{"id":1480,"date":"2026-02-10T20:23:34","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T20:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sungate.co.uk\/?p=1480"},"modified":"2026-02-10T20:23:35","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T20:23:35","slug":"kidlington-chess-congress-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sungate.co.uk\/?p=1480","title":{"rendered":"Kidlington Chess Congress 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Dave<\/a>
Contemplating my move in the final round game<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Kidlington Chess Congress this year had a new venue: slightly further from home but a very nice location with excellent facilities. There was space for many more players and that can only be a good thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However my tournament started poorly: defeat in the first round against an opponent who was, on paper at least, not as strong as me. He played very well throughout, so I have no-one other than myself to blame. Round Two gave me a chance to recover: I had a good position out of the opening with an extra two pawns, but miscalculated slightly and in order to survive, I had to return the material and also allow a very strong attack. Fortunately for me, my opponent was in time trouble and I was able to outplay her in the endgame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Round Three was an evening game against a 10-year-old boy who appeared to be very tired: he put his head down on his folded arms after every move and closed his eyes! I had an early advantage due to an opening trap he fell into, so I felt confident converting this one. Even the introduction of a Snickers by a parent to keep him awake didn’t help and I forced a resignation soon after. So 2 out of 3 at the end of the first day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day Two brought more success: for Round Four I recovered from an inaccurate opening to unleash a killer attack, checkmating my opponent’s King in the middle of the board. Now I had a real chance of winning a prize: I knew that a victory in the final round would give me a share of Second Place. Round Five began solidly enough and my opponent probably had a fair chance to take a draw, but I suspect also wanted to go for a win. Gradually I gained the upper hand until the point when I was two pawns up and about to exchange off the remaining pieces, he resigned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I finished on 4 out of 5 and gained a share of Second Place and a cash prize!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Games and analysis are available at https:\/\/www.sungate.co.uk\/chess\/kid2026.html<\/a> and the final results and crosstables are at https:\/\/s1.chess-results.com\/tnr1325303.aspx?lan=1<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Kidlington Chess Congress this year had a new venue: slightly further from home but a very nice location with excellent facilities. There was space for many more players and that can only be a good thing. However my tournament started poorly: defeat in the first round against an opponent who was, on paper at… (read more<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sungate.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sungate.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sungate.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sungate.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sungate.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1480"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.sungate.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1486,"href":"https:\/\/www.sungate.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions\/1486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sungate.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sungate.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sungate.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}