Suffolk Chess

Bury St Edmunds' Ed Player travelled to Brighton for the e2e4 Brighton Open this weekend. He finished in equal fourth place on 3½/5, behind the joint winners, GM Peter Wells and GM Keith Arkell, who both scored 4½ points. Ed's only loss was to Arkell. His 2304 rating performance will earn him 12 Elo points.

At the end of October both Ed and Alan Merry played in the five-day, nine-round Basingstoke Masters, also part of the e2e4 circuit. Both did remarkably well, against strong opposition. The winner was IM Ameet Ghasi on 6½ points, whilst Ed was the only untitled person (2 GMs, 4 IMs, 1 FM) in joint second place on 5½ points. This included a win over IM Jack Rudd and a draw with GM Bogdan Lalic. Ed's rating performance was 2348, which will see him gain a further 32 rating points.

Alan won his first round against a GM from Uzbekistan (see below), then drew in Round 2 with GM Bogdan Lalic. From this tough but promising start, results did not all go to plan, but he still finished with a rating performance of 2349, which included a win over IM James Cobb. This will mean an improvement of 29 points.

See the full results from both Basingstoke and Brighton.

Here's Alan Merry's win over a GM. Black's poor 32nd move allowed a strong attack: