The arrival of summer doesn't have to mean the end of chess! Some folks are happy to keep their hand in with the R.I.'s summer all-play-alls (graded sections this year; a most welcome improvement), others though like to travel further afield.
Paul Townsend, for instance, visited Crete in July for the Rethymnon Open and would no doubt have scored more than a most credible 5/9 had he not had to follow up his draw with the Croatian GM Dejan Antic by running into the Greek IM Georgios 'the Pirate' Souleidis and the Ukrainian IM Inna Gaponenko in the last two rounds. Buoyed by such success, Paul returned to Crete for the Gazi Open in late August and turned in arguably the best result of his chess career, tying for first on 7/9 with two Greek FMs and the Bulgarian IM Zahari Zahariev. A truly excellent result! We hope to bring you some games annotated by Paul soon, but for now readers should note that he will be playing a third tournament (!) next week, representing White Rose at the 2009 European Club Cup in Macedonia. Follow the Yorkshiremen's progress here .
Richard Palliser wasn't our only representative at the British Championships in Torquay. Indeed, all our players adapted well to the constant south coast rain. Paul Johnson managed a most impressive 6/11 to win a rating prize in the Major Open , where Richard Cowan also performed pretty credibly and, as usual, produced a number of entertaining games. Eric Key and Laurence Cornhill meanwhile were in action in the U175 Championship , with Eric joint-leader going into the final round and Laurence also doing well against a number of higher-graded opponents. Not only did Eric remain in Torquay for the subsequent strong Senior Championship, but he was to return to Torbay in September for the popular annual Paignton Congress . Once again the sea air appeared to inspire Eric who tied for first in the 5-round morning event in which we believe that Norman Andrews also competed. Norman had hot-footed it from Weston Super Mare where he had been helping to run the British Braille Chess Association's annual championship , another event which featured York success. Not only did Chris Ross hold IM Colin Crouch to a draw, but he then matched him win-for-win to tie for first!
The arrival of autumn signified the return of the congress scene. Not only did York players venture to Bradford , but the Wellers went even further the next weekend to Newcastle, where Jean-Luc recorded an impressive 2.5/5 on his Open debut and Pierre won the Major. 
A selection of games from these events can be found here.
Finally, don't forget to keep up to date with all the Yorkshire news this season via the YCA website .