World Chess League: Big wins for Warwick Alumni

 

Worthy nominations for the World Chess League's Meme of the Season Award!

Overall, our three Alumni teams last season performed very well in the World Chess League, coming 22nd, 33rd, and 48th - narrowly behind the Society on 13th. A big well done to all the players, in particularly, the three Captains, Holden Davis, Vincenz Bill, and Jack Huffer. The Society did fare better still, winning the World Chess League 20-20 Rapidplay 2023 title.🏆

However, the Alumni did manage to pick up some silverware, with Holden's and Vincenz's submissions sharing the WCL Meme of the Season Award 2023 - many congratulations!🙌

For the coming 2023-24 Season, we are only entering the 2200+ Team into the WCL. The team have elected Dimiter Daskalov to be the new Captain, succeeding Holden. We are looking to enter the other teams in the near-future to OTB team tournaments, so keep your eyes peeled! In the meantime, do follow the team, and our future Twitch streams.🖥️

Season in a Wrap: Summary Report!

Bringing the 2022-23 Season to a close, we want to thank every member of the Alumni, and the Committee for organising so many events and trips, and to the Captains for organising the online side.

Our Summary Report for 2022-23, is now published on Issuu: here

If you are an Alumni of the University of Warwick, we would be delighted to see you at the next event. As ever, plus-ones are super welcome too!

Past issues of our quarterly newsletter, may be read online: here

Sign-up to the Newsletter, on this link: https://tinyurl.com/uwcaa

If you would like to be added to our Messenger Group Chat, email us, or message us on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. Links: here

Many thanks again, hope you enjoy the Summary Report, and look forward to seeing many old and many more new faces, at our future events!

End of a Season (2022-23)

As the 2022-3 Season draws to a close, we would like to thank, all the players for playing, and our Captains, Jack Huffer, Holden Davis, and Vincenz Bill, for running the teams for the past ten months, in the World Chess League.

The Alumni did quite well overall, ranking 22nd (2200+ Team), 33rd (OG Team), and 48th (Young Oldies Team).

2200+ Club: Sultan Otegenov, Holden Davis (Capt.), Dimiter Daskalov, Taran Jina, Peter Batchelor, Peter Williams, Louise Head, Guy Moss.

OG Team: Elliot Long, Tom Richardson, Sam Hall, Jaspar Goodall, James Munns, Jack Huffer (Capt.), Hok Yin Stephen Chiu, James March, Sam Jackson

Young Oldies: Arjun Pyda, Daniel Koltai, Deema Khunda, Jonathan Fowler, Simeon Bott, Vash Ravi, Vikas Sajanani, Vincenz Bill (Capt.). 

Special shout out goes to Vincenz, who captained his team distinguished, whilst working from Germany.

For the upcoming year, the 2200+ Team have elected Dimiter Dashalov, as their Captain for the Season 2023-4. The other two teams, are currently still working out interest and the best way to maintain chess through next year, with a particular focus on OTB competitions where possible.

Alumni returns for Chairmans' Dinner 2023

Alumni Returns to celebrate another successful year of Chess, with the Society.

Following from a very successful Graduation Celebration of 2022, which brought together the three cohorts affected by the pandemic, 2020, 21, and 22, the Society took over the running of that event, with its inaugural Chairmans' Dinner - an end of year formal for the Society and Alumni.

Set off the banks of Leam River, Society Chairman Tom Campbell choose the newly-opened venue of The Terrace. An excellent choice.

It was a delight to toast to the success of the Society's 2022-23 Season, in particular the hard-earnt efforts of Co-Presidents, James Parkinson and Meghana Mohan, with 200+ members, a record-breaking Rapidplay, and two serious sponsors - Optiver, and Chessable.

On the Alumni front, this year was a success with online streams, three new teams in the World Chess League, two new FIDE Arbiters, and of course, the happy engagement of Alumni President, Peter Batchelor, and Emma Bewley. 

Full report on the private Alumni Facebook Group, shortly.

The next Alumni Trip will be Chess Fest, in Traflagar Sqaure, on Sunday 16th July.

5th Chessable University of Warwick Rapidplay 2023

"Wow - looks like a cult." - Friend of Warwick Chess.

As ever, the Alumni arrived in droves for the 5th Warwick Rapidplay 2023. As ever, it is a pleasure to see the Society thriving, going from strength to strength. 

A big well done to the Tournament Director, Sidharth Panicker for a seamless tournament, including hitting a record-breaking 130 players. As ever, this was followed by a Society x Alumni bar crawl with Keith Arkell, in order to celebrate a great weekend and Society President, Meghana's birthday - a merry opportunity for bad decision-making for all! 

