We hosted Gavin Wall last year for a simultaneous display, which proved highly popular.
Gavin was an International Master, who had grown up in the area and joined Richmond Juniors as a kid and then RTCC – Richmond & Twickenham Chess Club, the local adult chess club. He was a great supporter of both clubs – and Ireland for whom he qualified to represent because both of his parents came from Ireland.
Sadly Gavin died a couple of days after the simul that he gave.
In memory of Gavin, RTCC has instituted a perpetual trophy, the Gavin Wall Memorial Cup, which will be used for an annual challenge between it and Richmond Juniors.
The inaugural match will take place at Orleans Park School on Saturday 20th June, from 13:00 to 17:30. Two teams of eight players, rated from 1100 to 1700 will played two rounds of FIDE and ECF rated Standard Play, with a time control of 50 minutes per player plus 10 seconds per move. Before the first round, similarly to the SCCU U14 league, the two teams will exchange team lists and the captains will toss for colour. The winning team captain will decide which colour his or her team will play with in the first round. In the second round, the teams will play with reversed colours, and the visiting team (RTCC) will swap players pairwise, so that their board 1 will play on board 2, their board 2 on board 1, all the way down the order. The games will all be broadcast live on lichess.org, chess.com and on chessbase.com. We hope also to broadcast live commentary on the match – more on this later!
If you are interested in taking part, then please use declare your interest using the Teams Declaration of Interest – U12 to U18 form.
