Author: David Hulme

Congratulations to Andrew Caccamo-Turner who secured his first trophy at the club last night beating Barrie Wood in the Minor KO final. This is a pleasing reward for a young man who was thwarted from sharing the U1150 Swiss Rapidplay trophy recently on a cruel tie-break. Since the start of 2026 Andrew has steadily improved with his rating moving from 973 on 1st January, up 150 points to 1123 on 1st September. Having accepted a voluntary promotion in the Club Championship he is clearly relishing the challenge.

It was another cracking club night (1st September) with over 50 members in action taking part in 8 different club competitions plus some rated friendlies as well. In addition to all this there were one or two new faces in the social room which was busy as usual.

Tuesday 18th August – Club AGM 7.30pm followed by the AGM Team Blitz (approx 9pm start)

Tuesday 25th August – 1st night of club championship 26/27 (if not involved in knock-out semi-finals **)

Tuesday 8th September – Annual Time & Point Handicap for the Les Hall Memorial Trophy. Arrive 7.20pm prompt for 7.30 start.

Tuesday 15th September – Last night to complete all Summer KO semi-finals

Tuesday 29th September – Last night to complete all Summer KO finals.

NSDCA League fixtures to commence either w/c 14th or 21st September.

** Knock-out Semi-Finals:
Open – David Lambton vs Tom Lee and Jamie Roberts vs Doug Barnett
Major – Steve Ballantyne vs Mario Scarpa and Julian Bulbeck vs David Roberts
Minor – Andrew Caccamo-Turner vs Mal Green and Barrie Wood vs Mayank Patil

Tuesday (21st July) saw the 5th annual challenge match between Wallasey & Crewe for the WC Cup with the Caritas Centre at full capacity as 78 players and several spectators/organisers packed into the main playing hall and another dozen or more playing social chess in the analysis room.

It was only 4 years ago that Alan Kelly and Dave Price set on this journey when two cars from Wallasey brought 8 players to The Mals Club in Crewe for the inaugural match. Alan and Dave had become good friends as a result of meeting at so many congresses over the previous few years and thought it would be a good idea for the two clubs to develop a close competitive friendship. Fast forward four years and the numbers involved increased to 14, 22, 32 and now 39 players per side. This is the biggest club vs club match I have witnessed since falling in love with the game in 1972, but am told that Wallasey had a match with Pensby in the late 1980s with 42 per side. Note to Dave P – your target is to better that in 2027 !

The match itself was played in great spirit by both sets of players, with play commencing at 7.35 and the final game concluding around 10.50pm when Steve Pickles (Wallasey) and Harry Gardiner had to agree peace with a draw after slugging it out for over 3 hours.

The final result was most unexpected as Crewe cruised to a landslide win by the score of 29-10, despite both teams having identical total ratings of 57822. The full scorecard can be seen from the LMS here:

lms.englishchess.org.uk/lms/fixture/145414

As Alan Kelly was unable to attend due to ill health, Saul Marks marshalled the troops from Wallasey and ensured Alan was provided with a birds-eye view of proceedings via a Whatsapp link. Luckily for Alan he did not have to suffer all of the agony of watching his club mates struggle thanks to many internet outages caused by the sheer numbers accessing the limited connectivity !

As usual the home team provided a wonderful buffet courtesy of Dave Price’s effort, while Emma Cooke provided a superb service from the kitchen much to the delight of many of the 78 players.

The closing presentation saw Dave Price in typical jovial spirits receiving the trophy from Saul Marks, while revelling in the atmosphere and duly delivering the booby prize of the toilet roll to the beaten captain.

Many thanks go to the organisers Alan and Saul from Wallasey, together with Dave Price from Crewe, as we look forward to extending the challenge next year.

Thanks to Saul for providing an in depth report from the Wallasey side of the board :

https://wallaseychessclub.uk/news/92

Tuesday (16th) saw the 3rd and final night of the Annual Swiss Rapidplay covering Rounds 5 & 6. It was another superb night with 61 members in attendance including another new addition to the Minor section.

