Club Championship underway!

By Andrew Medworth, Club Secretary

Friday 12 June, 2026

The Hendon Club Championship got underway last night. The tournament is FIDE-rated for the first time ever, which has resulted in close to 50 entries!

If you’re a member of the Club, it’s not too late to enter the tournament if you haven’t already. Read this for more information.

In this first round, there were 18 boards in action; perhaps the participants taking byes were watching the opening match of the FIFA World Cup!

Pairings in the opening round of a Swiss tournament are often a bit unbalanced. This one was not too bad, though it must be remembered that many players in England play few FIDE-rated events, so FIDE ratings are not always very meaningful. (In running a FIDE-rated event, we are trying to do our part to remedy this!)

In any case, the majority of games were won by the rating favourite. The only exceptions were Alexander Piccininno, who won his game, and Lara De Boer, who drew against me. Well done to them!

Many thanks to arbiter Lance Leslie-Smith for running the round, and we look forward to a successful tournament!

Games

	White			Black
1	Jain, Gautam	2159	+ — −	Barbier-Ramaiah, Rohan Theo	1720
2	Kollias, Vasileios	1709	0 — 1	Amior, David	1986
3	Ben-Nathan, David	1761	1 — 0	Wolfin, Edward	1464
4	Ben-Eshak, Djad	1703	0 — 1	Macneil, Elliott	2044
5	Rubeck, Jonathan	1928	1 — 0	Pride, Stephen C	1599
6	Garcia, Tom	1641	0 — 1	Napolitano, Domenico	1867
7	Alster, Robert	1840	1 — 0	Pepe, Salvatore	1661
8	Green, Alfie	1525	0 — 1	Itzcovich, Giulio	1801
9	Atulugamage, Saniru Lohan	1951	1 — 0	Ramchandani, Kunal	1589
10	Shiran, Yoni	1571	0 — 1	Epstein-Lightman, Yishai	1748
11	Funk, Alexander	1831	0 — 1	Piccininno, Alessandro	1539
12	Goulbourne, Nick	1357	0 — 1	Nilim, Armaan	1923
13	Bhaduri, Aviraj	1907	1 — 0	Thompson, David Nigel	1394
14	De Boer, Lara	1415	½ — ½	Medworth, Andrew	1727
15	Booker, Jack	1753	+ — −	So, Ingmar	1446
16	Upreti, Arjun	1430	0 — 1	Vorozhtsov, Ilya Art	1697
17	Gordon, Marcus	1407	1 — 0	Abraham, Abe	1200
18	Schneider, Poppy	1184	0 — 1	O'Gorman, Brendan	1697

Byes

Full-point: Rogal, Chris; Bansal, Rineesh
Half-point: De Boer, Sanne; Hazell, Peter; Aziz, Daniel; Murphy, Nick; Hill, Callum; Kapur, Gul; Jacobs, Stanley; Hulstrom, Tony; Mahtani, Arun; Bansal, Ronak; Smith, Peter
Zero-point: Lixi, Henri; Moura, Arya

Standings

1-19: Gautam Jain, David Amior, David Ben-Nathan, Elliott Macneil, Jonathan Rubeck, Domenico Napolitano, Robert Alster, Chris Rogal, Saniru Lohan Atulugamage, Yishai Epstein-Lightman, Giulio Itzcovich, Armaan Nilim, AFM Aviraj Bhaduri, Jack Booker, Ilya Art Vorozhtsov, Marcus Gordon, Brendan O'Gorman, Rineesh Bansal, Alessandro Piccininno (1)
20-32: Sanne De Boer, Peter Hazell, Daniel Aziz, Andrew Medworth, Nick Murphy, ACM Callum Hill, Gul Kapur, Lara De Boer, Stanley Jacobs, Tony Hulstrom, Arun Mahtani, Ronak Bansal, Peter Smith (½)
33-51: AFM Alexander Funk, Rohan Theo Barbier-Ramaiah, Vasileios Kollias, Edward Wolfin, Djad Ben-Eshak, Stephen C Pride, Tom Garcia, Salvatore Pepe, Alfie Green, Kunal Ramchandani, Yoni Shiran, Nick Goulbourne, David Nigel Thompson, Ingmar So, Arjun Upreti, Abe Abraham, Poppy Schneider, Henri Lixi, Arya Moura (0)