Alan Goldsmith

Alan Goldsmith has been a leading player and chess teacher in South Australia for many years. He has won the State Championship four times (in 1982, 1987, 1989 and 2016), as well as placing equal 4th in the 1990 Australian Championship. Alan loves playing attacking chess and this has led to many of his games being published in books and magazines. He has been writing the Sunday Mail chess column for over 30 years and is President of the SA Junior Chess League, an office he has served for more than a decade.

Alan is the current President of the SA Junior Chess League. He has been organising and running the League since the early 2000s after the retirement of Mrs Evelyn Koshnitsky BEM, AM, and has been supervising the regular Inter-school Secondary Competitions on a Friday night for many years. He has also conducted all the State Junior Championships for the past 15-20 years, as well as running many other junior events. Alan was also President of the SA Chess Association for over 10 years in the 1980s-90s and during that time was on the Organising Committee for many big International chess events in Adelaide such as the fabulous 1988 World Junior Chess Championships and the Adsteam-Lidums Tournaments.

Alan has written a popular chess column for the Sunday Mail every week for over 30 years. In 1988 he was awarded the Garry Koshnitsky Medal for services to Australian chess by the Australian Chess Federation, and in 2015 he was awarded the CJS Purdy Medal for Journalism by the Australian Chess Federation.

To quote highly-respected British author Gary Lane, writing about one of Alan’s wins:

Kevin Sheldrick

Kevin is one of SA’s leading players. He has won the SA Championship three times, in 1999, 2010 and 2015, and has an infectious enthusiasm for the game.

He is enormous fun, very modest and all students can learn an amazing amount from him. Kevin caused a major upset at the 2016 Ballarat Begonia Tournament by beating Australian wunderkid Anton Smirnov (who was awarded Australian Player of the Year that same year) in their individual game.