Congratulations to the winners:
Open – James Ratcliffe 6/6
Major (U1750) – Ebube Christian 5.5pts/6
Inter (U1450) – Sam Ollier 5/6
Minor (U1150) – Jasper Ludlow and Jack Taylor 4.5/6*

• = joint winners on tie break with 4 wins each. Spare a thought for Andrew Caccamo-Turner who scored 4.5 pts as well with 3 wins and 3 draws.
  
  All winners will receive their trophies at the AGM on 18th August.

Please note results for this event are being recorded on Chess Results.com
See links below for:

A) Open https://s3.chess-results.com/tnr1428952.aspx?lan=1

B) Major U1750https://s3.chess-results.com/tnr1428951.aspx?lan=1

C) Intermediate U1450 https://s3.chess-results.com/tnr1428949.aspx?lan=1

D) Minor U1150 https://s3.chess-results.com/tnr1428950.aspx?lan=1

What a fantastic night it was yesterday (9th June) with 66 members playing Rounds 3 & 4 in a record turnout !
Can we beat this next week for the finale with Rounds 5 & 6 taking place ?
Both of the top two sections have the only players with 100% records – James Ratcliffe in the Open and Ebube Christian in the Major. With a one point lead over their nearest rivals, they are hot favourites for these two sections.
The Intermediate has three joint leaders on 3.5pts and another three players on 3pts. Jack Patullo, Simon Humphries and Sam Ollier share the lead while Wallace Hung, Freddie-Lee Cooper and Mason Burke have a great chance if they can pick up two points next Tuesday.
In the Minor section the club’s youngest member Jasper Ludlow leads with 3.5pts with other juniors Andrew Caccamo-Turner and Jack Taylor hot on his heels with 3pts.
A reminder for the tie breaks are:
1. Most wins
2. Head to head scores among any joint top scorers, where all involved would have to have played each other. If there is no decisive tie-break then all joint top scorers will receive trophies at the forthcoming AGM.
It promises to be a great night next week.

Below are photos from round 3, with the Inter section nearest, Open on the back wall row, Major in the next row and the Minor section out of view to the right. The lower photo shows our two youngest members playing on board 1 of the Minor.

Tuesday 26th May was the last night of our internal club championship for 25/26 season. And boy was it hot … as temperatures soared to around 30C, it was not surprising that many members were absent presumably enjoying the glorious weather or relaxing on holiday with schools being on half-term.

With four of the five divisions already decided, the main event was the climax in division 3 where Phil Grocott, Mario Scarpa and Jude Canvin-Ross were all trying to secure the trophy and promotion. Jude was the outsider starting the night with 7 pts and playing joint leader Mario on 8pts. Phil also on 8pts was playing recent newcomer Wallace Hung. For Jude to win the event he needed to beat Mario and pray for Wallace to beat Phil so all three players would end up as joint champions ! While Jude completed the controllable part of the plan to win his game, Phil was “non-compliant” and gained victory to secure the trophy and promotion to division 2.

In division 2, the trophy was already heading the way of 14 year-old Tommy Cooke who was in an unassailable lead with 6.5 pts as nearest rival, Martin Frisher on 6pts was away on holiday. Tommy won his final game to stretch the winning margin to secure the trophy and promotion to div 1. I would like to mention that Tommy’s progress has been amazing having joined the club in August 2024 to play his first ever competitive game over the board. During his debut season he smashed his way to the division 4 trophy and I made the unusual decision of promoting Tommy two divisions for the start of the 25/26 season. This decision has been totally vindicated by Tommy’s stunning performance to win division 2.

In division 4, the trophy chasers hit a road block over the last few weeks. Simon Humphries had been in the lead for some time having racked up 9 pts by 24th March but unable to play his final game due to withdrawal by another member. It has been a nervous wait for Simon as Sam Ollier was closing in to try and overtake Simon. Having gained 7.5 pts by the same date and with 3 games in hand it appeared that Sam was favourite. However Sam was cruelly thwarted as he was unable to play 3 of his remaining 4 games and despite winning his last game on 12th May to move to 8.5 pts, the absence of a further opponent left Sam stranded in 2nd place. As a consolation prize Sam will be offered promotion alongside Simon.

In division 5, Mayank Patil has runaway from the pack to win the trophy and promotion to div 4 with a superb score of 12/14. Having lost two of his first three games Mayank has put together a brilliant streak of 10 consecutive wins to secure the trophy.

