Category: Tournaments

Last Monday, Hammersmith Chess Club hosted something special for half-term: Beginners Take Over, a juniors + adult beginners rapidplay tournament in the Mindsports Centre’s main hall, with feedback provided by volunteer mentors.

On a normal Monday we run both a Junior Hour and an Adult Beginners‘ session at Hammersmith. Both offer games and coaching for those starting out in chess – whatever age they are.

We know that the most enjoyable and competitive chess games are often against opponents whose level is close to your own – even more so when you’re newer to chess.

Since you’ll typically see most nights at any chess club full of intermediate and advanced players, we wanted to give some space to our growing ranks of Hammer beginners, and shine the spotlight on them for an evening 🙂

So we created Beginners Take Over – an unrated 5-round 10+5 rapidplay tournament for those rated <1000 Elo/unrated. More experienced club colleagues volunteered to notate each game and provided feedback and tips to both players between rounds.

As well as being a good opportunity for our adult beginners to face off against their junior counterparts and gain experience playing in a tournament setting, it also felt like a great way for club members of all levels to get to know each other better.

The tournament outcome came down to a nailbiting playoff between two talented juniors, Marcus and Alexander – ultimately Marcus clinched the win despite a strong fight from his opponent.

Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and appreciated the feedback they got on the games – a big thank you to everyone who volunteered their time as a mentor! We hope to start making this a more regular feature of our Monday club nights on half-terms.

– Jenny Mulholland, Hammersmith Beginners’ Officer

Between the 11th and the 15th of June, teams from all over the world are gathering to play in the 2025 FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Team Championships – at the Novotel in Hammersmith!

We could not pass up the opportunity to play on home ground and have registered a team to take on this monumental challenge: at the time of writing, there are 112 GMs (about 25% of the field!) registered to play for dozens of other teams.

Led by Captain and Club Secretary Adam Cranston, our players will be Marco Gallana (2232 FIDE Rapid), Tom Villiers (2108), Alistair Hill (2095), Ashley Stewart (2056), Kai Hanache (2023), Gaston Franco (2010), Maria-Alexandra Ciocan (1924), Aryaman Ganguly (1604) and Gesneria-Codruta Cepoi (1599). A healthy mix of youth and experience (at least by chess standards)!

Our starting ranks are #44 for Rapid and #45 for Blitz. FIDE Rapid and Blitz ratings might not be too reliable for some players, but nevertheless it is clear competition will be fierce, with the strongest teams including several of the top 10 players in the world such as Hikaru Nakamura, Alireza Firouzja, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, etc.

We hope all our other members will support our team! Keep an eye on our WhatsApp channels for updates and links to games and commentary – we are pleased to hear our friend and member GM Daniel King will join the official commentary team at FIDE alongside IM and WGM Jovanka Houska! Check out which five teams he has picked as the ones to watch:

 

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But that is not all! We have many members playing for other teams, with the Sharks being one we are already very familiar with: we partnered up with them in 2024 to win the Global Chess League. IMs Peter Roberson and Tom Rendle, plus FM James Moreby are some of their top players.

Other Hammers joining the competition are GM Gawain Maroroa Jones at Malcolm’s Mates, with many members of Team England; Sami Mortazavi at e-therapeutics; FM Supratit Banerjee at English Knightmares; FM Sohum Lohia at Turkish Airlines Sports Club, with other prodigies such as IMs Lu Miaoyi and Faustino Oro; and Zain Patel, Harry Bryant and Raman Vashisht-Pigem at The London Legends. Lots of clubmates to follow! (And I hope I did not miss any others!)

In addition to online streaming, there are tickets for sale on the FIDE website to watch the event at the Novotel. For more info, visit the official website.

Go Hammers!

During the Lockdown and social distancing period, the online format for the Hammersmith Internal Tournaments was very popular and many players were able to compete and enjoy a good game of chess. 

Now that the social distancing rules are being progressively lifted, Hammers will be able to play OTB internal tournament games again, and this will be very enjoyable to all of us at the club!

Those tournaments will continue to combine online and OTB formats, so that the choice is available to players, and to maximise the opportunity to play high-quality games of chess between the members of our club.

