Last night saw our E team play away at Fenton, against their C team in division three. Despite a late cry-off due to illness, we were still able to take a team of six thanks to Andrew Crosby filling in and making his debut for the club in the North Staffs League. Unfortunately the team got off to a poor start and were trailing 2-0 early on, even though we had a healthy rating advantage. Things started to recover as James Marshall pulled one back on board 3 and Jarek Czyz levelled the score on board 2, making his first appearance of the season and taking our tally of members playing league chess this season up to 37 already !!
With scores level Matthew Dean kept his composure as his clock ticked down to just 12 seconds remaining, and worked out how to promote his pass pawn succesfully to put us in the lead. This left skipper Dave Price in play on board 1, and having been on the back foot early on, was allowed the freedom of the board to infiltrate a weakened castled King-side and take another full point to ensure a 4-2 victory for the E team. The win takes the Es joint top of division 3, with 3 pts from 2 games, to sit alongside both Cheddleton teams (C&D) on the same score. After just two rounds of matches this division looks wide open as every team has dropped at least one point already.
Tomorrow night the F team have the chance to join the party at the top of the table as they face Meir in another 6 board encounter, thanks to our visitors agreeing to field extra boards. It’s great to see league chess returning to something near normal again although the league only has 21 teams now, compared to 36 teams before the Covid pandemic.
After a great but busy for some Crewe Congress it was back to league action for the club’s two top teams. Both had home fixtures, our ‘A’ team hosted Macclesfield whilst the ‘B’ team played Holmes Chapel.
A curious incident occured on top board for the ‘A’ team. Captain Martin Burns had been playing his game for some time when his opponent noticed that the chess clock they were using was malfunctioning in that the 10 second increment was not being added, therefore with the position on the board being drawish both players agreed a draw. On board 4 Jim Grange had a comfortable victory, winning a piece quite early on then forcing his opponent to trade his queen for two rooks. a material advantage resulting in the win. Harry Gardiner on Board 2 built up a dream of a pawn chain of 6 connected pawns, the two most advanced of which being passed pawns. The game went in to a double rook endgame and although his opponent made things difficult Harry managed to get the win. In the final game to finish on board 3 Karl Lockett playing black was in a losing position and defending however his opponent missed Karl’s mate in three threat meaning Karl gained a fortunate win. Indeed analysis after the game showed that if his opponent had earlier played a different move whilst attacking it would surely have led to a defeat for Karl. This meant the ‘A’ team won the match 3.5 – 0.5.
On board 1 for the ‘B’ team Simon Layhe had another excellent win against a much higher rated opponent, in fact the last time they both met a few years ago his opponent won comfortably, this win is therefore another example of how much Simon has improved recently. Elsewhere for the ‘B’ team there were wins for David Hulme and Dave Lambton. So an impressive win for the ‘B’ team against a decent Holmes Chapel team.
The result of these early matches mean that Crewe ‘A’ are top of Division 1 with maximum points, whilst Crewe ‘B’ are only a place behind having 3 points from a possible 4. How often can we say that two Crewe teams are first and second in the League?
In addition to the league matches there was a couple more Club Championship games with Pawel Stanny getting off the mark with a win in division 2, and Vicky Kelsall adding a win to her tally in division 3.
The week ended with our C team making the trip to Cheddleton on a miserable Friday night to take on their B team. Captain Dave Lambton on board 1, and Dave Price on board 4 had wins to ensure the team shared the match points with Cheddleton B. Our C team top the table for now with 3pts from two games, while all other teams have games in hand at this very early stage of the season.
This weekend (14-16 October) has seen our club make up 22 of the 116 contingent at our 5th weekend congress. The new venue at the Mornflake Stadium has proved to be a resounding success, in the words of FIDE Arbiter Peter Purland, one of the best venues he has come accross in a very extensive Arbiting career !
The outstanding performers from our club were Karl Lockett and Julian Hawthorne. Karl finshed joint first in the Major section scoring 4/5, sharing 1st place with another local player Andrew Raeburn. With Martin Burns finishing on 3.5pts he collects a share of 3rd place in a four way tie.
Julian scored an even more impressive 4.5 pts to earn another joint first position, this time in the Intermediate section. Also on the podium in this section was congress administrator Neville Layhe, finishing in 3rd place on his own with 4 pts.
Jarek Czyz had a superb tournament scoring 2.5 pts in the Open section to win the grading prize, when he would have been eligible to play in the Inter section. His opponents included Seeds No 2, 5 and 6.