A pleasure to see Alumni, Chun Chiu return to arbit, and the many who returned to play, include Elliot Long, Vash Ravi, Oliver Lindrop, James March, James Munns, Sam Foster, Jack Huffer, Ziad Fakhoury, Arjun Pyda, Jonathan Fowler, Holden Davis, Taran Jina, and As.Prof Joshua Pink. Click here for the full results: link.

See everyone next time, at Chairman's Lunch (June 17th) for the annual Warwick Chess & Alumni Formal 2023. (Details here: link)

2nd Warwick Chess Alumni Christmas Dinner 2022

 

The Alumni came together again on the 10th December 2022, for their second annual Christmas Dinner. It was excellently organised by James Munns, with the three locations in a straight line along the Northern Line!

The early-birds began early at the Camden Brewdog, where we celebrated Peter Batchelor's birthday. This was followed by an excellent three course Christmas Lunch at the Lion and Unicorn, in Kentish Town. The evening was topped off with drinks in the Boston Arms, where half the Alumni went to watch the England-France World Cup Game, whilst the other half watched went to watch the Chess-boxing at The Dome in Tufnell Park. Some late ravers ended up in The Rocket at Kings Cross, til the early hours..

The full report by James can be found on the Alumni Facebook Group [link].

Hope to see many old faces at the upcoming Chessable 5th Warwick University Rapidplay! Link here: https://www.warwicksu.com/venues-events/events/4117/23564/

Warwick Chess Alumni Versus Society [Football] Match!

On the 15th October, Warwick Chess Alumni returned to the University with a full 11-a-side football team, facing off against the Society. It was great to see the range of players who returned! The oldest among us, Steve Turvey, former Society Secretary, and Chairman of the Coventry & District Chess League, had played for the University before many current Society members or even Alumni were even born.. Most impressively, Steve was probably one of the fittest players on the pitch, being a habitual long distance runner! Hok simultaneously played, whilst attending the ECF AGM, which was perhaps too many commitments for even Hok to handle.

It was an excellent outing, we lost 7-2 to the Society, with some excellent goals from strikers, Venga (Ravikumar Vengadesh), and James (Munns). This was followed by a poker afternoon, a team meal, ending with Circling for Skool Days with the Society - a rather lively affair..

A full report from Taran, can be found [here] on our private Alumni Facebook Group.

Hope to see many new and old faces at the next Alumni reunion, the Christmas Meal, on the 10th December, 2022, in London. Further details coming soon!

Upcoming Joint Warwick Chess & Alumni Stream - Twitch

The next Alumni Online Stream over Twitch (https://twitch.tv/warwickchess) will be a joint one with the Society. It will be hosted by Society President Meghana Mohan, and Alumni Chair Taran Jina. It will feature guests, Andrew Gissop (Society Vice President), and Eva Pacararu (Society Div. 3 Captain).

The commentary will begin at 6pm BST, 11th September, 2022, and conclude at 8pm.

In the first hour, we will be covering the Alumni 2200+ (A) Team, who will be playing the XANDREZ ENTRE AMIGOS (Brazil), and the second hour, the OG Team, and Young Oldies will be up against CIESZYŃSKIE LEGENDY (Poland) and ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY (Scotland), respectively.

The Teams, as follows:

Alumni 2200+. Dimiter Daskalov, Sultan Otegenov, CM Peter Williams, Simeon Bott.

Alumni OG. Sam Hall, James Munns, Tom Richardson, Elliot Long.

Alumni Young Oldies. Daniel Koltai, Jonathan Fowler, Arjun Pyda, Deema Khunda, Vash Ravi.

Watch our live commentary, in support of our teams!

Three Warwick Alumni Teams to enter the 2020 World League

The Alumni have enter field three teams, into the upcoming 2022-23 Season for the 2020 World Chess Championships. Special thanks to our Competitive Chess Captain, Jack Huffer for co-ordinating.

Our first team is aimed for players around and above 2200+, whilst we have two further regular teams, are based on the alumni cohorts.

Games are once a month, with a time control of a ten minute plus five second increment time.

Captain of the Alumni 2200+ 'A' Team: Holden Davis
Captain of the Alumni Pre-2018-21 OG Team: Jack Huffer

Captain of the Alumni 2021-23 Young Oldies Team: Vincenz Bill

Best of luck to all the teams, and do contact the Captains, if you wish to play!

Holden Davis, 2200+ Chess Captain.

Jack Huffer, OG Team Captain.

Vincenz Bill, Young Oldies Captain.