Author: Martin Burns

Might as well get the bad bit out of the way. Last Tuesday Alsager came to St Mary’s for the return league match against Crewe A. That’s not the bad bit, always a pleasure to see them and so on; no, the bad bit was they beat us 3-1. Alsager are now pretty much sure of winning the league this year, barring some weird change of the rules or something. Congratulations to them in anticipation.

Now for the good and the tasty. The Staffordshire Congress came around again last weekend. Last year the event was held in the beautiful King’s Hall in Stoke, where you may recall, if you looked up from the horrible position on your board you could lose yourself in the ornate ceiling. You may also remember that Jonathan Blackburn won the County Championship with a reasonable score of 5/5. This year the event moved on to Kidsgrove, at the charming Victoria Hall, built in 1898 and still looking pretty good. I don’t think I have ever been to Kidsgrove before, and as I wandered around in search of food at Saturday dinnertime I found something I had never seen before; an oatcake shop. It was ace; they offer all sorts of fried/non-fried stuff in an oatcake. Prices were a pleasant surprise too. Bacon and cheese seems to be the big seller and the traditional combo. I went for a fried egg and hash brown, lovely. Locals and chess players were queueing out the door for the stuff.

The addicts at Crewe Chess Club were really up for this tournament; Mr Secretary tells me, that of the total of 93 players, 18 were from our club. This number does not include Dave Price , who was doing an excellent job on the arbiter team. Three sections, decent prizes and a comfortable venue had lured us in, if we needed any luring.

In the Standard Section we had the highest rated player, Nigel Gardner. He scored a decent 4/5 to take a share of second, and seemed fairly happy with that. In the “Higher” Section we were all over it. Again the highest rated player was from Crewe CC, the fast improving Jamie Roberts. Jamie started of with a frustrating draw and then had to chase down the leaders, and what leaders! In the third round the top board featured our own Dave Hulme and Karl Lockett. Dave played well and won a pretty convincing game. In spite of having endured an exhausting Saturday night looking after noisy grandchildren, Dave clung on to the lead and finished with 4/5. Jamie managed to catch him to join the three-way tie. I should mention, so I will, that Jamie has now won the last three weekend tournaments he has played in, and you can watch him next week at the Welsh Championship in Cardiff.

We also had four players in the open. James Ratcliffe looked like he was going to get the better of Mr Blackburn again, having beaten him in our recent cup match, but in a topsy-turvy game in the first round, he was unlucky to lose. There were a few Crewe V Crewe clashes in this section, and Harry Gardiner came out as our top scorer with 2.5/5. The winner and Staffordshire Champion, with a score of 5/5, was Jonathan Blackburn; does that sound familiar? Well done to him, and lets hope he does well in Cardiff alongside Jamie.

Crewe CC continues to grow, and readers of this stuff will know that this year we have entered two teams into the NSCDA Open Cup. On Thursday the Cup B team had an away trip to face the mighty Alsager . You remember the last time I went to Alsager; we went to the wrong venue? Anyway this time we got to the Thirteen Club in good time. We headed for the usual room, and then I had a moment of panic; there were no chess sets to be seen, the lighting was down low, and a stage was being kitted out with musical instruments. Surely not; had I done it again? My panic was over when a genial chap came over and asked “chess or jazz?” When I declared the purpose of our visit he pointed us to a back room. Phew!

Quick observers quickly observed that Alsager were missing a few of their players, but they still looked pretty decent over the 6 boards. I settled down against Alan, my usual foe whenever we play Alsager, and I slipped into my usual opening difficulties. Then the band started up. Maybe twenty five years ago I was coerced into going to a jazz club in London, and I recall that every time a musician completed a complicated solo routine there was a ripple of applause from the audience; I also recall that the drink prices were very ambitious. The jazz experts at Thirteen Club behaved in the same manner as on that evening from long ago, but the bar prices were more reasonable than in London. I was enjoying myself, in spite of my troubles against Alan.

Anyway, after a bit I went for a shufty at the other boards; we were all seated individually around the edge of the room, with a snooker table in the middle. The games were all looking pretty even, but when I got to Jamie’s board I nearly had to do a double take; Jamie, playing the experienced Tim, seemed to be all in for a mating attack after about 10 moves. The game finished shortly after and we were 1-0 up.

I had dropped a pawn but was in a decent position, and Alan offered me a draw. I thought about it for a bit but then decided, safety first, and I accepted. Next game to finish was Oskar, who I thought was doing well, so it was a surprise when he told me he had lost; 1.5-1.5.

