Wimborne Chess Club

The club meets at the King's Head on Wednesday evenings.

​

Wessex Online Tournaments -These are held weekly on different days of the week starting at 7.30pm, finishing at approximately 9pm, and provide a great opportunity to sharpen your chess tactics from the comfort of your own home. If interested, please contact Keith Gregory (user name KeithDFG) on lichess.

​

We did really well in the 2025 B&DCL  knockout tournament, narrowly losing in the final.

​

Southbourne Sharks (av. 1696) 3½ - 2½ Wimborne (av. 1704) - Required score 3 - 3

​

The following match report was written by captain Graham Hillman.:

 

I looked at Southbourne's last 2 matches in the Competition and concluded they would be hard to beat on boards 1-3 , but easier to beat on 4-6. So the team was selected on that basis.

 

No games were quick to finish and early on they all looked close with no obvious advantages.

 

Board 6

First to finish was young Jensen on board 6. He got down to a technical Rook & King + 5 pawns against a Rook & King + 5 pawns. He ground out a small advantage to register a win and put us 0-1 in front.

​

Board 4

Next up was Will versus a very experienced player. The game was pretty even with locked pawn formations on both sides. It looked drawn for most of the game until the last pieces were swapped out when it became apparent Will's use of the opposition would not work well for his opponent, who ended up in Zugswang. Will duly won . So 0-2 and going to plan .

​

Board 3 -

John Bowley had a very young opponent He applied pressure but it didn't ever get to being unbalanced and it petered out to a draw .

​

So now 1/2 to 2 1/2, and most importantly a draw in the top 3 boards . Part of the plan .

​

Board 5 .

George was paired against a former 2000+ player who's grade was still a respectable 1680. The game became unbalanced quite quickly with both players going for broke. Suddenly George's opponent sacrificed a Rook to flush out George's King into the centre with no cover. A King hunt ensured and George's King was hunted down. Great to watch as a game .

 

So the plan had faltered. Now 1.5 to 2.5

 

Just 2 games left on boards 1&2 , pre judged by myself to have been the hardest to win.

​

Peter was paired against young James Foster who is some 250 points stronger than him , Peter opted for a tough nut to crack , a Kings Indian Defence . He was under pressure but looked to be holding out . A nasty double Rook pin on his Knight proved fatal when James found a nasty tactic to remove the defending Rook from the position , 2.5 to 2.5. 1 game to go

​

Ian was playing against one of Dorset's most precocious young players , Finn Schnell. Ian had the White pieces and held a positional advantage for most of the game . He was pushing strongly and appeared to have a winning position. But as time controls loomed and the pieces came off Ian had 2 minor pieces v's Finn's Rook . Finn also had 4 connected pawns which proved decisive in the endgame.

​

So after a great start we ended up running out of steam . A 3-3 draw wouldn't have worked either as the tiebreaker worked against us .

 

A very entertaining evenings Chess and congratulations to Southbourne on winning the Match .

​​​​

​