Chess: a sport? Indeed.
By Ethan Luc, second year English student
February 23 saw a weary and apprehensive University of Bristol chess-playing cohort greet the day at 7am.
As we waited for the mini-bus, tensions were high. A tactical and strategic battle of minds would be taking place that weekend; it was the annual British Universities Chess Association (BUCA) Championship.
This year, the club saw its largest number of participants ever taking part, allowing us to send five teams to the tournament. This made us the second largest squad there.
Bolstered by the recent acquisition of Ian Gallagher from Cambridge, who was perfectly placed to slot into board 1 of the A team, the odds of succeeding were somewhat higher than usual. The sun shone brightly that morning, at least.
Having joined the other hundred or so students from all over the country in checking in, the teams were ready for their opening game.
The A team were handed a fair first draw. We were to play Southampton in a Matt Chapman-derby: Chapman having previously played for Bristol before relocating to the coastal town.
In fact, I was paired with Chapman on board 3, and was given the honour of defeating him in an up and down endgame. As Polish and French grandmaster Savielly Tartakower once said: ‘The winner of the game is the player who makes the next-to-last mistake’.
My teammates played just as well with Alice Lampard and Ian Gallagher both winning their games to give us a 3-1 overall win. We then followed this up in the next round with another 3-1 win against Leeds, where Alice - a Scottish national team player - comprehensively defeated her opponent in the endgame, winning with black.
Bristol were joint top with Imperial at this point with two wins out of two, but round 3 was where things started going downhill.
Our shared leaders were a team which boasted an International Master, two FIDE Masters and a bottom board with a ‘mere’ 2139 rating. Fair enough, then.
Going into day 2, Imperial lead the Championship with 6, chased by UCL, LSE, and Bristol with 4.
— British Uni Chess (@bucachess) February 24, 2019
The defeat was hard fought but not entirely surprising. Our board 2, Morris Stranger, played an excellent tactical in his game and managed to draw against his much higher rated opponent.
Round 4 saw another 3-1 defeat to LSE, with strong play from both their bottom boards in defeating myself and Alice. By round 5, all chances of winning had disappeared in the smoke left behind in Imperial’s wake. We lost the third game 3-1, with respectable draws from Morris and Alice.
Elsewhere, our Bristol B team played excellently well. Having lost a disappointing first game, with only a draw from Oliver Clarke to take away from it, the team proceeded to romp to a brilliant third place finish by winning each of their remaining games.
Clarke remained undefeated and earned himself a gold medal performance in the process. It should also be mentioned that the team only finished third on tiebreak; their points score was equal to Imperial in first. Congratulations to Alex Vaughan, Illias Pergatis, Srishti Jain and Oliver Clarke.
The C team, composed of Peter Bradshaw, Daoyi Wang, Jonathan Long and Aaron Kelly, faced stiff competition in the Bowl division of the tournament and finished ninth. Special mention goes to Peter Bradshaw on board 1 who finished with a very decent 3/5 score, and just missed out on a bronze medal.
The final two divisions saw Bristol D and E produce some great individual performances. Daniel Owusu and Marios Tsoukis both ended undefeated with perfect scores and subsequently gold medals, while James Thomas and Jim Champken also won medals for their performances.
Bristol will also be playing UWE on Wednesday March 27 in the first iteration of what will undoubtedly be a fierce rivalry. Congratulations must be offered to UWE and their president, Kin Tan Wei Hao, who this year were able to not only form a club for the first time ever in UWE's history and find the players to enter BUCA, but also win their section of the tournament.
The University of the West of England won all of their matches to take the 2019 Shield!
— British Uni Chess (@bucachess) February 24, 2019
Come along to the Odlum Room in the SU where you can find out if their beginner’s luck continues against a formidable University of Bristol team.
Final thanks must be given to Alice Lampard and Conor Newton, both of whom were instrumental in organising the event. It is the most successful the club has ever been, considering the numbers we were able to send.
The club continues to go from strength to strength and we look forward to next year’s tournament.
Featured image by Alice Lampard
Ethan's retelling of Bristol's BUCA Championship campaign makes a convincing case for chess to be a considered a sport. Let us know what you think!