On Thursday, our 2023 Club Championship came to a close. Before the sixth and final round, there were three players leading the tournament on 4/5: Brendan O’Gorman, Davi Diniz Afonso and Jonathan Rubeck, with Alex Funk and Nick Murphy half a point behind.
Jonathan defeated Davi with the Black pieces, while Brendan lost to Alex. Therefore, Jonathan Rubeck finishes in first place with 5/6, and Alex Funk finishes in clear second with 4½ after Nick lost to Lion Lebedev.
Congratulations to Jonathan, who becomes Club Champion for the first time after many years of playing in the tournament!
Congratulations also to Davi Diniz Afonso, who finished among a group of six players on 4/6, and wins the David Jones trophy for the highest player rated under 1675 ECF – particularly notable given that this is the first year the trophy has been awarded since David sadly passed away in May.
Many thanks as always to Adam Raoof for running the tournament, and thanks to everyone who played!
We’re now nearing the end of our programme of events for 2022–23. Next week, in a first for the Club, we have a one-night Duck Chess Championship, kindly organised by Mark Hutchinson! This will be followed by our August blitz, and then our AGM to conclude the season on 10th August.
| White | Black | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Davi Diniz Afonso | 1612 | 0 - 1 | Jonathan Rubeck | 1959 |
| 2 | Alexander Funk | 1865 | 1 - 0 | Brendan O'Gorman | 1803 |
| 3 | Nick Murphy | 1714 | 0 - 1 | Lion Lebedev | 1717 |
| 4 | Gul Kapur | 1450 | 0 - 1 | Mark Hutchinson | 1802 |
| 5 | David Lewis | 1381 | 0 - 1 | Andrew Medworth | 1772 |
| 6 | Chris S Rogal | 1755 | 1 - 0 | Faye Ainscow | 1617 |
| 7 | Antoine Clarke | 1385 | 0 - 1 | Stanley G Jacobs | 1404 |
| 8 | Kunal Ramchandani | 1323 | 1 - 0 | Arun Mahtani | 1348 |
| 10 | Giuseppe Joe Ramundo | 0 - 1 | Louis Moss | 1285 | |
| 11 | Damien Sobolevski | 1027 | 1 - 0 | Bahram Salehzehi | 1233 |
Full results from the tournament may be found here.