Other boards were looking decent enough, but something was brewing on board one. Young James, who is improving fast, was having a lively game against Jonathan, who is by far the best player in the league. James was an exchange down but his bishop pair was looking more than enough compensation, and he had a big time advantage. Jonathan was trying to make things awkward, but the crowds started nudging each other, as an upset looked more and more likely. I have to say that James tidied up very nicely and was two bishops for a rook up when his opponent resigned. A fantastic result for James, I think his best ever, and pretty handy for the Crewe team.

When Andy agreed a draw with Isaac it meant we were guaranteed a surprise match win. Gee was a pawn down in an ending, and John gradually ground out the win, to make the match score 3-3, but we had won on board count.

It was great to see that Alsager CC seems to be thriving and has found a pleasant second home; there were even people playing chess in the bar area. Thanks also to the excellent jazz band, I have played in all sorts of venues, with all sorts of background noise, but this was pretty good.

There is a strange twist to this tale. I got home and the jungle drums had been beating already. I had a few messages congratulating us; our Cup A team were especially chuffed, as they were a bit wary of having to play Alsager. Then a message came in; we had been penalised one point for fielding a team in an “incorrect” board order. Unusually for me I had actually read the rules and we played our team in playing strength acording to the published rules on the NSDCA website. There has been some hot debate since, and the situation is yet to be resolved. We have the ridiculous situation where the records show Alsager won the match 3-2, but Crewe are through to the next round! I will leave it there, but if you see me in a corner going on with myself, feel free to tell me to shut up.

Stay tuned.

Apparently it can cost “$50k to $100k” to go on a trip up Everest; I think the higher end is for those who plan to come back alive. For just £30 you could get an annual membership at Crewe Chess Club; oxygen thrown in for free; highs and lows guaranteed.

Pictured above are 2 intrepid members of the Crewe A team, as they enjoy the view from the summit of the NSDCA league table; read on for details.

After a narrow victory at Holmes Chapel last week, this Tuesday Crewe A hosted Macclesfield. The Macclesfield team seem a pleasant bunch, but beneath this exterior lurks a mean team, who have had a successful return to the first division this season. Bart got us off to a good start with a win but then the team captain, having stumbled out of a rubbish opening into a decent position, promptly blundered the game away. Harry got a draw so the result was all left with Jamie.

Followers of this site will already know that Jamie had a great weekend in Blackpool, winning his first weekender , the Blackpool u1850. He returned to the club to a hero’s welcome, but the pressure was back on him again. He confused his opponent in the opening, going a pawn up, then an exchange up. I liked the way he converted this, using the classic “swap one advantage for another” principle. Jamie is on a great run and secured the match win for us. This took us to the top of the league, where we may, or may not, still be, at the time of writing.

Crewe B were in action on Tuesday too. After whitewashing Crewe C a couple of weeks ago they faced Holmes Chapel. Carmel and Jim won their games to win the match 3-1. Good to see Jim returning to the club and getting back into the beautiful game again.

There was some action in the internal competitions too,with the last game to finish a typically wacky effort from Mario. Mario was a piece and 3 pawns down in a blitz finish against Steve B, but one mighty pawn prevailed against all. Blitz eh?

Elsewhere this week the D team beat Newcastle to stay in the second division promotion fight. If a Crewe team gets promoted, could we have 4 teams in the top division? Could Mr Secretary cope with the logistics of this? Who knows?

I should also mention that Captain Weston lead the H team to a win against The Gables.

The E and J teams travel into Staffordshire tonight; good luck to them.

It’s all go.

Stay tuned.

Richard Lee inflicted another training session on us on 25 November. I was going to publish one of the positions we were discussing, but I have been sworn to secrecy. I will say that Richard’s main theme was to demostrate 3 questions which any chess players should be asking when deciding what to do next. I will reveal one of the questions; you should always ask yourself “what is the weakest piece?” There, sorry, I was outvoted; not saying anything else about it. Well OK, I will say that it was an enjoyable and instructive evening and we look forward to the next one. Thanks again Richard.

