Author: Martin Burns

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)

I know that you are all desperate for next few days to skip by, as this weekend does, of course, bring us that Crewe Chess Congress.

But before then, our club members got a brief distraction from staring at the clock, or fretting over how to get the better of that Alapin line you hate, or watching lectures on Youtube that show you how to beat anyone easily just by using 3 simple rules, or praying that your nemesis gets germs and can’t play (nothing too serious): Tuesday night saw the last round of this year’s Crewe CC Swiss Rapidplay.

In round 5 of the Open, favourite Carmel was doing fine against Lukasz, until she blundered in time trouble. Ebube, who was having a fine tournament, lost his game against Gee. This meant that in the last round only 2 people could win it: Lukasz, who seemed surprised to be in such a lofty postion, was on 4 points; and Gee, who surprised nobody by being in such a lofty postion, was on 4.5 points. Lukasz had the adavantage for much of the game, but as they say, it ain’t easy to win a winning position. Gee defended well, and at one point even looked like she might have got the advantage, but she had her eyes on the prize and knew a half point was enough. In the end Lukasz had to agree to the draw and Gee was the new Crewe CC Rapidplay Champion.

In the U1600 section, top board in round 5 was a clash between the father and son Bulbeck. George tells me he was doing well, but as happens so often in these events, time pressure caused a blunder and Julian managed to win. Was there any pressure on George to lose, or face a walk home? We will never know. Anyway, this win gave Julian 5 points out of 5 and a guarantee of winning the section. Julian’s last round loss against the section’s only unbeaten player, Tommy Cooke, may not have hurt too much.

In the U1300, I was delighted to see the ever amiable Phil Grocott win the section with 5 points out of 6. He just about won the title on tiebreak from Ian Wright. Well played Ian.

Thanks to Secretary Hulme for running the tournament so smoothly, and I hope that the members who played, there were over 50 of them, enjoyed the event as much as I did.

Pictured below, in the social room; Lukasz and Gee having a look at their game. Richard looks amused by the standard of their play.

Harry Gardiner is once again the king of Crewe Chess Club. He has now won the Club Championship for the third time in four years. I reported last year that his performance of 10/11, with a rating of 2119 would be hard to beat. This year he has done even better, scoring 11/12 with a tournament rating of 2157. Division 4 was won by Tommy, Division 3 by Nathan, and Division 2 by Oskar, which means that at the grand old age of 21 Harry is, by some distance, the oldest winner of any section of the championship this year. Congratulations to them all.

After a brief abeyance the Rhyl Chess Congress is back, and 5 Crewe CC members readily signed up for a weekend of chess beside the seaside.

I took a bye on Friday and kept an eye on results from afar. Now I know Harry Gardiner has been in pretty hot form, but I was a bit surprised to see his result in the first round. Was it right that he had beaten Keith Arkell; as in his Grandmasterliness and former English Champion Keith Arkell? Anyway, when I got to Rhyl this result was confirmed. Harry showed me the game at dinnertime; he had played nicely, avoiding a few pitfalls, and had reached a decent endgame when Keith blundered a piece. Respect due to Harry for playing so well, and to Keith, who apparently was very gracious in defeat. I checked with Harry, who confirmed that he now has a 100% record against grandmasters.

It so happened that in the second round I had to play….his Grandmasterliness and former English Champion Keith Arkell. Dave Price told me not to worry, as he had been plying Keith with beer all night, and the guy would not be at his best. I still went down in flames, pretty fast.

This gave me the chance to watch and another Harry in action; former British Chess Champion Harry Grieve. Harry (Grieve) was in great form too, and I was a bit impressed when he sacrificed two exchanges to rip open Jeff Smith’s king; a game that deserved 1.5 points for the win. Grieve went on to win the Open.

Harry (Gardiner) had some good games, and finished on a totally decent 3 points out of 5, this in spite of sharing a caravan with Pricey all weekend.

In the Major, Andy Raeburn was going well after 3 rounds, sharing the lead on 2.5 out of 3. Crewe hopes were raised, but sadly Andy went down in a tough tussle with the eventual tournament winner. Dave Price struggled a bit in the heat, but at least got one win under his belt.

Mal Green in the minor also got a nice win to take home.

Entry was a bit down on previous years, but I recommend you go to the next Rhyl Chess congress. The town hall is a very nice venue, the congress was run very smoothly, there are loads of places to eat and drink nearby, and if you lose your morning round quickly you can go for a paddle in the sea.

Dave and Harry playing a bit of footy in the sunshine.

I reckon I have spent about 25 of the last 30 Easter breaks in Bolton, playing chess. The casual observer may well ask why. I love it; it is a great tournament, run by a very experienced crew. Of course, it is nowhere near as good as the Crewe Congress, which will be held again in June this year. The late great Harry Lamb used to run Bolton Congress as a five rounder, with a blitz tournament thrown in on the Saturday afternoon. I never played the blitz; as it was called the “Busy Persons Tournament” I did not feel it appropriate for me to enter. Nowadays the congress is back to being run as a brutal six rounder. Join me next year as I waste another Easter.

Anyway, I was pleased to observe that there seemed to be a growing number of young adults competing. I had the misfortune to be drawn against a few of them, and they can play a bit. One of the stars of the show was Crewe CC member Carmel Barwick. Carmel is on great form, and went on to share first place in a tough Major, scoring 5/6. She did not lose a game. This impressive result means that she has now hit the magic 2000 ECF rating marker. Her rating is now exactly 2000.

But there is more. The very next day, back at the ranch, Harry Gardiner continued the defence of his club championship title by beating Nev. Harry is now pretty much certain to be club champ again, but guess what? Harry’s latest win also gave him a rating of….. exactly 2000.

There is yet more. Chairman Price, and others in the club, have put in a lot of effort into nurturing the juniors in the club, and we have a great bunch of young ‘uns. So one final thing to note is that Tommy Cooke, who has only been playing rated chess for a year or so, has seen his rating grow from 1282 to 1541 and is currently on an incredible winning streak of 17 rated games! I mean, 17 games; wow! Nuff said.

See you at the club soon.