Glen Eira Chess Club

Last night was the final one for Glen Eira Chess Club at its first home, Tucker Road Primary School. It was great of the school to offer us a temporary accommodation while we were looking for a place where we could call home. So we will next be meeting in 3 weeks time at the new venue of Carnegie Library, again from 6 pm for Juniors and then from 7 pm for adults.

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Last night, as a fun way of seeing off the old venue, the juniors played a Transfer tournament (Bughouse to those of you in the USA) while after we had a blitz event which was won by David Beaumont (his son Fitzroy had been part of the winning Transfer team earlier, with Michael Gershenzon). David, who has just competed in the Victorian Championship, is looking forward to other strong local players coming to the club. IM James Morris lives close to Carnegie, and David relishes seeing James come along to challenge his blitz prowess! It was all played in a fun spirit and was an enjoyable evening.

The new venue, Carnegie Libaray will see us start a new initiative that seemed to appeal to those who were at the club last night. We intend to make the club specialise in round robin tournaments, so members get to play a group of players near their own standard. This might take a bit of time to sort itself out, but it is different from most clubs who are running large swiss events. We envisage running small round robin events with maybe 6 or 8 players, and having regular promotion and relegation between sections. The concept of running a club like this is fairly new to us, so we're still trying to decide on the exact format, but it should be exciting. There should still be time enough in the year to run a regular swiss system tournament, and at some stage in the future we would like to get a weekender on the map. But you have to walk before you run, so establishing the venue, and building a membership is the first priority. As Carnegie Library is close to train and tram stops, and close to main freeways (Monash and Princes) it is a perfect place for players to come to.

David's: blitz winner Beaumont (right), sits next to club founder Cordover