Chess club London Chess Congresses hosted a rapidplay chess tournament on Sunday in Ealing Broadway.
The event at the Open Ealing Art Centre, which centred around a faster-paced version of the classic game, aimed to help attendees hone their skills through quick thinking.
Sainbayar Tserendorj, London Chess Congresses organiser and Ealing Junior Chess Club manager and coach, encouraged the public to come to similar events.
Tserendorj, 56, said: “I would like to encourage more people to get involved in chess.
“The Queens Gambit brought more people to chess and to our events, especially girls.”
Participant Hugo León Garza, 30, said: “This is my fourth London Chess Congresses event in the last year. I’ve played in three rapidplay tournaments and one classical time control.”
“I decided to attend these events as I wanted more of a challenge to playing chess online.
“Playing online is fun but it’s not really that challenging as people don’t take online games very seriously, so I decided to go for more of a challenge and test my capabilities in chess.”
He added: “With chess, you develop a lot of skills, especially planning skills.
“It’s always about planning and thinking ahead which is a good skill that can be applied in every single aspect of your life.”
Tserendorj was an organiser for the UK chess challenge for 20 years.
That event is one of the largest and most popular junior chess tournaments in the country, which is aimed at encouraging children of all ages and abilities to participate in competitive chess.
A similar ethos of participation was present at Sunday’s occasion.
Tserendorj said: “The youngest player that played today is 9 years old and the oldest is 65, there’s a mixture of abilities and ages.
“For example, Alexander Cherniaev, a chess grandmaster who plays for England, came to play today.”
Rapidplay chess is a faster-paced version of chess where each player is given 20 minutes of time for all their moves and a 5 second increment on their total time for every move they make.
The tournament involves playing a game every hour, with Round 1 starting at 13:30 and the final Round 5 starting at 17:30.
A win is worth 1 point and a draw is worth half a point, the player with most points at the end of Round 5 wins.
The club also hosts chess tournaments with classical time control, each player has 60 minutes of time for all their moves plus a 30 second increment to their time for each move they make.
These tournaments are hosted in a venue in Southall West London and last for two days, two rounds on Saturday and three rounds on Sunday.
You can find out more about the London Chess Congresses and their events through their website.
Images Credit: Sally Dixon
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