Suffolk Chess

Dagne Ciuksyte (right), Suffolk's only Women's Grandmaster, has been selected to play for England on Board 1 in the forthcoming European Team Championships, taking place in Warsaw from 8 to 17 November.   The other members of the team are WIM Sabrina Chevannes, WGM Anya Corke, WFM Meri Grigoryan and WFM Kanwal Bhatia.   The English entry to this event has been in some doubt, due to financial limitations, but these appear to have been solved and the team will now travel.   You can read more about the on-off-on nature of this team's entry here on the ECF Forum.

Meanwhile, over in sunny Majorca (where the temperature is 29 degrees today), Alan Merry is nearly halfway through his all-plays-all IM tournament.   With two wins and two draws to date, he is handily placed for his target of 6½ points that will earn him a second IM norm.   Alan is currently in second place, half a point behind top seed IM Pedro Mascaro (Spain), whom he has yet to play.

Still on international matters (but not directly chess related), last Sunday Bury St Edmunds' Mike Harris competed in (and completed!) the Amsterdam Marathon.   Congratulations Mike!

Finally, German born Yvonne Freiherr (Bury St Edmunds) returned to her native country in September to get married.   She will now be known as Yvonne Freiherr-Fenton (Dave Wild please note).