UK Armed Forces Championship 27-30/8/2021
Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2021 11:11 am
This took place at Aldershot, hosted splendidly by 10 The Queen’s Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment. Players were greeted at the start of the event by a bagpiper (Gurkhas worked a lot with Scottish Regiments initially). The opening ceremony included a welcome message from the Commanding Officer and a performance of the Kukuri dance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ewaFjw6bDc gives an example. The formation dance starts at roughly 1m 30s. Owing to the limited space, we only saw three dancers, but they were excellent. It was then slightly intimidating to sit down and play a Gurkha in round 1, but luckily he was unarmed and very affable (as indeed all of them are outside combat.)
The event provides a UK Armed Forces Champion, plus individual Service champions, Ministry of Defence Champion, "Victor Ludorum" (for ex-members of Service and MOD, and Veteran Champion (over 60 years old). Technically, "Victor Ludorum" means "Winner of the Games", as I'm sure you are all aware, but here it means best non-current Services.
http://chess-results.com/tnr576510.aspx?lan=1&art=1
gives results. Prizewinners were:-
UK Armed Forces Champion - Alex Tenin
Army Champion Alex Tenin
Royal Navy Champion - Dave Ross
Royal Air Force Champion - Ben Woolf
Ministry of Defence - Munroe Morrison
"Victor Ludorum" - Richard Kelly
Veteran - Richard Kelly
Laurie Brokenshire Memorial Blitz Tournament - Igor Doklestic
There were also book prizes for good individual round performances.
Alex Tenin's 1300 rating is not real, and it rapidly became apparent that he was somewhat better than that! He was a deserved winner. I am inputting games, which will appear in due course. Igor was the arbiter and ran things smoothly - we let him have an evening off for the Blitz event.
We also had a mini book fair, with players having exciting opportunities to purchase books by Steve O'Neil (From Kosovo to Kandahar), Carl Portman (Chess Crusader) and me (History of Chess in English Civil Service).
The event provides a UK Armed Forces Champion, plus individual Service champions, Ministry of Defence Champion, "Victor Ludorum" (for ex-members of Service and MOD, and Veteran Champion (over 60 years old). Technically, "Victor Ludorum" means "Winner of the Games", as I'm sure you are all aware, but here it means best non-current Services.
http://chess-results.com/tnr576510.aspx?lan=1&art=1
gives results. Prizewinners were:-
UK Armed Forces Champion - Alex Tenin
Army Champion Alex Tenin
Royal Navy Champion - Dave Ross
Royal Air Force Champion - Ben Woolf
Ministry of Defence - Munroe Morrison
"Victor Ludorum" - Richard Kelly
Veteran - Richard Kelly
Laurie Brokenshire Memorial Blitz Tournament - Igor Doklestic
There were also book prizes for good individual round performances.
Alex Tenin's 1300 rating is not real, and it rapidly became apparent that he was somewhat better than that! He was a deserved winner. I am inputting games, which will appear in due course. Igor was the arbiter and ran things smoothly - we let him have an evening off for the Blitz event.
We also had a mini book fair, with players having exciting opportunities to purchase books by Steve O'Neil (From Kosovo to Kandahar), Carl Portman (Chess Crusader) and me (History of Chess in English Civil Service).