This is to let all members know we will be holding our Annual General Meeting on the above date, 7.30pm at The Mals.
All members are welcome to attend.
Details will be circulated by the secretary in due course, and the trophies below will be presented.
With our teams having completed their Summer League fixtures, attention has turned back to our inaugural knock-out competition.
The last remaining game from the 1st round was completed with Dave Lambton moving in to the 2nd Round (of 16). There were several games played in Round 2, where Karl Lockett, James Marshall and David Hulme all progressed to the quarter-finals. There are two more games to be played in this Round of 16, which are scheduled for next Wednesday, with the plan to carry out the quarter-final draw as soon as the last 8 is known.
The atmosphere in the club on Wednesday was a joy to behold, with some vibrant and cracklin scenes. With a newcomer cycling all the way from Market Drayton to see what we could offer, he left the club well after 10.30 having been entertained by all of our top players mixing in, and expressing how he was made to feel most welcome. Despite being in the traditional quiet part of the year for club chess, we still managed to have 27 in attendance as our membership numbers increased to 44.
Another fantastic night at The Mals on Wednesday, saw our two Summer league teams in action as over 30 members attended together with another 8 visiting players from Fenton and Stafford.
The “A” team have been captained by Harry Gardiner who has led from the front and selected a team based on youth. Wednesday’s match against Fenton saw the opposition field a team with very little league experience as they took the opportunity to get newcomers used to league chess. The result was much as expected with our team running out 3-1 winners. Harry completed the campaign with a perfect 4/4 and has been on a tremendous run of form collecting 13 points from his last 15 games since 1st March. The “A” team finish the SCS with 6 pts from 5 matches, currently in 2nd place.
The “B” team have been captained by another of our younger members – Dave Lambton, who like Harry has had 100% success in the competition, also missed one of the matches to score 4/4. This final match against Stafford was expected to be closely fought and so it turned out. Mike Keenan got an early win for Crewe before the match was levelled by Stafford’s David Barker. Captain Dave had a very fortunate win in a cast-iron drawn endgame, opposite colour Bishops with R & P, before David Hulme added the final point for a 3-1 win. The team is currently top of the league with 7pts, and has to wait for Alsager (on 4pts) to play their two postponed games before knowing who will be 2022 champions.
With so many new members at the club, the match room only had 18 or 20 in there, with all of the other members moving to the lounge where they could continue to chat while receiving coaching led by Dave Price and other experienced members.
A surprisingly busy week saw nearly 30 members attending the club on Wednesday at a time when many clubs are closed for a summer break. It is testament to the club’s success that we have had 10 new visitors to the club over the last 3 weeks and we hope to see you (and many others) again soon.
Our Summer knock-out has had its first major shock as No 1 seed Martin Burns has been beaten by No 5 seed Rick Renegade in Round 2. Martin has had the toughest draw with a 1st round clash that went to an Armageddon play-off against Neville Layhe before proceeding to Round 2 where he was held to a draw before falling to Rick’s Blitz prowess in another play-off. New favourite Harry Gardiner took the scalp of chairman Dave Price in Round 1 to move to the last 16.
We still have two outstanding games from Round 1, while Rick is joined by Julian Hawthorne and Simon Layhe in the quarter-finals with a further five 2nd round games to be completed.
The week ahead will be our final games in the Summer League – The South Cheshire Shield. So far we have used 17 players and hope to allow one or two more to play in the final round of matches this week.
The North Staffs League had a preliminary meeting on 11th July, and will be proposing all teams are 4 boards for the new season starting in October. The number of teams in the league will be known after the league’s AGM on 8th August, but we are hoping to run at least 6 teams, with a couple of teams in each of the three divisions suggested. It is hoped there will be a further division to encourage new players and lower graded players to compete against each other.
Our own club AGM will be held on the last Wednesday in August (as the last two years) on 31st August. The agenda and reports will be sent by email in due course.
It’s been a busy 7 days for the club, starting with a promotional display at Nantwich’s town centre last Saturday with several new potential members attending the Mals on Wednesday 6th July.
Tuesday night saw us involved in a Triangular Rapidplay match with Wallasey and Chester, taking part at the Town Crier Hotel in Chester. There were 8 boards per team, with each player having one game against each of the other teams and having one game with white and black. It could not have been closer at the end of the 1st round as all three clubs had scored 4 out of 8. However our Rapidplay experience was probably the deciding factor as we managed to dominate the 2nd round scoring 7 pts out of 8, and emerge as the clear winners with a score of 11/16, with Chester scoring 7pts and Wallasey 6pts. Below is a link to the score for the 3 matches involved.
Match results
Wednesday night saw our two teams go head to head in the Summer League – the South Cheshire Shield (SCS). Both captains generously dropped themselves to allow others to play, and the match ended in a 2-2 draw with wins for Karl Lockett and Nigel Gardner for the “A” team, with Pawel Stanny and Matthew Dean being successful for the “B” team. The B team currently sit top of the SCS, but with only one game to go look likely to be overtaken by favourites Alsager who have a game in hand trailing by just one point.