In addition to Jarek in the open section, our other 3 players all performed well with Bart scoring 2.5pts, with Simon and Dave Lambton scoring 1.5 pts.
In the Minor section we had 9 players, with best scores coming from Andrew and Julian Bulbeck (3.5pts each), young Oskar 3pts, and Nigel 2.5 pts.
It was another fabulous night at the club last night. The Crewe E team hosted the Crewe F team in a North Staffs League match. Teams in this league normally comprise 4 players but both Crewe teams fielded an amazing TEN players each. Some of the in experienced members might think that can be the norm but it isn’t, in fact the very experienced members at the club had not seen anything like that for a league match and think it could be a record number, particularly in the North Staffs league. So its thanks to everyone who turned out and took part and a special thanks to the club’s Events Officer for arranging it all.
In relation to the match Board 1 saw the experienced Julian Hawthorn as white take on Lee Farrington playing his first game for Crewe following his move from the London area. After a promising opening for Julian, Lee managed to win a couple of pawns and take the game into a rook and pawn engame which he was able to convert for the full point. This game happened to be the last to finish whilst the first to finish was the board 7 clash where Reinhard Haack beat young Joe Hignett. The games on Board 4 and then Board 2 were next to finish with wins for Steve Ballantyne and Doug Barnett respectively.
On Board 3 the ever improving young Oskar had to play excellently to beat his tough opponent, though to be fair to James he wasn’t feeling 100% after recently being ill. Oskar trapped a knight, then later a bishop before delivering a nice checkmate, so that was another point for the F team. There were also victories for Marek (Osca’rs dad) making a rare appearance for the F team, and for Chris Marais winning for the E team on Boards 9 and 8 respectively.
Pawell Stanny managed another win for the E team in a rook endgame after winning Adam’s doubled isolated pawns. On Board 10 Vicky Kelsall playing black against Peter Kanalos, in her own words mucked up the opening, this then allowed Peter the advantage for the rest of the game which he too managed to convert. The penultimate game to finish was the one on board 6 between Mike Keenan playing white and George Jellis. In a close encounter Mike managed to launch an attack against George’s Queenside castled King culminating in a nice checkmate. This meant the final score of the match was 5-5, ten games had been played and not one draw!
In addition to the incredible League match the club was able to facilitate three internal games in Division 1. Here Martin Burns as white beat Dave Hulme and Karl Lockett as black beat Neville Layhe. The third game saw Jim Grange, playing his first standard playgame game for the club since before the Covid Lockdown, beat Dave Lambton who had black.
Attention now turns to the local congress this weekend where 22 Crewe Chess Club members will be competing in four sections as well as 2 more who will helping. This is a very impresive turnout at a congress from a single club. Good luck to all and hopefully everyone enjoys it.
With four league matches last week plus a few internal games it was a busy week for many. The overriding feeling from those I spoke to was that it was good to get back to League chess, seeing old faces and venues, playing as a team and against opponents we may not have even played before. As well as a Crewe teams first ever win against Holmes Chapel there were also notable good results for Simon and Nigel.
Thanks to Dave Hulme, Dave Lambton, Nigel Gardner and Martin Burns, the captains of the teams in question, for providing the below reports of their team’s exploits. (The D teams ‘Nigel’s Match Reports‘)
The B team kicked-off the league season on behalf of the club on Monday, with a division 1 match at Fenton. Our team had a small rating advantage of about 130 points over the four boards as the hosts were missing a couple of their first choice squad. Fenton probably got more than expected with two wins on boards 2 and 3, but were held to a draw thanks to Dave Lambton’s victory on board 4, and a superb performance from Simon Layhe on board 1 to topple their 2050 rated player to save the match. Simon had gained a pawn in the middle game and had to use all of his time to convert the win as his opponent created two connected king-side pass pawns just too late as Simon queened first on the queenside.
On Wednesday our C team travelled to Stafford for their first game. Missing two of the original line up Dave Price and Doug stood in as reserves. Board 4 was Doug and the first to secure a win for the C team. Our board 2 fell to Stafford making it 1 -1 the captain was watching board 3 and after a while a draw was agreed. No surprise the last game playing was Dave P against Ken McNulty and all eyes watching. Ken was in difficult time trouble having spent a lot of time looking at a knight sac. Ken kept his cool throughout the game with 4 marching pawns blocked by an isolated pawn and the king. Ken had a rook and 5 pawn Dave have a Rook, Bishop and 3 pawns. The last few moves were hectic as Dave Price marched the central Pawn forcing the opponents king to follow and block. Following a combination of checks and a Rook sac. This allowed the pawn to promote and secured the 1.5 – 2.5 victory to Crewe.
