Date: Tuesday 1 September 2026
This is an all club activity. All members are invited.
Our traditional Opening Night event is a multi-player simultaneous given by a selection of the Club’s trophy-winners of the previous season.
Originally, this was the Club Champion and the winner of the David Wood Memorial Trophy. More recently, we have expanded this group by adding one or two other trophy winners.
Some terminology
A simultaenous display is one player playing many opponents simultaneously – usually called a Simul
A simul given by two players is called a Tandem
A simul given by more than two players is called a Caterpillar
For those who have not taken part in a caterpillar simul before, this diagram shows the setup with the Club players seated on the outside while the Caterpillar circulate on the insde. This diagram shows the caterpillar circulating clockwise. They may, however, choose to circulate anti-clockwise! The diagram above represents a simul of 12 boards. Roding room can take a setup of 28 boards.
On this Opening Night of the new chess year, the Caterpillar of
Ashwin GopiKrishna 2063 (Club Champion, Junior Club Champion and David Wood Memorial Trophy winner),
David Spearman 2009 (Roy Wagstaff Memorial Shield) and
Paul Barclay 1800 (Rapid Club Champion)
Average rating 1957
1 September 2026 ratings
took on the Club, circulating round the arena one behind the other making a move at each board in turn, without conferring, while trying to maintain an even space between themselves, an equal number of boards apart. As usual, the Caterpillar had white on all boards.
The arena as set up in Roding room allowed for 28 boards, but just 15 Club members attended, which meant that the Club players had less time per move than would have been the case with a larger attendance; at least for the opening moves. Later in the games, the even spacing of the Caterpillar became uneven, which is normal though not ideal, with the result that for some moves the Club players had little time to reply but other moves they had longer than normal.
Play started at 7.35pm and things started badly for the Caterpillar when Matthias chalked up the first win in just 15 minutes – so short a time that they started another game with Matthias (which he also won, but this is not counted in the official scores for the event). The next result, however did not come until 9.15, a win for the Caterpillar against John Jestico.
Thereafter, the Club took a three point lead at 4½-1½. That was as good as it got for the Club, with the Caterpillar pulling back their deficit with five straight wins 4½-6½. A late win for the Club and another for the Caterpillar took the scores to 5½-7½ before the last two games were agreed drawn, giving the Caterpillar a final winning score of 8½-6½.
Wins for the club were recorded by Ian Hunnable, Dai Harris, Matthias Lataille (plus another win in a second “unofficial” game), Partha Mulay and Zain Qureshi. Draws were recorded by Huw Jacob, Ray Chu and Toby Pang.
Results in board order
The board numbers have no particular significance, the boards being numbered to aid record keeping. Players were free to sit where they wished. Numbers not shown in the table below were vacant boards. 1 September ratings are shown for interest (games not rated).
| Board | Club | Score | Caterpillar |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ian Hunnable 1807 | 1-0 | |
| 2 | John Jestico 1353 | 0-1 | |
| 6 | Paul Read 1233 | 0-1 | |
| 9 | Nigel White 1431 | 0-1 | |
| 10 | Dai Harris 1413P (r) | 1-0 | |
| 11 | Matthias Lataille 1777 * | 1-0 | |
| 12 | Peter Nickals 1667 | 0-1 | |
| 13 | Huw Jacob 1515 | ½-½ | |
| 15 | Partha Mulay 2095 | 1-0 | |
| 17 | Ray Chu 1613 | ½-½ | |
| 18 | Zain Qureshi 1562 | 1-0 | |
| 21 | Vishal Lachani 1010 | 0-1 | |
| 23 | Toby Pang 1370 | ½-½ | |
| 24 | Arayama Sharma 1113 | 0-1 | |
| 28 | Fin O’Regan 980 | 0-1 | |
| 6½-8½ | |||
| * Matthias also won a second game |