Another brilliant night at the club on Tuesday (14th) saw 3 league matches, 6 Club Championship games, and another new member amongst approx 50 chess players including the visiting teams.
The return league division 1 derby went in favour of the league champions (our “A” team) with a 3-1 success over the battling Bees (B team). Karl Lockett set the champions on the way as he nullified David Hulme’s over extended attack before delivering the knockout blow. The B team drew level as Simon Layhe won on board 2, but the champions showed their superior class with wins from captain Martin Burns on bd 1 and Andrew Raeburn on board 3.
In league division 3, our F team played league leaders Gables “A”. The Gables team comprises an experienced captain on board 1 supported by three rapidly improving youngsters, while our F team has two similar juniors. First blood went to one of our juniors James Coney on board 4, before the visitors equalised on board 3. There was a superb result on board 1 as debutant Cyrus Pereira outplayed their captain, but the visitors had the final say with a win by Dylan Whitney on board 2. Final score 2-2, leaving the Gables at the top of the table with 7pts, while our F team have 4pts (in 4th position) with a game in hand.
In divsion 4 our G team were too strong for the visiting Alsager “D” team which mainly comprises newcomers to league chess. There were comfortable wins for captain Steve Ballantyne (bd 4), Jamie Roberts (bd3) and Pawel Stanny (bd 1) while Phil Grocott settled for a draw on bd 2. Final score 3.5-0.5 to maintain the G team’s 100% record, leading the table by 1pt from Kidsgrove who we have yet to play.
In the Internal Club Championship it was great to see 12 of our members all in action including our latest new member Malcolm Green joining the div 3 section. In div 1 David Lambton notched his 1st win, while Richard Fish and Joe Moxon shared the points in div 2. Meanwhile in div 3 there were wins for newcomer Malcolm, Gerald Parton, Timothy Weston and Mark Randell.
Friday 17th Nov – our D team headed off to Cheddleton to face their B team in a league div 2 match with the D’s being strong favourites at the top of the table against the bottom of the table side. In a match where teams were almost identically rated, we fell to our first defeat of the season by the narrow margin of 2.5-1.5. Our sole success came from Joe Moxon on bd 4, while captain David Lambton kept up his impressive results with a draw to remain unbeaten this season. Despite the loss the D team stay top of div 2 for now, as nearest challengers (Fenton B) also lost at Stafford.