In summary we have had 72 members play in the 5 divisions with a total number of 345 gamed played. Thanks to everyone that has made this such a successful series of events.

Congratulations to all of our champions who will be presented their trophies at the 2026 AGM in a few weeks time:

Div 1 = Harry Gardiner; Div 2 = Tommy Cooke; Div 3 = Phil Grocott; Div 4 = Simon Humphries and Div 5 = Mayank Patil.

Next week we start the first of our Summer Competitions with the Annual Swiss Rapidplay. Please contact me (David Hulme) if you wish to play in this event but have not yet told me.

It’s been a very successful week for the club as we secured two more trophies as the NSDCA season comes to a climax.

On Tuesday, the league division two trophy was up for grabs and destined for our Trophy Cabinet at The Caritas Centre, but it was a straight fight between our own D&F teams, with the F team in control of its destiny. George Bulbeck has had a terrific first term as a captain guiding the Inter team to the U1600 Cup and taking the F team down to the wire. The opening announcements advised that the F team needed to win 3-1 or better to take the title on tie break. This was after welcoming the Division 1 champions (Alsager “A”) who played our C team.

If the F team’s target was not tough enough before the match, then I allowed myself a cheeky smile (being D team captain) as Stafford brought their strongest team of the season to make sure the F team would not have it easy. So much so, that Stafford outrated us by approx 500 pts with a team worthy of 1st division status and it was therefore unsurprising that Stafford won the match and in doing so pipped the F team into 2nd place on the last tie break of head to head scores having finished level on match points, match wins and board points.

Congratulations to the D team who have the daunting task of being our 4th choice in division 1 next season.

Roll on to Friday night, as we took two teams to Cheddleton. The E team came off second best to Cheddleton A in their final division two match, but the cameras were focused on the main event …. The Perry Cup (U1375) Final between our Perry1 team and the hosts from Cheddleton. The team line ups saw Chedd deprived of their top two players leaving them rated 350 pts lower than the semi-final while Steve Ballantyne was able to field a team with all four above 1300 totalling 5379 – some 700 pts above our opponents.

First blood went to us on board 4 as Keith Dudeney found himself faced with a huge Knight fork of Queen and Rook to find he had to sacrifice his rook (with a check) for a pawn to save his own queen. Fortunately for Keith this prized the black’s defences open to threaten a mate in two. Luckily for us, they failed to find the correct defence allowing the mate. Well done Keith 1-0 to us !

I was watching very nervously as Wallace on board 3 seemed to be in a world of hurt facing a passed pawn and appearing to be lost. Again fortune favoured us when his opponent misplayed the position allowing Wallace to collect the killer pawn. They managed to “queen a pawn” before Wallace, but this allowed the b pawn to get to the 7th supported by the King, and with an advanced a pawn Wallace worked out how to force queens off (after using his b pawn to queen and block checks) and then queen the a pawn while the opposition g & h pawns could only make it half way. Phew 2-0 to us.

Meanwhile on board 1 Mario had played a typically aggressive opening and was positionaly sound until he found his white squared bishop trapped by advancing king-side pawns. Giving up the bishop for two pawns was the best he could muster. However these two pawns became rolling monsters as his opponent failed to stop the threatening advance. Despite having his two rooks attacked by one bishop, Mario found a way to overwhelm the centralised King with his own bishop and solitary rook supported by the two monster pawns. The pressure was too much and with no escape Mario won to make it 3-0.

The final game to finish saw the two captains battle it out. Steve Ballantyne played superbly to completely dominate the board 2 game as he rounded up two pawns in the middle game due to active pieces pushing his opponent into a very passive position. Two pawns became three after an exchange of all pieces as Steve threatened to promote multiple pawns and win convincingly.

The final score 0f 4-0 looks very one sided, and probably not unexpected when looking at the line ups. This clearly does not reflect the reality of the match as Chedd could quite easily have taken at least 2.5 pts. Well done to the Perry team.

This means Steve B has captained his teams to the dream of a Double in league and cup, while also retaining the Perry Trophy. Congratulations to all involved with the Dad’s Army teams and supporting casts !