- PRE-SEASON MATCH: We suffered a big defeat in Tuesday’s (19th August) Pre-season challenge match as Chester made their first trip to Crewe since we formed our club in 2014. We sent the invitation a few weeks ago and after an original plan to play 10 boards each, Chester pulled out the stops to increase the teams to 13-a-side. Like the annual Wallasey challenge, the idea was to make teams reasonably close in ratings and we succeeded by selecting teams with just a 26 total point rating difference. As the News at Ten gongs sounded the match was perfectly balanced at 4-4. After that things went down hill for us as Chester reeled in several wins to emerge comfortable winners 8.5 to 4.5. Full score card is on the LMS.
It is planned for us to take a team of up to 20 players next August, to see if we can gain revenge !
2. SUMMER KNOCKOUTS: After the recent AGM the draws were held for the semi-finals of our Summer knockouts as follows:
OPEN: Carmel vs Oskar and Lukasz vs Richard
MAJOR: Tommy vs Doug and Nathan vs George (Bulbeck)
INTER: Simon Humphries vs Gerald and Freddie vs David Roberts
All games to be played by 16th September, with Simon already through to the INTER final.
3. SUMMER GRAND PRIX U1300 RAPIDPLAY: This new event is well in progress and is a little different to most of our competitions. As many players take holidays and summer breaks, this competition winner’s trophy will be awarded (at the next AGM) to the player with the highest percentage score rather than the most points, as at the closing date of 30th September. Any player who has completed less than 10 games will not be eligible to win the competition and players can play a maximum of two games against any other opponent, with one as white and black.
4. CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP 2025/26 – The new competitions start on Tuesday 26th August. Pairings have been posted on the club’s LMS section. There are five divisions this season due to the increase in number of members. The pairings can be seen by following the links from the fixtures tab which show all NSDCA fixtures (once they are published) as well as all Internal Competitions.
5. TIME & POINT BLITZ HANDICAP: This will take place on Tuesday 9th September, commencing at 7.30pm. It is a five round (swiss-type) blitz event with a combination of different times being allocated to all members to complete their games and handicap points (between 0.5 and 2.5) to add to players scores on top of their results. The idea is to make sure lowest rated players have a chance of competing with the highest rated.
This will be the 11th annual competition and is usually chaotic and a lot of fun. The winner will receive the coveted “Les Hall Memeorial Trophy” at the next AGM.
PLEASE CONFIRM WITH DAVID H IF YOU WISH TO PLAY IN THIS EVENT ASAP.
6. NSDCA LEAGUE SEASON 2025/26: Fixtures are due to be published by 31st August. Since our AGM on 12th August, the league has decided to run an extra division so there will now be 5 divisions and therefore we have chosen to enter two more teams (K&L) into division 5, making 12 teams from Crewe.
7. ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS: The secretary has recently sent an email to all members asking for payment of subscriptions for the year 1st September 2025 to 31st August 2026. Adults £30 p.a and Junior (U 18@ 1.9.25) £20 p.a
8. Any questions on the above please contact secretary David Hulme or any other member of the committee.