The Hampshire Chess Association held a new competition for 2024/25. One of our aims is to grow chess in Hampshire and specifically increase the number of female players. With this in mind we introduced the HCA Women’s Individual Championship. The format of the competition was a double round all play all at players’ clubs or homes, between September 2024 and May 2025. This is along the same lines as the current Southampton Individual Championship.
Photo above of Gillian Moore presenting Megan Birch with the Gillian Moore Trophy for best performance by a lady at the Hampshire 2024 Congress. Megan also won the Minor championship with maximum points.
Contents
Tournament
Five players entered the Championship, with a mixture of youth and experience among the entrants.
| Player | Club |
| Gillian Moore | Southampton Chess Club |
| Helen Archer-Lock | Southampton University Chess Club |
| Rose Saunders | Chandler’s Ford Chess Club |
| Megan Birch | Basingstoke Chess Club |
| Rosamund Hale | Southampton Chess Club |
With five players a double round all play was played between October 2024 and May 2025. The time control was 80 minutes + 10s increment. Rose Saunders withdrew after playing the other players once, and these remaining fixtures were recorded as default wins.
This is not the first time a Hampshire Women’s Individual Championship has been held, but the last one was in 1961 and although started this competition was never completed. But there is a link between the two competitions as a young Gillian Moore played in 1961, and also played in this season’s competition.
Hampshire Individual Chess Championship 1961 – Hampshire Chess History
The players were a mixture of youth and experience. Although with the two oldest competitors, Gillian and Rose their chess experience are at the two ends of the spectrum. Gillian has been playing for more than 60 years, whilst Rose only started playing in 2017.
A brief profile of each of the players is below.
Rose Saunders
Rose Saunders and her husband Steve joined Chandler’s Ford chess club in 2017, and have played league and internal tournaments since this time. But Rose and Steve also play a lot of online chess, especially against each other. I wonder if many others on Lichess have played another opponent more than 5,000 times, which Rose and Steve have done. I put a bit of pressure on Rose to play in the Championship, and it was always going to be a struggle against players rated 400 to 700 points higher than her, but Rose enjoyed the games she played.
Rosamund Hale
Rosamund has only been playing rated chess since 2022. She scored 1½ out of 2 against Megan Birch, finishing with three points. Picture below of Rosamund from the 2023 Hampshire Congress where she jointly won the Gillian Moore Cup for the best performance in the Congress.
Helen Archer-Lock
Helen plays for Southampton University and has been playing competitive chess since 2011 when she played is several U9 championships. She recently joint won the 2025 Frome Under 1750 congress, and her rating is now close approaching 1750.
Helen went through the tournament undefeated, with three wins and four draws from her seven games played. An excellent result, but one person had an even better performance, which stopped Helen winning the Championship.
Helen also jointly won the Gillian Moore Cup in 2023, and can be seen receiving her trophy from Gillian Moore.
Megan Birch
Megan Birch plays for Basingstoke and is another fast improving player, with her rating now approaching 1750. With her rating under 1600 in September 2024 this highlights the progress she has made.
Megan probably underperformed in the Championship, but will certainly be challenging for the title if she enters again.
Picture below from the 2024 HCA Congress, where Megan won the Minor with maximum points, and not surprisingly won the Gillian Moore Cup at the same time.
Gillian Moore
Gillian had an outstanding tournament, winning five games and just drawing her two games against Helen. Gillian brings a wealth of chess experience, playing for more than 60 years, and is a previous joint British Ladies Champion (1966) and British U18 girls champion twice in 1962 and 1963 (shared). Gillian also won the British Over 60 Women’s Championship in 2015 and shared the Over 65 one in 2022.
Gillian also holds the record for most prolific Hampshire County player, representing Hampshire more than 300 times from 1960 to 2025. This is even more remarkable as she only played 7 times from 1968 to 2000.
Do read Gillian’s profile on the site, as this has additional information and includes a published Chess Magazine article on her.
Final Table
The final crosstable and links to the tournament are available:
| No | Name | Rd 1 | Rd 2 | Rd 3 | Rd 4 | Rd 5 | Rd 6 | Rd 7 | Rd 8 | Rd 9 | Rd 10 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gillian A Moore | 1 (w3) | – ( ) | 1 (b5) | ½ (w2) | 1 (b4) | 1 (b3) | – ( ) | 1 (w5) | ½ (b2) | 1 (w4) | 7 |
| 2 | Rosamund Hale | – ( ) | ½ (b4) | 1 (w3) | ½ (b1) | 1 (w5) | – ( ) | 1 (w4) | ½ (b3) | ½ (w1) | 1 (b5) | 6 |
| 3 | Helen Archer-Lock | 0 (b1) | 1 (w5) | 0 (b2) | 1 (w4) | – ( ) | 0 (w1) | 1 (b5) | ½ (w2) | ½ (b4) | – ( ) | 4 |
| 4 | Megan Birch | 1 (b5) | ½ (w2) | – ( ) | 0 (b3) | 0 (w1) | 1 (w5) | 0 (b2) | – ( ) | ½ (w3) | 0 (b1) | 3 |
| 5 | Rose Saunders | 0 (w4) | 0 (b3) | 0 (w1) | – ( ) | 0 (b2) | 0 (b4) | 0 (w3) | 0 (b1) | – ( ) | 0 (w2) | 0 |
Games
Some of the games from the tournament,
Megan Birch has supplied her win against Rose Saunders.
A tough draw between the eventual winner and runner up.
Gillian wins a pawn and converts a long tough game. This was just after the Hampshire Congress where Megan had won the minor with maximum points.
Gillian beats fellow Southampton Chess Club player Rosamund, playing the Scandinavian Defence. White obtains a nice position, but Black’s clever Knight manoeuvring turns the position in Black’s favour. In the end an error in a difficult position allowed a Knight fork, winning a Rook.
A rollercoaster of a game between Helen and Megan, which Helen has kindly annotated.
The 2nd game between the top two placed players, where Gillian provided a summary of the game. As Gillian says despite the lost pawn she had plenty of compensation. The final position was better for Gillian but the draw did mean she won the Championship with a round to spare and was a sensible decision.
Future
The Hampshire Chess Association are hoping we have enough interest to hold the championship going forward. We have been helped by a generous donation from Gillian Moore, and the free to enter championship will have a small financial prize in addition to a trophy.
Acknowledgements and Sources
- Britbase for Gillian Moore’s British successes
- Hampshire Chess Archives
- Players for supplying their games