English Rapidplay Congress in Liverpool 23/24 September 2017
English Rapidplay Championships 2017 (Liverpool)
September 2017 saw Liverpool Chess Club host the first English Rapidplay Championship in the Fabulous Liverpool Cunard Building with over 260 participants challenging for the various titles available and a share of the £10,000 prize fund donated to the tournament by main sponsor “Signature Living
The glamorous 3 graces of Liverpool waterfront proved to be a fantastic location a major chess event which not only provided a fabulous venue but a city for all the weekends participants to explore with something for everybody to enjoy from the historic Albert Dock, Museums, galleries, bars and restaurants and of course the home of Beatlemania Matthew Street around the corner.
The event was opened by the Lord Mayor Liverpool Malcolm Kennedy attracting visitors from all over the world including many Grandmasters and International Masters to make it a tensely fought competition.
English Rapidplay Championship Open
GM Danny Gormally was took the top prize being crowned the English Rapidplay Champion title in the Open section. Danny can be seen being presented with his award by the Liverpool Chess Club President Jim Gallagher. Danny had many strong competitors for the title.
2nd Place: Ameet Ghasi
3rd Place: Lorin Ar D’Costa
4th Place: Nigel Davies
5th Place: Mark Hebden
Best Junior: Dominic Klinger
Winners of the English Rapidplay in 4 sections:
Major Tournament
English Champion: – Jonathan Pein
2nd Place: Tony Wells
3rd Place: Piotr Lipka
4th Place: Barry Hymer
5th Place: Noel McLaughlin
Best Junior: Kevin Ye
Intermediate Tournament
English Champion: Peter Garrett
2nd Place: Steve Lloyd
3rd Place: Kenny Quinn
4th Place: Geoffrey Burn
5th Place: Alan Ruffle
Best Junior: Sam Davies
Standard Tournament
English Champion: – Oliver Stubbs
2nd Place: Sanjoy Banerjee
3rd Place: Denis Dupuis
4th Place: Ian Mackay
5th Place: Viktor Nagy
Best Junior: Kyle Pelling
Sunday 1 Day Tournament
English Champion – Gerald Cohen
2nd Place: Mark Taylor
3rd Place: Joe Ormrod
4th Place: Chris Doran
Best Junior: Nikolas Korsinskij
The centre piece of the event the recently restored Liverpool Chess Club table (pictured) which bears the names of all the winners of the clubs internal tournament dating back to James Cairns in 1892, Amos Burn in 1896 through to last years winner James Friar who took part in the Congress this weekend
The event which is sponsored by Signature Living was opened today by the Lord Mayor of Liverpool Malcolm Kennedy (pictured) who once played chess in the Merseyside league for Aigburth Chess Club.
Juniors Section
Three juniors were crowned English Rapidplay Champions today in the fabulous Liverpool Cunard building.
Under 12s
Marek Korsinskij of Liverpool was crowned 2017 English Rapidplay Champion for the Under 12 section with Weston Levi of London in 2nd place and Samir Khan of Bath in joint 3rd place with Tarini Jayawarna of Tameside and Liverpools Nickolas Korsinskij, Joshua Roque, Bashar Rovezi and Luke Maher all close behind the leaders.
Under 10s
Tengwen Zhao from Sale was crowned 2017 English Rapidplay Champion for the Under 10 section with Rebecca Correa of 3Cs in 2nd place and Shivam Argrawal of Kings College in 3rd place.
Under 8s
Thisumi Jayawarna of Tameside was crowned 2017 English Rapidplay Champion for the Under 8 section with David Richards of Northampton in 2nd place and Edward Correa of 3Cs in 3rd Place, with Liverpools Sashar Korsinskij in 6th place
Friday Night Simultaneous event
To kick the congress off in style, on the Friday before the Congress GM Daniel Gormally took on 15 Chess players and was victorious in each game, this was obviously and excellent warm up for main event for him!
The event was a major success and hopefully we will all be back again next year for an even bigger tournament.