
A Hammersmith team, who play twice-weekly at the London MindSports Centre in Dalling Road near Ravenscourt Park tube station, won the €5,000 amateur prize by finishing top of 54 teams in the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Team Championships.
Staged at Hammersmith's Novotel, Gesneria Cepoi, Maria Ciocan, Gaston Franco, Aryaman Ganguly, Marco Gallana, Kai Hanache, Ali Hill, Ash Stewart and Tom Villiers triumphed against players from as far afield as Kazakhstan, Greece, Uzbekistan, India, Turkey and Mongolia in the U2200 section.
The win was hailed as a foretaste of future glory by club chairman John White.
"This is about more than just winning," he said. "It's about showing what's possible when you give young people the tools and support to grow. Our juniors are the future, and today they've shown they can compete with the best."
Hammersmith has a rich chess history. The Novotel is just a bishop's lob from Riverside Studios, where Russians Vladimir Kramnik and Garry Kasparov met in the 2000 world championship which ended Kasparov's long reign at the top.
World's best
Deciding that it would be absurd to pass up an opportunity to compete against the best in the world with the championships on its doorstep, the club put together a team led by captain Adam Cranston.
All teams were required to have at least one female player and at least one 'recreational player' – below the internationally accepted advanced level. The blitz games had to be completed in just three minutes.
The event at the Novotel was the third World Rapid and Blitz chess team championships following competitions staged in Germany and Kazakhstan.
It attracted 116 grandmasters, including world No2 Hikaru Nakamura, former women's world champions Alexandra Kosteniuk and Hou Yifan, and former world champion candidate Nigel Short.

Wanna play?
Interested in emulating the success of the Hammersmith Chess Club players? Join the 200-strong club whose members play at Dalling Road's former Salvation Army citadel on Mondays and Thursdays. There's a popular junior and youth programme.