Former Chess Correspondent Elected President of Midlands Chess

At the Annual General Meeting of the Midland Counties Chess Union at Syston, Leicestershire, Peter Gibbs was elected President. Peter is now an elder statesman of the game, but in his youth he represented England for the team tournament in Leningrad (now St Petersburg). He competed several times in the British Championship and his best placing was 7th.

For nearly 40 years Peter was Chess Correspondent for the Birmingham Post. Peter has helped Blind players over many years starting after he had coached a talented blind player at his local club. He has frequently acted as Arbiter (referee) at the British Championships for Blind players and more recently he was Team Manager for an English side of Blind Junior players in international team tournaments. Other elected Midlands senior officials were: Julie Johnson (Leics, Chief Executive Officer), Andrew Leadbetter (Staffs, Finance Director), Graham Humphries (Staffs, Director for Junior Chess), Sean Hewitt (Leics, Events Director).

Just how devastating the new Midlands’ President can be over the board is shown in the super-miniature below. The game was played in a qualifying round for the British Championship against the Worcestershire player Reg Bonham, the World Correspondence Chess Champion.

White: R.W. Bonham
Black: P.C. Gibbs

British Championship Qualifier 1955 King's Indian Defence
1 d4 Nf6 2 Nf3 g6 3 g3 Bg7 4 Bg2 0-0 5 0-0 d6 6 c4 c5 7 Nc3 Nc6 8 h3 Bd7 9 Kh2? cxd4 10 Nxd4 Nxd4 11 Qxd4? Ng4+! 0-1