Another fantastic night at The Mals Club on Wednesday (24th) saw a club record attendance with 32 of our own members joined by 8 visitors from Wallasey. Thanks to Alan Kelly for arranging to bring a team of 8 to take part in the inaugural Wallasey-Crewe Challenge for the “WC Trophy”. The two teams were evenly matched with less than 60 rating points between the sides. As Wallasey were delayed by local road works and diversions the time control was reduced from the normal 75 mins down to 60 mins plus increments. 10 year old Oskar Jarzynski was in a rush, and had a superb early win against an experienced Wallasey congresser. After the first score, it was tit for tat, as George Jellis and Lukasz Micahlek chalked up wins for the hosts, while Adam Miller and Rick Purcell did the same for the visitors. The remaining games all shared the points to conclude the match with a narrow 4.5-3.5 success for Crewe.
Alongside the main event, there were the other two quarter-finals played in our Summer knock-out. Dave Lambton managed to gain end game superiority over Jules Hawthorne, and Simon Layhe put an end to Rick Renegade’s run, after Rick had beaten the number one seed in the previous round. So the semi-final line up is Karl Lockett vs Harry Gardiner and David Lambton vs Simon Layhe. One graded game saw Matthew Dean beat Vicky Kelsall playing her first ever “long-play” graded game.
The night was a great success for the club, and was made more enjoyable thanks to the sportsmanship of our friends from Wallasey, and the provision of a special buffet to mark this event (WC Challenge).
Just a reminder to all our members that Wednesday 31st is our AGM, where the highlight should be the Trophies Presentation section (see News item 3rd August).