Introducing the 2024 edition of the Guildford Summer Tournament, incorporating the club championship. Entries opened today and will close on 1 June. Will we match last year's record 51 entries?

For more details see the Tournaments page.

The congress took place over the weekend. It ran smoothly and the players seemed to enjoy it. A total of 164 players took part. 75 in the Open, 61 in the Major and 28 in the Minor.

Guildford players featured strongly in the prizes:

• In the Open, Alex Golding and Gwilym Price were among a group of six players who tied for 1st place on 4/5.
• In the Major, Liam Ireland came equal 1st on 4.5/5. Harry Taylor came equal 3rd on 4/5. Julien Shepley also came equal 3rd, but walked away with the prize for the best senior player congress-wide.
• In the Minor, none of ours won a prize, but there's an honourable mention for Ivy Piatt who finished just outside the prizes on 3.5/5.

Next year's event takes place at the same venue from Friday 11 April to Sunday 13 April 2025.

The congress has now reached maximum capacity, with 160 entrants. This is very encouraging. There are still 9 days to go until the start, so we would clearly have received a lot more by then if we had enough room.

Almost all the pre-event organisation has been done. We are still short of volunteers from the club to help over the weekend. A separate email will go to club members about that.

Here are some stats about the event.

• There are 74 players in the Open, 58 in the Major (<2000) and 28 in the Minor (<1600).
• The average rating is 2039 in the Open, 1705 in the Major and 1420 in the Minor.
• 25 members of Guildford have entered.
• There are 55 juniors in the event (one-third of the total), including 35 in the Open. That's aged under 18 on 1 January 2024.
• There are 22 seniors in the event. That's aged 60+ on 1 January 2024.
• There are 9 female players in the event.
• The youngest player is aged 8 and the oldest is aged 95.
• The highest-rated player is last year's winner, IM Gediminas Sarakauskas, rated 2443.
• There are 4 IMs, 3 FIDE Masters, 1 Woman FIDE Master, and 4 Candidate Masters.
• 22 different FIDE Federations are represented.

So maybe we should call this the Guildford International Chess Congress…

Further success for Guildford teams in last night's matches, this time in the Surrey League. In Division 1, Guildford 1 beat Wimbledon 1 by 5.5–2.5. In Division 4, Guildford 4 beat Kingston 3 by 5–1. In both matches, the Guildford teams outrated their opponents by about 130 points a board.

Mike Gunn led a session for the Beginners and Improvers, demonstrating basic checkmates in pawnless positions. Interestingly these included King, Bishop and Knight v King, which is far from basic.

The internal rapidplay completed 74 rounds. Tauseef Rahman won all three of his games last night to move into second place in the table. James Toon and Adam Sefton are the only players still on 100%.

The Guildford FIDE Congress now has 132 entries, just a few short of last year's total of 136 with over two weeks to go.

Congratulations to Guildford 2 captain Rory Davies and his squad, who finished top of the Surrey League Division 3 and won the Ellam Trophy. Everything came down to the last match v Richmond on Tuesday 19 March. Guildford 2 won 4–2 to finish level on match points (5.5) and game points (27). The final tie-break was direct encounter, and of course that went in favour of Guildford. The teams were equally matched on paper, so this was a good result. Wins for Julien Shepley, Peter Horlock and David Carpenter.

This means promotion to Division 2 (Beaumont Cup) next season.

The club's first trophy of the season was the Surrey Border League Haslemere Trophy. The Guildford Juniors beat Fleet & Farnborough 5.5–4.5 in the final on 26 February. Congratulations to the squad and their manager Paul Welling.

In Monday's Surrey Border League matches, both Guildford teams were victorious. Guildford B beat Reading A by 3.5–1.5 in Division 2, and Guildford E beat Basingstoke A 3–2 in Division 5. That's a long way to travel in a losing cause. The Guildford B match featured two very different games on the top two boards. Julien Shepley won very quickly on board 2 when his opponent dropped a rook in a calm position and had to resign. James Toon was the last to finish, but had to defend accurately to hold the draw in an ending with bishop and three pawns v knight and four pawns.

The latest Andrew Martin training session featured an analysis of an exciting GM game. The internal rapidplay completed 71 rounds. Hats off to Ian Deswarte who won all three of his games.

The Guildford FIDE Congress now has 118 entries and looks likely to sell out by the end of the month.

Once again the club fielded two teams in Surrey Border League matches. In Division 3, Guildford C held a 50-point rating advantage over nearest rivals Woking A, and won convincingly 4–1 to go top of the table. In Division 7, the Guildford G team of juniors drew 2–2 against top team Farnham E.

Sean Sussex led a session of the Beginners' and Improvers' groups combined, while the internal rapidplay has now completed 68 rounds. Tauseef Rahman and Tony Garrood were the main beneficiaries, scoring 3/3 and 2.5/3 respectively.

Entries to the April congress have now reached 101 with a month still to go. The maximum is 160, and there's always a rush towards the end, so if you're thinking of entering then it would be a good idea to enter sooner rather than later.

The first Monday in March saw two Guildford teams in action in the Surrey Border League. In Division 2, Guildford B faced Farnham B in an evenly-rated match which ended in a draw (2.5–2.5). The last game to finish was on board 1 where Rolandas Lukosius beat Clive Frostick in an exciting rook and pawn ending. In Division 4, Guildford D played Crowthorne B, losing 3.5–1.5.

Upstairs, Peter Hegarty led a session for the Beginners' Group. Next door to that, the internal rated rapidplay has now completed 65 rounds in 21 sessions featuring 59 players. James Toon is currently in pole position. Adam Sefton is the only other player on 100%.

Now just 6 weeks to the start. Here are the latest statistics.

So far we have 81 entries.

• 44 in the Open (average rating 1993), including 3 IMs.
• 22 in the Major / U2000 (average rating 1648).
• 15 in the Minor / U1600 (average rating 1390).

The entries include 27 juniors; 14 members of Guildford; 4 female players; and 18 seniors (aged 50+). These categories aren't mutually exclusive.

As last year, this will be an international event: a total of 12 different FIDE Federations are already represented.

For more details, see the FIDE Congress page on this website or the Chess-Results server.

A number of members of Guildford have agreed to help as volunteers over the congress weekend. Many thanks to them – we could not make this event work without them.

In the Surrey League Division 4 (Ellam Trophy), Guildford 2 drew 3–3 with Chessington 1. Guildford 2 outrated their opponents by 150 points a board so this was really one that got away. Especially given that Guildford 2 had the White pieces on 4 of the 6 boards (1, 3, 4 and 5). On board 4 the players sat down on the wrong side of the board and no one noticed until it was too late. The result leaves Guildford 2 top of Division 4, but in order to win the division and gain promotion Guildford 2 will need to win their last match against Richmond on 19 March.

Meanwhile in the Surrey Border League Division 5, Guildford E lost 3–2 to Woking C. Guildford E are propping up the table but at least in this competition there is no promotion or relegation.