5th Lancaster Rapidplay Congress - 24th January 2026

Another Congress been and gone! Thank you so much to everyone who played and supported our event. We hope to see you all for our standard play in August! (Details will be on website soon)

This rapidplay we had some great competitive chess across the boards in all 4 sections. Along with the usual prize winners we had diversity prizes for, best female player, best player 65 and over and best u16 player. There are pictures below taken by club photographer and social media manager Harrison Theobald. More pictures to follow this post. Here are your prize winners! Congratulations to all who won!

Open

• First equal – 4.5 - Gediminas Sarakauskas and Malcolm Armstrong - £100 each

• Grading prize 4 – U2100 – Li Xiaofan – 1859 - £50

Major

• First equal – 4.5 – Max Fyson* and James P Rothwell - £100 each

• Grading prize – 3 – U1800 – Adam Hague 1773 - £50

Intermediate

• First – 5.5 – Joshua Cherrington - £130

• Second – 5 – Peter Thompson - £70

• Grading Prize – 4 - U1620 – Jasmine Burgess* – 1601 - £50

Minor

• First – 6 – Charles Palmer - £130

• Second – 5 – James Marshall - £70

• Grading Prize – 4 – U1300 - Jurijs Petuhovds – 4 – 1254

Best female player

From – Jasmine Burgess, Natalie Haydock, Claire Kerton, Becky Kerton, Maya Jalloul and Alice Lampard

• Jasmine Burgess* - 4 - £50 – Jasmine gets £100

Best 65 or over player

From Chris Bergman, David Shaw, Alan Hiatt, Peter Barrow, Ken Lawson and Mike Surtees

• Mike Surtees – 4 - £50

Best under 16 player

From Otis Thompson, Sid Freund, Max Fyson, Dylan Jones, Aleksander Libicki, Riaan Kumar and Zander Booth

• Max Fyson* - 4.5 - £50