You know how there are loads of books and videos out there devoted to endgame “studies”; as in made up positions designed to entertain and instruct? And you know that there is a subset of the genre, featuring cool stalemates? These studies are fun to look at, but you might think that they are just for fun, and they never really happen in real games. Well. I was facing Dave “Dastardly” Lambton last night. I had survived the opening and felt that I was getting somewhere. Then Dave blundered. He had a choice of losing the exchange for nothing, or losing a full piece but with a few crumbs of counterplay. He went for the latter. Anyway, the game moved on and I was cleaning up. Dave had seen way ahead though, and was planning a cunning stalemate. He knew that if his king could not move, if he got rid of any pawn that could move, he would have a trap. As I strolled right into it spectators began to scuttle off into the foyer to release their supressed guffaws. I saw, too late, the picture below: Dave and the world laughing at me. Imagine waking up in the darkness to the image below.

To make things worse Crewe B beat Crewe A in the match. Harry and Carmel drew in 13 moves (eh?). In contrast Lukasz and Martin F, 2 of the most adventurous players in the club, played an expectedly wild game, with Lukasz winning. Gee beat Jamie on board 2.

Crewe G beat visitors Kidsgrove. Mario’s draw meant that his lucky ink is still working well. Neville’s win decided the match in favour of Crewe.

Hero of the Day Award goes to Dave Hulme. Phil Grocott had car trouble, which meant that Crewe I were going to struggle to get to Fenton. Dave Hulme stepped in a the last minute, and volunteered to drive them all there. Crewe won that match with Dave watching on. Thanks Dave.

Steve Ballantyne had a rough time towards the end of last year and the start of this, recovering from serious illness. We are all delighted to see him back as a regular at the club, and as a team captain. He wanted me to mention that he had gone 3 months without losing a game; August to October. Unfortunately, by the time I post this that run is over, but well done Steve, and even more well done for keeping away from the smokes.

Christmas is coming, and Dave the Chair is planning the usual Christmas do. Stay tuned for details.

Last week 445 players went to the Scarborough Chess Congress; the Crewe CC contingent are pictured below. The picture was taken at the impressive Spa Complex, overlooking the Sun Court, with the North Sea in the backgound. The Sun Court’s chequered flooring could not have been better designed to make chess players feel at home. One feature I like about this weekender is that, depending on your luck, you might see the sea from your seat in the playing area. Best result was Jamie, who got 3.5 in the major.

Elsewhere, James Ratcliffe decided to take on a new tournament, the Coventry International Masters. He scored 4/9 in a field brimming with titled players. Not bad when you consider that he was outrated by 200+ points in most of his games!

A couple of weeks ago, some of our members ventured over the hills to Yorkshire, for the Leeds Congress. Guess what? Carmel only went and won the open section! Her recent victory in the Les Hall Memorial meant that she has won every open competition in our club, but this is her first win in a weekend congress open. I think, and unusally Mr Secretary agrees with me, that this is the first time any Crewe CC player has won an open. Well done Carmel; may it be the first of many.

When Bobby Fischer won the 1964 US Chess Cchampionsip with a score of 11/11 people were pretty impressed. A few years ago, a prize fund of $64000 was set up, to be awarded to the first player to repeat the feat of winning the championship with a 100% score. I thought it would be a good idea to offer £6.40 to anyone who wins the Crewe CC Open Championship with a 100% score. Harry was on 4/4, and looking good, but on Tuesday night he had to face Andy Raeburn. Andy is in great form and held Harry to a draw. Keep the day job Harry. £6.40 will be carried over to next year.

Phl Grocott continues his fast start in Division 3 of the Club Championship, and is now on 4/4. This year we have a 5^th (yup 5^th) division of the individual championship, which is currently being lead by one of our newer members, Barry Wood, on 4/5.

Chess players, like many athletes, can be a bit superstitious. Some players like to boost their chances of success by bringing a lucky pen to the board. Mario has taken this to the next level; he sticks to the same beautiful pen, but after losing on Tuesday he tells me he is going to change the ink, see picture below.

As is normal at this time of year we had a few league matches going in the main room. One match that caught my eye was Crewe E v Crewe F. There was an age gap of more than 70 years between Crewe E’s youngest and oldest player. The board 1 pairing was the battle of the 13 year olds, Oskar and Jamie, Jamie was on top for most of the game but blundered a rook in the blitz finish. We all know that feeling. Crewe F won the match.

Crewe D beat Newcastle, 4-0. It was not as easy as the result suggests though; Simon, top board for the D’s, had to defend patiently for hours until he got his breakthrough. A very young Crewe L lost 0-4 to Holmes Chapel C, but our juniors will only get better.

Late news; last night Crewe A scraped a draw against Alsager. It could have been worse, their clever team captain took them to the wrong venue. Message to captains; always read your emails.

