This week’s news comprises six items:
- 4NCL AOL team suffer again.
- 4NCL BOL rise up the table
- Winter tourneys get cracking
- Crewe withdraw from NSDCA OTB Swiss League
- Crewe mini Rapid-play League to start on 6th October
- Crewe vs Fenton (graded friendly match) on 13th October
1. Starting with the online AOL team, it was another tough day at the office as we faced promotion-chasing Barnet Knights A team. An average grade deficit of 375 points (= 50 old grade pts) per board, with a 559 deficit on board 1 it did not require a genius to predict the result. It was to our credit that all boards put up a decent fight as all games went over the 90 minute mark before the inevitible happened and we succumbed to a 4-0 loss, leaving us at the bottom of our division 3 Group D table, with just 1 board point to show from our first three matches (12 boards).
2. Meanwhile the BOL team continue to shine the light for the club, with another impressive result beating Brentwood Juniors 3-1. A look at the score sheet showed their bottom board was as highly graded as our top board, so despite an average 240 pts grade deficit per board, Dave Price’s mighty bees buzzed their way to success. Wins from youngsters Harry, Lukasz and Kobus as they all performed their online wizardry secured the points. Unfortunatley the writer was unable to watch these stars playing as he was too busy suffering on board 1 for the AOL team. With this result the B team have risen to 2nd in division 4 Group D, and currently sit in one of the two promotion booths. Stranger things have happened but we could see the BOL team climb to division 3, as the AOL team fall to division 4 judging by performances so far !!
3. The club’s winter tournaments saw another 16 players in action on Wednesday night as the events early rounds take place. There will be 22 games for each player in division 1 and 18 games in divsion 2 as things stand with all games being graded and a deadline of 31st May 2022 for completion. Some notable results on Wednesday saw chairman Dave Price unexpectedly beat the Summer and Annual Handicap Champion, while Andrew Crosby outplayed secretary David Hulme before allowing David to escape with a lucky draw. Although these events are in their infancy it is clear these will be very competitive judging by the match atmosphere generated on Wednesday. Currently Neville Layhe leads division 1 and Lee Tilton, Nigel Gardner and Steve Ballantyne share the lead in division 2.
4. At the NSDCA AGM on Monday night, the league decided to press ahead with a Swiss-style league with “mandatory mask wearing” and accordingly our club reluctantly elected to withdraw for now, with a view to revise the situation in January.
5. In order to provide some league chess, the club has set up a mini Rapidplay league to last until January, when matters can be reviewed again. It was thought that Rapidplay would provide a nice alternative to the long-play internal events. The RP league starts on Wednesday 6th October where it is hoped there will be 6 teams participating, but this seems likely to change.
6. We have arranged a graded friendly home match with Fenton on Wednesday 13th October. Provisionally this will be over 5 boards and is subject to amendment.
Details of 4NCL online can be seen from the tab at the top of this page with details of Winter Tournaments and the mini Rapidplay League available from the Crewe Chess Club section of the NSDCA League Management System.