Congratulations to Allan Gardner who wins this tournament with a score of 6.5/8 – well played Allan! Allan wins an engraved Silver Medal.
2nd place goes to Jun Xiang Tee who is awarded 6 Candidate Master points (taking his total to 15).
3rd place goes to Robert Rozanski who is awarded 3 Candidate Master points (taking his total to 12).

The final crosstable can be seen here

BCCA overseas member (USA) Bill Lindberg has been awarded the BCCA Candidate Master Title after he has accumulated the necessary 20 BCCA Candidate Master points. Congratulations to Bill!

He won four Class 1 Trio’s and came 1st (or =1st) in three Class 2 Trio’s. He came 3rd in the 2016 Silver Medal tournament & he has just won a Reserves tournament. All these tournaments help him acquire Candidate Master points.

You can see the full list of BCCA Title holders here

You can also see a full list of all Title points awarded for every BCCA player who has not yet been awarded the Title here It is a long list – over 100 players on the Candidate Master points list!

BCCA member Bill Clews wishes to dispose of his chess book collection. In his words:

“If any member would like to collect them I have a 6′ 6″ bookshelf of chess books, totally free. The usual sort of collection – openings, middle game and endings, plus game collections etc. Some old and some more recent. Time of collection can be arranged through email.”

Bill lives in Leyland (between Manchester & Preston).

Anyone interested should contact me (Neil Limbert) first.

I am organising a BCCA team to play a return Friendly Match against a team from Scheming Mind & all BCCA members are invited to play in the team.  Each player will play only two games against one opponent. Play will be on the webserver, standard time controls, and I am hoping to start in early April.

All rating strengths can hopefully be accommodated from 2400 all the way down. The last match (which still has one game ongoing – see: https://www.iccf.com/event?id=61993 ) has been convincingly won by Scheming Mind so we are looking for revenge!

If you wish to play, please contact me within the next 10 days. I look forward to hearing from you. Please note that, if the numbers from both teams do not match, I may have to leave some players out or ask some players to double up. I will see how it goes.

Phill Beckett has now confirmed his victory in this event with his latest win. He has now scored 5.5/6 & cannot be caught. Congratulations to Phill who wins an engraved Silver Medal! The tournament crosstable and the finished games so far can be seen here

Stan Cranmer’s funeral will be held on February 9 at 1pm at the Mansfield Crematorium. Any BCCA member planning to attend are asked to contact the family first to let them know. Contact details available via Neil Limbert.

Ron Cooper’s chess library has very kindly been donated to the club by his widow  and is most appreciated. Books/DVD’s will be sold on a first come first served basis and the proceeds will go towards promoting the club and correspondence chess. Prices: £5.00 for one item; £8.00 for two items; £10.00 for three items. Postage & Packing to UK will be on top & will depend on the number/size of items ordered & your location. Please go to “BCCA Members” – “Book & DVD Sale” or click here: Book & DVD sale

Please email your requests to Neil Limbert

BCCA member Malcolm Winter is one of the producers of a new TV series called “Checkmate” which is now available on Amazon Prime.  The show is based on the old TV show Master Game , with a twist, 6 men and 6 women competing , there are some very interesting games from leading Grandmasters and the players take us through the game move by move. The show is hosted by Anna Richardson and expert commentary by Simon Williams.  Well worth watching!

All members still have time to enter this years Medal tournaments. The last date for entries is 31 January 2018. So far, we have 40 entries for webserver tournaments & 14 entries for Postal tournaments – see below. If you have entered & your name is not showing, please contact me straight away.

Webserver

Postal

It is my very sad duty to report the death of BCCA member Stan Cranmer at the age of 86. Stan was one of last remaining stalwart Postal players; he never obtained a computer & kept records of all his postal games on various pockets sets that he owned.  He was a very active OTB player right to the end but the undoubted crowning achievement of his OTB career was winning the British U-150 Championship in 1998.  In CC, he played in the Postal Championship, Postal Medal tournaments & the Handicap. As I can personally testify, he was always a tough and determined opponent, but very friendly and willing to discuss chess at any time. He will be very sadly missed -RIP.