The 49th Thanet Chess Congress took place last weekend (Aug 17-19) and it was a great success. St George’s School was a fine new venue and the charity bookstall was again popular with most of the books being bought. The RNLI boat money box felt heavy and figures will be announced when known. 103 players took part and an interesting feature was the number of juniors who entered. Especially encouraging was the quality of the young players. Mikey Watson (14) scored 3.5/5 to become Kent Open Champion, Emily Maton (10) came joint first in the Minor, the three Ratnesan children all did well with Ranesh, the current British U14 Champion scoring 3/5 in the Open. Edward Gray (13), having finished third in the Major here last year, came joint first in the Challengers and five-year old Patrick Damodaran scored 2.5 points in the Minor.
Once again, it is hoped to be able to feature some of the games from the congress on this site, especially from the winners so let’s start at the top in the Open. Martin Taylor is a Thanet regular who has won the Kent Open Champion title on several occasions but not this year. He probably realised that this was not going to be his weekend when he was held to a draw by Broadstairs’ own David Faldon in round one.
White: David Faldon (175) Black: Martin Taylor (222)
Thanet Open 2018