Tag: chess960

2025 Christmas Party casual chess960 tournament

On the last Thursday club night before Christmas 2025, we ran a fun Chess960 tournament. It was 6 rounds, 5 minutes each player with no increment. Unlike previous years, castling was allowed as per Chess960 rules.

Games were unrated and not to be taken too seriously!

Each rounds pairings were displayed on the big screen, then after players were seated correctly and ready, a new Chess960 starting position was generated on the screen, read out, and the round was started without much time to study the often peculiar setup!

There were some very strange games, like one where both players castled one after the other, both incorrectly (they were castling like you do on the kingside but on the queenside). The lack of an increment meant a number of games ended when one player ran out of time in easily winning positions. It was decided straight after the event that we must have an increment in future.

Anyway it was a relaxed fun event with a clear winner – well done Jon who won all 6 games. A great performance by Aditya in 2nd with 5 points, followed by Daniel on 4 points. Jon said that the Chess960 format is very strange and he only started formulating any plans after the 3rd game!

Well done to all in a challenging event to play in. Final Cross table and some photos are below:

Christmas Chess 960 Tournament

December 19 2024

It was great fun during our yearly Christmas Chess 960 tournament (aka Fischer Random or Freestyle Chess), where we had a good turnout of players from the club.

The format was a 6 round Swiss 5+0 Blitz playing Chess 960, with no castling. This promoted some agressive and creative play, where there was only one draw the whole tournament!

Congratulations to FM Jon Ady, who won the tournament with a perfect score of 6/6, and to Nisandu, who was the highest-placed junior.

Thank you to everyone who came to play, and to Martin for setting it up and running the tournament, and to Steve for donating the prizes.

We hope everyone has a great holiday period and a happy new year, and we look forward to the next Chess 960 event at the club.

Winner FM Jon Ady with 6/6 points
Highest-placed Junior Nisandu Liyanawaduge
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2023 Christmas Social Chess960

On Thursday 21st December we held our annual Christmas Social Event.  This was our first Christmas at our new home, Heatherside Community Centre.  Luckily, we were able to use the main hall for the chess and the adjoining kitchen area for snacks and soft drinks, and it proved to be a great for venue for the event. 

For the time ever we played Chess960 (also known as Fischer Random).  This is an interesting form of chess, where the pieces are placed (somewhat) randomly on the first rank at the start of the game.  A different starting position was used for each of the 6 rounds.  

Most people were playing 960 for the first time and found it an interesting and enjoyable, if rather mind-boggling, challenge. Fitting in 6 rounds necessitated a quick time limit – we played a Blitz rate of 5 minutes with no increment.  The fast play and unusual positions left us quite frazzled at the end. 

As ever with a Swiss tournament, the cream rose to the top, and after 6 rounds there were ties for 1st place between Seb Twisk and Paul Sloane both on 5/6, and for 3rd place between Zac Welling and Daniel Seaton both on 4.5/6.  We had time for two play-offs, which were won by Seb and Daniel, so congratulations to Seb Twisk who is our first ever Chess960 Champion, with Paul second, Daniel third and Zac fourth. 

Thank you to everyone that helped set up and clear away the chess and food, especially to Daniel for running the Swiss pairing software and to Alissa (Seb’s mum) for inputting results on the computer.  And thanks to everyone who came along and contributed to a fun evening!   

The full results (click on image to go to chess-results) and some photos plus a short video are all below:

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