In 1997 there was a huge upheaval for the Hampshire Chess Association when the majority of the officers resigning. Not sure of the reason for this but it was obviously something which seemed to come out of the blue and there was no transition process. For this reason Hampshire did not play in the WECU competitions in the 1997/1998 season and there was no Hampshire Championship in 1997 either. As Hampshire had won the Harold Meek and Wayling Cup trophies in the WECU in the 1996 / 1997 season this shows how dramatic this change was!
By 1998 a new committee was in in place ably led by President Liam O’Sullivan and Secretary John Wheeler. Malcolm Clarke with the help of the HCA committee took on the Individual Championship Co-ordinator role and the tournament was resumed.
Picture above is from the 2002 Championship held at Eastleigh College, but does include 1998 HCA Champion Dominic Tunks and 1998 Under 150 grading prize winner Tom Anderson (no pictures from 1998).
Contents
For a list of the winners of the Hampshire Individual Championship and links to any articles I have written the table on the Hampshire Individual Championship is the best place to look. In addition, the table on the Hampshire Tournaments will detail these and any other tournament articles I have completed. Both of these are available from the menu at the top of the site as well.
Hampshire Individual Championship
Later congresses have been split into several sections but the 1998 one was just one tournament, with graded prizes. This report is based on the brief report held in the HCA Archives and the February 1999 HCA Newsletter. If I locate, or am supplied with additional information I will update accordingly.
24 players took place in the tournament which was held at Eastleigh Unity Club (which was my club at the time). This did not prove to be the best venue and although the 1999 tournament was also held there it was moved to Eastleigh College in 2000, which proved to be a much more suitable venue. Experienced controller Pat McEvoy ran the tournament for the HCA and Malcolm Clarke persuaded the Mayor of Eastleigh to present the prizes.
Emsworth Chess club player and HCA County Captain Dominic Tunks won the tournament, scoring five points from his six games. Eastleigh Unity’s best player Bill Purkiss was joint second along with 1996 champion Jeremy Fraser Mitchell half a point behind. They were joined by John Patience, who also won the under 175 grading prize.
The graded winners were all from Southampton Chess Club, although we persuaded John Zastapilo to play for Eastleigh soon after this. He may have already been playing for Eastleigh at this time?
- Under 175 – John Patience – 4½ points – Parsons Cup
- Under 150 – Tom Anderson – 4 points
- Under 125 – John Zastapilo – 3 points
The February 1999 HCA Newsletter detailed the following as the tournament went into the last round:
Going into the last round John Patience (Southampton, 162) was leading with four and a half points out of five, whilst Hampshire Match Captain, Dominic Tunks (Emsworth, 181) was in sole second place with four out of five. John had the harder draw, as he had to play the highest graded player in the tournament, Bill Purkiss (Eastleigh Unity,187), with Black. Bill also needed to win, as this would put him in second place.
So with both Bill and John going for the win, a fine tussle was on the cards. The opening / middle game went very well for John, as he tempted Bill into a sacrifice that was not particularly sound. The compensation never looked good enough and it seemed that John was going to win the tournament outright.
But last rounds are never that simple, the one advantage that Bill had was on the clock. In mutual time trouble Bill managed to pick off John’s pawns one by one. When the dust had cleared Bill had four passed pawns for a Knight, which had no way of stopping their relentless march toward promotion. Dominic managed to win his last game, as did Jeremy Fraser-Mitchell Richmond & Twchm,177).
HCA Newsletter Feb 1999 Vol 1 Issue 1
Apart from the prize winners I only know of a few other players that played. Martin Newbury played (as John Zastapilo drew with him in round one) and my opponents included N Campbell, M Baxter as well as the forementioned John Zastapilo and Dominic Tunks. Update May 2023 – I have located the crosstable from the Archives which is detailed below and details all the participants and the round by round. I may add these later, but you can see this information now.
With regards to trophies at this time the criteria was different to the current one. There were no Len Walters (introduced in 1999) or Peter Marshall (probably also 1999) trophies and the Parsons Cup which is now the Minor Championship (Under 125) was awarded to the Under 175 (which is what the Len Walters Board is now used for). This can be confirmed from the details above which state that John Patience won the Under 175 and from the engraving on the trophy (see additional information).
As to the Peter Marshall Cup this replaced the lost trophy mentioned in the HCA Report (I will see if I can locate the name somewhere). I have therefore slotted Tom Anderson under the Peter Marshall (or equivalent) winner in the list of HCA Winners.
In the future if I can locate the other names I will update the already messy list of winners.
Additional Information
The report mentions that the Silver Rook had run out of place for engraving, but this was resolved when an additional plinth was added to include winners. You can see Dominic’s name under the 1998 entry below. Also as mentioned Hampshire were the WECU Harold Meek and Wayling Cup winners and I have added these tables. Select the picture to see in more detail.
Games
I only have my games from the tournament, which included Dominic’s win against me. I actually played well in this game, but we both used quite a lot of time and it seems Dominic outplayed me in time trouble. At this time I used to record the move times and as can be seen I had used quite a lot of time in the opening. The game was certainly complicated with Dominic choosing tricky moves. I think it would have been 100 minutes for 40 moves with a 20 minutes quickplay finish?
- Move 10 – 35 minutes used
- Move 12 – 46 minutes used
- Move 13 – 61 minutes used
- Move 20 – 85 minutes used
HCA Report
The HCA Report on the tournament.
Acknowledgements and sources:
- Hampshire Chess Archives
- John Zastapilo for additional information