38th Stockport Rapidplay Congress, 2026

The 38th Stockport Rapidplay Chess Congress was held at the Guildhall on Sunday 25th January 2026.

We welcomed 153 players split across the 4 sections playing 443 games in total!

Full results can be viewed on chess-results: Open | Major | Intermediate | Minor

Results all sections have been processed for ECF ratings; the crosstables are available: Open | Major | Intermediate | Minor

With the passing of Peter Taylor in December 2024 we awarded the Peter Taylor Memorial Trophy for the first time to the winners of the Open Section. Peter had organised the Congress from 1987 to 2023 and we felt introducing a trophy to recognise his contribution was fitting. The inaugural winners were GM Bogdan Lalic and IM Andrew Ledger who both finished on 5/6.

The remaining cash prizes in the Open Section were all won by players from Crewe Chess Club: third place was Carmel Barwick on 4.5/6, while the U1950 rating prize was shared by Harry Gardiner and Simon Layhe on 3.5/6. Joshua Pink of Stockport Chess Club won the Stockport League Trophy.

In the Major Section, Eric Bennett returned for a third consecutive win (2024 Intermediate, 2025 Major) finishing on 5/6. Stockport League-registered players John-Paul Taylor and Julian Alderton shared 2nd place on 4.5/6 with Julian also winning the Stockport League Trophy. The U1700 rating prize was won by Phil Owen with 3/6.

The Intermediate Section was dominated by juniors and won by Andrew Korzhov with 5.5/6. 2nd place went to Shlok Maheshwari with 5/6; Shlok has previous form winning prizes after a 2024 Minor Section victory and 2025 Junior prize in the Intermediate. Third place this year was split by 5 players on 4.5/6, two of whom won the rating prizes instead as being higher valued: Andrew Beswick, Joshua Clarke, Michael Etchells, Taarush Goel (U1475 rating prize), and Mustafa Merchant (U1550 rating prize).

The Stockport League Tophy in the Intermediate was won by Taarush Goel.

The Minor Section was fiercely contested this year and won by Vehant Sharma on 5.5/6. The chasing pack on 5/6 consisted of Ambrose Lam, Kingsley Tan, and Darren Stanway. Rating prizes were won by: Pascal Fard and Shane Sweeney (U1330); Thomas Hague (U1250); Clive Simcock (U1140); and Beau McKellar (U1000). The two junior prizes (U18 and U12) were split several ways and won by Brandon Dao, Terrence Jiang, Joe Ledgerton, and Ben Abraham (U18), and Jiwei Yu and Leon Kesiak (U12) all of the above on 4/6.

The Stockport League Trophy in the Minor Section was awarded to Thomas Hague.

The Veteran Prize for best 65-and-over score across all sections was shared by Khalid Kohkhar (Intermediate) and Roger Greatorex (Major) with 4/6

Finally, we introduced another new trophy this year, the Peter Taylor Junior Award for the best performance by a junior player in the whole tournament as determined by the organisers. Practically we looked at which junior had most over-performed relative to their rating, and the inaugural award was won by Beau McKellar in the Minor Section.

A pdf showing final rankings and prize breakdown for every section is available here.