I don’t know about you, but to me it felt like we had been waiting for ages for the league season to start; and what a start we had!
The intrepid “A” team took the short trip to Holmes Chapel, a team that doyens of Crewe chess club tell me we had never beaten in a league match. The match started well. on board 1 Bart played John Turner. Bart got the better of a Queen’s gambit, and after fewer than 20 moves he had distilled the game into a rook and bishop v rook and knight ending, where he had all the initiative. he went on to win a pawn and then trap John’s knight. it seemed an almost effortless performance from Crewe’s highest rated player, and Bart has to be the match ball winner. On board 3 Harry “H” came out of a tactical scrap a bishop up for 2 pawns. Perfectionist Harry seemed in despair but always looked like winning, and sure enough he got the full point eventually. in a tense position on board 2, where both players were low on time, Martin offered Pat Bennett a draw; the offer was accepted; Crewe had won the match. On board 4 Karl had not finished though. Karl won a pawn, then another, and though Mr Hicks tried to set a couple of traps, but incredible Karl craftily coerced the concession.
We had won the match 3.5 to 0.5. Well done team, and thanks to Holmes Chapel for being gracious hosts.
This all meant that the club night was quiet with only 12 members present. Even so there were internal tournament games in each division. In division 1, Martin Burns drew with Harry Gardiner in a rook and pawns endgame. In Division 2, ten-year-old Oskar played the longest game of his life against Steve Ballantyne. Steve was a piece and passed pawn up in an endgame but with only 3 minutes on his clock he sportingly offered Oskar a draw which was quickly accepted. In Division 3 Phil Grocott beat Vicky Kelsall in a game which had looked a draw. There were also a couple of graded rapidplay friendlies. Martin Frischer beat Karl Lockett and of the new youngsters Ben beat Malaki in what was their first rated game.
As the Chairman wrote in an email ‘What a great week for our club’.
Next Wednesday the E and F teams play each other and Dave Hulme is trying to arrange it so as many as possible members, other than the normal 4 team players, get a graded game.
There were 24 people at the club last Wednesday which included two visiting the club for the first time. With no league matches this week or scheduled tournaments some members were paired up to play games as part of the club’s internal winter competition. In addition there were plenty of friendly games going on
In Division 1 the game between Lukasz and Neville had a slightly quicker time limit as Lakasz needed to catch a train, it ended in a relatively quick draw. However a second Division 1 game between Dave Lambton and Martin Burns went the full distance and was last to finish on the night. With Dave managing to secure two extra connected passed pawns on the queenside Martin had to resign.
In Division 2 George Bulbeck managed to beat Steve Balantyne in a close encounter and in Division 2 Joe Hignett playing white beat Mathew Dean in a sharp game with both players having various attacks.
Next week sees the long awaited start of the North Staffs League and Crewe have 4 teams competing throughout the week, two of these are on the Wednesday so next week’s club night might be slightly quieter than usual. Its good to see league matches back as for most members this will be the first time they have played members from other clubs since before the covid lockdown. Hopefully Crewe members will have an advantage over some of those from other clubs as they will not have played any competitive chess during this period
Last night saw the final of the 2022 Summer K.O between two of our leading players – Harry Gardiner and Simon Layhe. Both came into this final in rich veins of form with Harry having won his previous 11 games in a row, and Simon the mere 4 in a row. In fact Harry’s last defeat was back in March (strangely enough against Simon). Simon’s progress over the last 12 months has seen his rating jump from 1700 to 1809. This competition started on 15th June with 30 competitors and so this was their 5th game each. Harry had drawn black in each of the earlier rounds and was delighted to win the toss for choice of colour so he could have the white pieces. As anticipated this was a high quality encounter where Simon created the initiative in the middle game with a central pawn capture that deflected support after a minor piece exchange to give him the pawn advantage. From here Simon exploited any weakness in white’s position to build pressure and ultimately add another pawn to his advantage. Harry did his best to complicate the picture and prevent black’s progress but Simon’s active position proved too much in the end. Congratulations to Simon on winning our inaugural KO competition, and commiserations to Harry who collected 3 trophies at our recent AGM. It is pleasing to see two of our younger members rising up the chess ladder and leading our club so positively into the future !
