Ilkley Day One

THE Ilkley tournament is being held at the town's dedicated chess centre.

Ilkley Chess Centre is up the stairs on the first floor

World champions overlook the main playing room

Games are shown live in the refreshment area

A well-stocked bar

The centre currently has a maximum capacity of  18 players, which was not a problem for this weekend as there were eight entries.

This was reduced to seven by a late withdrawal, so one of the organisers, who had also entered, stepped aside to make a more-manageable field of six players:

Timothy Spanton 1998
Sam "Son of Nigel" Davies 1944
Joe Varley 1830
Kevin Winter 1782
Jacob Smith 1577

Tom Hobbs (unrated - this is apparently his first over-the-board event)

I do not want to tire myself out analysing games while the tournament is running, but results should eventually appear at https://ecflms.org.uk/lms/node/71675/rounds and I intend to publish my games asap.