On June 30th 2021, the 2020 season was officially closed and we can now announce the winners as follows:

Sledgehammer Cup 2020 results (Standard Play)

Winner:  Robin Sarfas (37 points)

Runner-up: David Lambert (30 points)

Third: Chris Moore  (17 points)

Rockhammer Cup 2020 results (Rapidplay)

Winner:  Christof Brixel (60 points)

Runner-up: Raluca Stroe (29.5 points)

Third: Adam Cranston (28.5 points)

Jackhammer960 Cup 2020 results (960 Rapidplay)

Winner:  Nadim Osseiran (29 points)

Runner-up: David Lambert (14 points)

Third: Javier Silvarrey (12.5 points)

Launch of the 2021/2022 Hammer Tournaments Season

This year we will continue to  have 3 different Cups:

• The Sledgehammer Cup for Standard Play
• The Rockhammer Cup for Rapid Play
• The Jackhammer960 for 960 chess variant in Rapid Play time control

Those tournaments are open to all Hammersmith Chess Club members. All you need to do is to contact your fellow club members, agree an appointment for an OTB or Online game, and then submit the game result via this link to the game submission form.

Please note that

• Online games count towards the ECF online grading (except for 960 chess)
• Only games that are rated on the online platforms will be accepted, casual online games will not be accepted
• Players are encouraged to have a live video connection during online games
• All OTB games are ECF graded.
• Players must be ECF-registered in order to play OTB games.
• Game results will only be accepted via the provided game submission form, results by email will not be accepted.

For complete information and rules, please have a look at the Hammer Tournaments Documentation

Good luck for the 2021 Hammer Tournaments Season!

The Internal Tournaments Team

Breaking News: Hammersmith Chess Club issues invites for newly-created Yellowhammer Cup this evening

Brexit is back in the news, and how! We learned about a revolutionary new idea from the ECF, which was initiated after a meeting between PM Boris Johnson and Nigel Short, Vice President of FIDE and outspoken Brexit opponent – though he is aligned with Boris in his critique of Theresa May “the only person who has ever lost by three-fold repetition”.

Johnson insists that the domination of the continental powers over the development of chess regulations during the past few centuries must be halted, and that Britain will take back control of the game.

Chess historians will know that the rules of chess changed dramatically in the 15th century, owing to Spanish influence. Bishops were no longer restricted to one square at a time, with the rules changing to permit them multiple squares per turn. As a consequence, the Germans still call the Bishop “runner”, and the French even call it a “fool” – quite the sacrilege! The continental domination continues to this day, with the international federation taking a French abbreviation, FIDE.

A joint statement from the ECF and the UK Sports Minister on the matter:

“Now it is time to take back control, starting with the Knight. As with other pieces, it has been mistreated in various European languages, mostly called ‘horse’ or ‘rider’, occasionally ‘vaulter’. Over hundreds of years of continental regulations it was permitted to move 2 squares in any direction, and 1 square perpendicular. The complexity is not a problem, infact many English love that – look at our non-metric systems, the game of cricket, or our 3-digit ECF rating system. 

However, we do object to the disrespect shown to the traditions of Knighthood. We demand that players can choose to execute a Knight jump once OR twice per move. All other light and heavy pieces enjoy this liberty, even lowly pawns have a double-move option on their first move. 

The Knights would thus once again become the central pieces on the board, outshining the ‘fools’ and ‘runners’ of the board. Golden times lie ahead.”

The rule change would generate thousands of new jobs for very high-skilled workers, a most welcome political benefit. It is said that more chess books are published than books of all other games and sports combined – and most of those are opening books, which would have to be re-written, providing employment for many years to come.

Middlegames will become so complex that we dare not even consider it yet, and endgame theory would explode. Mate with two Knights is not only possible, but probably quicker than with two Bishops. The difficult Knight & Bishop mate becomes a beginners exercise, and two Knights would outshine even the Queen. Wow!