Last week saw the club start it’s first ever Summer Knockout. 28 members including two more brand new ones decided to enter the competition. Full details of the 1st round draw are shown by following the Internal Competitions tab. The heavyweight contest of the 1st round draw saw top seed Martin Burns drawn against another of our leading players – Neville Layhe. After a hard fought draw, the players agreed to wait 7 days before playing the Armageddon play-off, which should be played this week in front of a large audience. Three other 1st round games were completed with Doug Barnett, James Marshall and Kobus Nienaber all making it safely through to Round 2 (the last 16).
This week sees the 3rd round of fixtures in the South Cheshire Summer Shield as our B team make the short trip to table-topping Alsager on Tuesday, and the A team welcome Stafford to The Mals for the first time since the Covid outbreak in March 2020.
Both of the Shield teams have a 50% record so far, having won one and lost one each and have a further 3 matches remaining in the campaign.
Things quieten down during the summer months, although the club remains open. Many established clubs have summer breaks and get back together in September for the start of the “traditional” season.
So what is happening at Crewe during this summer.
For details on any of the above please contact our chairman – Dave Price, or Events officer – David Hulme.
Last week saw the end of the club’s internal winter competitions, where members were allocated to divisions 1,2 and 3 to compete in all-play-all sections. We had started back in September with 14 players in division 1, 10 players in division 2 and an unknown number in division 3 to accommodate new members as they arrived through the season.
Division 1, seen as the “club championship” was extremely competitive with players expected to play twice against everyone else in the section. It became obvious partway through the season it was too much to expect everyone to fulfill an obligation to play 28 games, especially with 5 teams playing in the North Staffs League. Accordingly numbers were reduced to 10 with those remaining facing a maximum of 18 games. The tournament was eventually won by Harry Gardiner with a superb score of 11.5/14 to become club champion. Harry was pushed all the way by Martin Burns, who finished as runner-up with 10/14. Neville Layhe steadily moved up the table to finish 3rd with 8.5/15. It was great to see the level of commitment as 8 players managed to play 11 or more games.
Division 2 did not have the same impact on those involved, and saw the level of competition fade dramatically after christmas. This is reflected in the final scores with Nigel Gardner winning the section on a score of 6/7 having not played a game since January, and Lee Tilton finishing 2nd with a score of 5/7 likewise being unable to play since January.
Division 3 saw some new faces join in the competition with a total of 9 members participating. The stand out performers here were Mike Keenan with 5/5 and Oskar Jarzynski 5/6 sharing the 1st prize.
Congratulations to all the winners:
Div 1- Harry Gardiner; Div 2 – Nigel Gardiner and Div 3’s joint winners – Mike Keenan and Oskar Jarzynski
Last Sunday we held the club’s 3rd Rapidplay Congress at the impressive Ibis Styles Hotel. Thanks to the usual late rush of entries we managed to increase our numbers to 115, up from 91 in 2019 – so many thanks to all the competitors. The number was swelled by the mass ranks from our own club with 20 or so of our own members participating. From the many comments we received it seems the Congress was very popular, with superb management led by Chief Arbiter Matthew Carr and his assistant Lance Leslie-Smith. Prize winners are shown on our Congress Results section, but the highlight for us was seeing everyone having a good time and the return of congress chess back in Crewe after a 3 year break . We had a couple of prize winners from our own club including Martin Burns and Bart Fajfer taking a share of 2nd place in the Major and George Bulbeck taking a share of 3rd place in the Minor. We were delighted with our juniors who excelled as Joe Hignett racked up an impressive 4/7 and Oskar Jarzynki with 3.5/7. The juniors were playing in their first ever congress alongside others Jarek Czyz (Major) and Mark Randell (minor).
Congratulations to Jarek Czyz who managed to clinch our 8-Round Swiss RP on Wednesday night. On another busy night at the Mals Club we had nearly 30 members taking part in Rounds 7 & 8, including several newcomers. Jarek started the final evening of the event in the joint lead on 5/6, and fortune smiled a little as the other joint leader was unable to attend. However with Karl Lockett and Lukasz Michalek in contention on 4.5 pts, nothing could be taken for granted. As Lukasz held Jarek to a draw and Karl winning in Round 7, Jarek and Karl now shared the lead on 5.5/7, with Martin Burns and Harry Gardiner a mere half point behind.
The final round pairings saw Jarek paired with David Hulme, as he had already played the other contenders, Harry with Karl and Martin with Lukasz. Jarek was too good for David and secured the trophy with a win. Harry and Martin had to settle for runners-up spots after successes in the final round left them on 6pts each at the end of the tournament.
This week sees the start of the South Cheshire Summer League with both of our teams playing away from home at Fenton and Kidsgrove respectively. Wednesday night will see some more games in our Winter Events which are moving towards their conclusion.