WELLS Chess Club held its first ever Rapidplay tournament in October. This is a shorter form of the game with each player having 25 minutes on the clock. It was a six-round event on a bright Saturday in Wells Town Hall.
The faster format of the game attracted many juniors, many of them from Wells. For a few of them it was their first ever experience of tournament play so there was a lot of excitement. There was an Open section and a Main U1650 grading. The field spanned many ages with Roy Ludlow from Trowbridge celebrating his 80th birthday playing an eight-year-old in his first-round match.
In the Main Section lots of the juniors performed well with local Dillon Harle finishing joint 1st on 5 points and promising junior Forrest Whitworth taking a grading prize on 3 points. Wells players Ed Farms and Phil Johnson finished 4th and 5th respectively.
In the stronger Open Section Wells had four players including junior coach and Somerset Champion Sasha Matlak. It proved to be a tough section but Sasha showed his mettle with four wins and two draws to claim 1st place on 5 points. Wells junior Leon Nelson finished 7th on a very respectable 3 points. Everyone very much enjoyed the day and look forward to a repeat next year along with the Weekend Congress in March.
Wells Chess Club also had their first league match of the season, a division 2 trip to Wellington. Matt Goatcher, Greg Roome, Ed Farms and Jon Rossi took on a strong Wellington side with a grading of over 150 points higher on each board. All the matches were tight resulting in narrow losses for Matt and Jon while Greg and Ed produced very strong performances to clinch a 2-2 draw. It is a good start in what is likely to be a closely fought division.
Anyone interested in playing at the club can find details at wellschess.co.uk along with other information about the club. They can also be contacted at wellschessclub@outlook.com.