The ECF is currently gathering support from other chess ruling bodies. The Welsh Chess Union has indicated tentative support, on condition the ECF recognises the Welsh origins of Caissa, the chess Godess. The Scottish federation is proving trickier – pointing to their long(er) tradition of chess history as demonstrated by the Isle of Lewis figures. Scottish support now rests on these pieces being returned from the British Museum, to the National Museum of Scotland.

The ECF will also need to garner international support. Already the ECF is looking to sacrifice its 3-digit ratings, and adopt the 4-digit FIDE system. That however, is something which may ensure the ECF fails in this bid – opponents to the change have gently pointed out that it’s more likely we’ll see miles replaced by kilometres, before this change is implemented.

FIDE representatives have responded to rumours of the proposal as a “poisoned knight sacrifice”, and a “Trojan chess horse”. Plenty of work is still to be done!

As for Hammersmith Chess Club, having diversity in our DNA we are open to all forms of change in the game, proven by our recent response to the Coronavirus outbreak. To keep up this momentum, we will be organising the world’s first tournament under these new rules – provided lichess finishes updating their servers in time (the recent weekend outage was a test-run).

Starting this evening, April 1st at 7.30pm, online at lichess.com we will inaugurate the YellowHammer Cup. Named, of course, in honour of the UK govt’s no-deal Brexit planning, there is a chance the Prime Minister will personally join the game, following his recent success at hosting a Zoom cabinet meeting. If not as a player, as a true Kibitzer.

Visitors are of course welcome, but if you want to play you have to be a member – see here for joining details.

Good luck!

Hammers! After the launch of our internal Long and Rapid-play tournaments at the start of the season – respectively named the Sledgehammer and Rockhammer tournaments – it’s time to provide an update on the standings – who are the runners & riders??

The Sledgehammer

Our long-play competition remains popular, with over 50 games having been played so far. Christof leads the way with a solid 12.5/16 (translating to 68 Sledgehammer points!) and doesn’t look like being toppled, so it’s very much a battle for second place here.

The field is tight, with no less than three of our experienced players bidding for the silver medal place at this point. Further down the leaderboard there are only 3 points separating the next five players, so things could change very quickly.

It’s all to play for at this point – if you want to arrange a game, please get in touch with an opponent and arrange your head-to-head. You just need to agree a suitable time & venue, then let Nadim know the result.

And remember, you can now play two games against each opponent – one as white, one as black – so there are plenty of points on offer between now and the end of the season. Full competition rules are available here.

Who will lift the inaugural Sledgehammer trophy??

The Rockhammer

The Rockhammer has had a slower start, but with only 11 games played and 7 active players so far, it’s going to be a lot easier to ride up the leaderboard.

Current standings are below – and here are the tournament rules. It’s a rapidplay competition, so should be easy to up your game count and grab some points! Give it a shot!

Hammers,

We are pleased to announce the start of our brand new, Hammersmith Chess Club, season-long, internal long-play competition…. the Sledgehammer Tournament!

This is a quick-start guide for you to understand how it works, how to register, and start playing!

1. Send an email to sledgehammer@clubmember.org to register.
2. We will send you an updated contact list of the other participants on a regular basis (please keep it confidential… GDPR and all that).
3. Contact any of the other participants on the list, and book a game with them. You are free to select any other participant, and play them in a standard ECF rated game no more than once per season (from June 2019 to end of May 2020).
4. You can play anywhere, anytime, as you convene with your opponent at the club on a Monday evening, or elsewhere.
5. Games need to be Over the Board (OTB) and played in one session.
6. The default time is 60 minutes + 30 seconds increment, but players can agree longer time controls if they both want to.
7. This is a handicap-based tournament, so players beating stronger players will get plenty of points counting towards the cup.
8. Send the results and PGN file not more than one week after the game was played to sledgehammer@clubmember.org
9. We will send updated results and standings on a regular basis, and keep updated results on the club website.
10. Game results will be sent to ECF for grading by the end of the following month.

The full details and rules of the tournament can be found here: Tournament Description

We’re eager to kick-off this new tournament ASAP, with the aim to provide plenty of standard chess playing graded game opportunities within the club, and increase interaction amongst our members!

Note that by registering for this tournament you agree for us to share your contact information with the other participants.

Thanks & good luck!!