey – 1
PM Collins 5½/8
- GH Bennett – 1
- S Weeramantry – 0
- AR Cullinane – ½
- MJW Thompson – ½
- RV Willey – ½
- JA Coburn – 1
- AC Barton – 1
- RA Lockyear – 1
I have re-created the championship crosstable below. Another player whose name sticks out is Fareham’s Joe Coburn who is a frequent participant in the Hampshire Individual Championship, and is still playing for Fareham in the Southampton and Portsmouth Chess Leagues (I played him last year (2022) in the SCL).
| Rank | Name | Grade | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | GH Bennett | 205 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 6½ | |||||||||||
| 2 | S Weeramantry | 200 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ½ | 1 | ½ | 1 | 6 | |||||||||||
| 3 | PM Collins | 196 | 1 | 0 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5½ | |||||||||||
| 4 | AR Cullinane | 173 | 0 | 0 | ½ | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | |||||||||||
| 5 | JF Coles | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 4½ | ||||||||||||
| 6 | TI Cowling | 161 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ½ | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4½ | |||||||||||
| 7 | I Stenhouse | 172 | 0 | ½ | 0 | 1 | 1 | ½ | ½ | 1 | 4½ | |||||||||||
| 8 | MJW Thompson | 196 | ½ | 0 | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | ½ | 1 | 4½ | |||||||||||
| 9 | DE Bower | 175 | 0 | ½ | 1 | 0 | ½ | 0 | 1 | 1 | 4 | |||||||||||
| 10 | PM Humphries | ½ | ½ | 0 | 0 | 1 | ½ | 1 | ½ | 4 | ||||||||||||
| 11 | RV Willey | 158 | ½ | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ½ | 1 | 4 | ||||||||||||
| 12 | SM Willey | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 | ||||||||||||
| 13 | JA Coburn | 137 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | ½ | 1 | 3½ | |||||||||||
| 14 | AC Barton | 168 | 0 | ½ | 0 | ½ | ½ | ½ | ½ | 1 | 3½ | |||||||||||
| 15 | RA Lockyear | 0 | 0 | 1 | ½ | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3½ | |||||||||||||
| 16 | M Horne | 125 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.5 | ½ | 1 | 1 | 3 | ||||||||||||
| 17 | CE Oakley | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ½ | ½ | 0 | 1 | 2 | ||||||||||||
| 18 | RE Windle | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||||||||||||
| 19 | GEJ Lambert | 159 | ½ | 0 | 0 | ½ |
Summary
Being played over eight rounds does allow for a larger chance of an Individual winner, and this was the case this year, although it was extremely close at the top. As this was a Hampshire only tournament this had a reasonable amount of entries, and certainly a number of the strongest active Hampshire players played.
I checked the County team for this year and the only very strong players missing were the three Portsmouth players below. Maybe being held in Southampton was not ideal for them, but also given up two consecutive weekends for chess is a large time commitment.
- Arthur Brameld – 204
- John Jones – 198
- Cdr AJ Peters – 196
I don’t have any games from the tournament. Sometimes games were made available in subsequent Hampshire Bulletins, but as this was the last one this was not an option. If anyone does have any games please do supply and I will add to the report.
Gallery
Some of the players from the tournament played in the Southampton Chess League Golden Jubilee Match including the board one game. This included the board one game between Marshall Thompson and PM Collins.
Although nothing to do with the Hampshire Individual I thought I would add this here, as a good as place as any to add. Among many well known Hampshire players I noticed Ian Sherman on board 50 for the school team.
Acknowledgements and sources:
- Hampshire Bulletins
- Hampshire Chess Archives
- Britbase
- SCCU Website