The Friendly Club!
The St George Chess Club prides itself on a diverse membership with a range of chess abilities. We foster a social atmosphere for players of all ages and abilities.
The club runs regular internal club competitions and participates in interclub tournaments. More information about the activities can be found from the calendar.
Club Games: 7:30pm Tuesday nights, Prince Edward Rooms, St George Leagues Club, 124 Princes Highway, Kogarah NSW
News
2024 St George QuickPlay rounds 1-3
Fifty-three players, including many new faces, turned up for the start of our three-week, Swiss-format QuickPlay tournament. A warm welcome to all our new – and returning – members!
In the tournament, players each have 25 minutes for their game and get a 10 second bonus after each move. In a rather cool example of the general reliability of both the ratings and pairing systems, all of the players rated above 2000, and only those players, scored three out of three: Mario Falchoni, Arthur Huynh, John-Stuart Plant, Sarwat Rewais and CM Daniel Melamed. See the crosstable after Round 3 here.
There were surprisingly few upsets across the night. The following players had victories against players at least 10 positions above them on the initial ranking list or a draw against a player 20 positions or more above (the number in parentheses shows the difference): Wins: Ralph Shaw (R1: 26; R2: 25); Nihal Scammell (R1:26); Emmanuel Vardakis (R3: 16); Christian Lagarez (R2: 15); Alex Freitas (R2: 14). Draws: Stephen Elliott (R1: 26); Alex Freitas (R3: 23).
2024 St George Summer Lightning: JSP and the Perfect Score
Reprising his shared 2023 victory, but this time with an even better result, John-Stuart Plant scored a win in each of the 9 games of the 2024 Summer Lightning tournament. Second on 7.5 points was Mario Falchoni, and third place was shared between Sarwat Rewais and Changhao Yu (6.5). Thirty-one players took part.
The U1700 and U1500 divisions saw great winning performances by two continuing improvers: Sait Buzgan (5/9) and Samuel Slingo (4/9). Samuel shared the first prize in his division with one of his his practise partners, Ralph Shaw, twice winner of the NSW State Junior Blitz Championships, back in the ’60s.
Final Crosstable
| 2023-24 Summer Lightning Prizes | ||
|---|---|---|
| Open | U1700 | U1500 |
| 1st $80: John-Stuart Plant (9/9) | 1st $45 Sait Buzgan (5.5/9) | Eq 1st $37.50 each Ralph Shaw; Samuel Slingo (4.5/9) |
| 2nd $50 Mario Falchoni(7.5/9) | Eq 2nd $6 each: Srijan Badam; Ghassan Beydoun; Christian Lagarez; Ashton Li; Kevin Liu. (5/9) | |
| Eq 3rd $15 each: Sarwat Rewais; Changhao Yu (6.5/9) | ||
Upcoming Events at St George & elsewhere
2024 City of Sydney Blitz Championships: Burwood, Sunday March 3
One of the NSWCA’s big annual events, this is a 9 round FIDE-rated Blitz tourney (3 minutes plus 2 seconds per move). For the first time, the NSWCA is using the swanky premises of the Sydney Academy of Chess, a short walk from Burwood Station. There are five divisions: Open; U2000; U1800; U1600 and U1400, with generous prize money in all categories. You can register online here, and full tournament details are here.
2024 St George Club Championships. Starts March 5.
Join us for our showcase event of the year – the Club Championships. Why is it so special? Well, first, because this is a round robin tournament, you will only be playing games against players of a similar strength. Second, our extremely diligent Club Captain, Charles Zworestine, scrutinises all of the games, and writes up a captivating report for each round, often giving great tips on what you did, or did not, do so well. Last year, he even managed to help generate digital records of 238 of the 400 odd games of the tournament. No promises for this year, but one way or another, this tournament is going to be a lot of fun, and very instructive.