A Win for Camberley Chess Club!

The University of Reading Chess Club hosted their 1st Rapidplay Congress on this past Saturday 8th of March. It was a great event, where we had 9 members of Camberley Chess Club attending. Martin and Steve were representing Camberley in the open section, and we had Jake, Lee, Tim, Annabelle, Luke, Neale and Josh in the Challengers!

In the open, Martin and Steve got off to a tough start. After two losses, Martin expected an easier pairing in round 3, but the Swiss system somehow floated a 2000-rated player down to face him, resulting in a third loss. Martin broke even and scored 3 wins back to back in the afternoon, finishing with a 3/6 record. It might be worth asking him what he had for lunch…

In the Challengers, it was amazing so see so many Camberley names in the list, thankfully avoiding any Camberley Derbies for the first few rounds. While reporting everyone’s results would be cumbersome, you can find all results here.

However, one outstanding performance can’t go unmentioned.

The Winner

Congratulations to Camberley Chess Club member Jake Conyard! – who won the Challengers section of the University of Reading Rapidplay on Saturday.

It was an amazing battle, where Jake and fellow member Josh Jackson were both on board one in round 5, eyeing the top spot together. After round 5 was drawn after a back-and-forth battle, round 6 ended up with both players needing a win for a chance at 1st place.

In round 6, Josh ended up losing a tough game against the fourth seed, his first loss of the tournament, ending on 4/6. As a result, this left Jake as the last undefeated Camberley member, facing group point leader Hande Donmez, with both needing a win to have a shot at first place.

With the rest of the tournament around the board watching as the game went on, Jake managed to overwhelm Hande’s defence in a Smith-Morra Gambit. With Donmez’s time ticking down below a minute, the crowd began to understand the inevitability of Jake’s victory.

It was a great game, and a spectacular way to end the day. Sitting on 5/6 points, Jake ended up winning the Challengers section on Tiebreaks, taking home the well earned prize. (Although in this tournament, the prize of £150 was split between both players on 5/6, not considering tiebreaks).

The game can be found here, in chapter 4 of our lichess study Hall of Games: lichess study Or alternatively, in the Games section of our page.

There were in total 9 members of Camberley Chess Club who attended, all had a good tournament and a nice day playing chess. Jake brought it home for us in style, with by far the best performance of the day, remaining undefeated throughout.

For a full breakdown of the round-by-round standings, you can go here to the chess results page.

We all had a great time at the University of Reading’s 1st Rapidplay Congress and look forward to more opportunities to play there in the future. We are grateful to James Connors and his team for organizing such a well-put-together event, and we also appreciate the strong relationship between our two clubs supporting one another.

Final Standings of the Open:

Final Standings of the Challengers: