It has been almost 90 years since a player represented Queens Park Chess Club in official competition. As far as we can tell, the last occasion in which the historic Queens Park Chess Club played in formal competition, was losing to Dundee in the 1936 Spens Cup final.
Fast forward to the 21st century, and those of us in the modern club like to think our ancestors would be proud of our picking up points and prizes at the Scottish Chess Tour East Kilbride Allegro.
The rapid event, played over five rounds in a Swiss format (i.e. ‘winners play winners’) tournament at the 20+10 time control, was held in East Kilbride’s Holiday Inn hotel on Sunday 4 September 2022.
Not only did the name of Queens Park Chess Club once again grace a national competition, but the Club was recognised among the prize-winners. The top performers were:
Alex Lane: Alex (pictured above, left) shared second prize in the internationally rated intermediate section with a superb 4/5. On the top board in the final round, Alex narrowly lost to section winner Ishan Kumar of Bearsden, and shared 2nd prize with Liu Zizheng (above right) of Strathclyde University, a regular visitor to Queens Park.
Rhys McCrosson: despite being a major rating underdog in the open section, Rhys (fourth from right) scored 2/5 against fierce opposition. Rhys, who holds a current Chess Scotland Allegro rating of 1240, delivered a performance rating of 1734.
Graeme McKinnon: Graeme (third from left) achieved 3.5/5 in the intermediate section and was placed 5th of 43 in the final standings.
A number of other Queens Park members, plus regulars from Chess in the Park & Brodies Chess Group, scored points and strong mid-table finishes in the intermediate section. Those competing included Jordan McNaught, Caitlin McCulloch, Derek Rankine, Iain Shields, Chris Dinwoodie, Ryan McGill, Jonny Linney and Finn MacLeod.
Several were playing competitive chess for the first time and reported greatly enjoying the experience.
The overall standings and individual results are available on the Chess-Results website:
A list of prize-winners is available on the Chess Scotland website, while selected games from the open section can be viewed on the Live Chess Cloud.