A band of Crewe CC players are heading off to play in the fabulous Scarborough Chess Congress this weekend; we wish them well.

Stay tuned.

Bart has just returned from a holiday in Georgia. He happened to be in Batumi during the European Team Championships. He is pictured below; demonstrating the principle of over protection.

I have been playing competitive chess for over 35 years, that’s over 1700 long play games, and hundreds of rapid games. What a complete waste of time, you might think, and you might be right. In all that time I have never achieved that holy grail of checkmates; the smothered mate. Well, on Tuesday night, Adi Kostic, who has only started playing rated games in the last few months, managed to pull off this famous checkmate. He was playing Mayank in the Crewe CC Grand Prix.

Pictured below is Adi, about to pounce

Here is Mayank, realising he is in trouble. You can see the mate is coming.

Congratulations are also due to another of our younger members, Tommy Cooke, who recently beat George B to win the Major Knockout. George is no pushover, he is so keen he recently went all the way Roumania to play chess.

13 year Oskar is a chess veteran compared to Adi and Tommy, he has been coming to Crewe CC for years. Oskar had a major influence on the derby match on Tuesday. League champions Crewe B were expected to beat Crewe C, but Oskar, playing for the C’s, won the only decisive game of the match, leaving the old-timers to slug out some hard fought draws. Crewe C 2.5 – Crewe B 1.5

Now I think about it, if Crewe CC fielded a junior team it might come out on top against a good few teams in the NSDCA league. On Monday night Jamie Roberts, another junior, played his first game for the A team. Even though he was full of germs, he was close to winning. One of those fundamental rules in chess is that if you are a pawn or two up in a rook ending, it’s a draw; whereas if you are a pawn or two down in a rook ending, it’s a loss. In the end Jamie had to agree a draw in time trouble.

Great to have Jamie on the “A” team, even though our trip to Macclesfield did not go too well. Things started badly with a battle with the ticket machine in car park, and only got worse. We came away on the wrong end of the 2.5/1.5 scoreline.

The club secretary keeps an eye on the numbers and told me that on Tuesday “only” 53 players turned up. The league is now under way, as are the main internal competitions. Harry G is already on 2/2 in the main championship; there may or may not be a substantial reward for the person who can end his 2 year unbeaten run in this event. Just to show that our older members can play a bit, Neville is on 2/2 in the second division, and Phil G is on 2/2 in the third division.

It’s all happening, come down to St Mary’s for a look.

Tuesday 2 September

It has been a long hot one, and my tomato plants are still gamely popping out the last goodies of the summer, but time stops for no chess club, and the internal individual leagues are slowly starting to bud some results. Nev, in Divison 2, Phl and Tim in Divison 3 and Ian in Divison 4, all bagged points.

No less than 37 games were played in the Grand Prix Rapidplay on Tuesday. Yup; 37. The Grand Prix is a great new internal tournament special to Crewe Chess Club. It was dreamed up as a simple way of getting new and lower rated players as much rated chess as they can eat. If you enter this contest, you can play as many rapidplay games as you like. The winner is the one who has the highest pecentage score of those who have played 10 games or more. This week Harry and Dave H were kept busy by a heaving pack of players, desperate for another game, and another and another. Jack Patullo, and Freddy Lee Cooper are vying for first place in a competition that will end soon.

The club social room is normally packed, as you can see below, with people playing skittles, bug house, moaning about defeats, and so on. This week things were different, the room was made ready for club legend Richard Lee, who had prepared a training session for us; move over Ben Finegold. Richard has long been concerned about how rubbish we all are and has beeen threatening to teach us some stuff for ages.

As Alekhine said (maybe), chess is an ocean where a gnat may drink and an elephant may bathe. Chess is endlessly beautiful, so where do you start? Well, Richard lead us to the shore and took us for a paddle into bishop endings. He had clearly done a lot of prep for this, not only collecting some fascinating problems, but also he had put it all on powerpoint, to make it easier for us to get what he was on about. He would set up a position, let us argue about it until ours heads hurt, and then he would explain the solution. Some positions were solved by one or two of us, after much nudging. Some of the problems we found impossible, but, knowing us, that will not surprise you. It was a very enjoyable session and, on behalf of the baffled and delighted bunch of members who took part, I cannot thank Richard enough.

Below is one of the positions we looked at, a composition from way back in 1928, by the Sarychev brothers; a thing of beauty is a joy forever.

(white to play and draw)