It was great to see Newcastle play their first competitive match since March 2020 due to Covid and make the short trip to The Mals to play a pre-season friendly which has been an annual event since 2015. This was a five board match with teams equally rated overall at 8203 vs 8209, and before battle commenced it was announced that the match series was level at 2-2. Early skirmishes finished in the host’s favour as George Bulbeck won on board 4 and his dad Julian drew on 5. When Martin Burns won on top board it was expected Crewe would take a 3-2 lead in the match series, but this did not take into consideration Newcastle’s fighting spirit. Gradually the visitors gained the upper hands on both remaining boards as Alberto Gissi and Peter Hornsby won on boards 3 and 2 respectively to draw the match and keep the series in the balance. It is hoped Crewe can take a team to Newcastle later this season for the 6th challenge to allow some more competitive chess to supplement Newcastle’s limited league fixture list of just 10 matches.
A number of games were played in our newly started 2022/23 club championship, where we have 3 divisions of 11 players so far in all-play-all sections. Results can be seen from the following link
What a terrific night we had at The Mals yesterday, as our favourite annual event took place to compete for the “Les Hall Memorial Trophy”.
To give some background, this is a unique handicap event where all club members are invited to play in a 5 round swiss style blitz competition with a twist of handicap thown in. Firstly players are given a fixed amount of time to complete each game ranging from 5 minutes for the highest rated with up to 15 minutes for the lowest rated. Then handicaps are given where higher rated play off scratch, with handicaps from half a point to a max of two and a half for the lowest rated. These handicaps are added to the players scores over 5 rounds. Then in another twist, all previous winners have one minute deducted from their time allowance and a half point clipped off their handicap if they have one. Accordingly our 2019 winner Bart Fajfer, was seeded No 1 for the event with only 4 minutes for each game.
We had another record attendance at the club with 33 members present, and 30 taking part in the competition, with David Hulme and Steve Cross acting as the control team. 1st round pairings had been produced on the eve of the competition but then chaos ensued with 3 withdrawals and a no-show. Just to test the controllers nerve just before the start, we had some surprise arrivals with Amy Lovatt making a welcome one-off return to the club, and a potential new member turning up out of the blue – who happened to be quite a strong player – Lee Farrington. On top of this we had another late entry from one of our juniors which gave us an odd number, so then we managed to bribe one of the juniors parents to play as well – thank you to Oskar’s dad – Marek, we were able to get everyone playing a little behind schedule.
Having got under way, all of the top 15 seeds won their first round games, as expected, with the exception of Lukasz Michalek who fell to 12 year old Joe Hignett, thanks to a little skulduggery and innocence on Joe’s part (mobile phone distraction !?). Round 2 saw a couple of shocks as two of the top four got beat, to effectively remove their chances of winning the comp, but we still had 8 of the top 11 seeds on 2/2, including our two late arrivals Amy and Lee.
Round 3 cut the leading pack in half as Bart Fajfer, Simon Layhe, Amy & Lee all emerged with 3/3, while Lukasz and Joe joined the leaders with the assistance of their handicaps.
In round 4, Bart clinched a win against Simon and Amy stopped Lee in his tracks for this pair to move on to 4/4. Meanwhile Lukasz was victorious against our 2018 champion Rick Renegade, and Joe scrambled another unexpected win on the clock, to leave four players in contention going into round 5. Of course if there were to be any draws on the top boards in Round 5, this would bring several more players into contention.
As Lukasz and Joe had played in round 1, we had to separate the two 100%- ers to play the handicappers thus Bart was paired with Lukasz for an all-Polish clash, while Joe and Amy battled on behalf of the Union Jacks. In the Polish clash Lukasz’s extra 5 minutes ( 9 vs 4) proved decisive, while Amy kept her cool to defeat the surprise perfomer of the night – young Joe.
And so we had a tie after the 5 rounds, with Amy scoring a perfect 5/5, while Lukasz’s 4/5 was supplemented by his 1 point handicap. Bare in mind this was Amy’s first time playing OTB since our last handicap in September 2021, this was a superb achievement to score 5/5 with only 6 minutes on the clock and no handicap ! And so, our time-honoured way of finding the outright winner was brought into play – our version of an “Armageddon play-off”, where white is given one extra minute and must win, otherwise black is declared the winner in the case of a draw. Amy called the toss of the coin unsuccessfully, meaning Lukasz would play white and now had 10 minutes on the clock against Amy’s 6 minutes.
Lukasz quickly gained the upper hand as he attacked Amy’s Sicilian with gusto. An unusual deployment of both white knights created holes in Amy’s queenside which was exploited with a manoeuvre to attack the Q on d8 with B on b6, supported by knights and then jumped to c7 with a fork to win a rook. Amy could play Qb7 to leave herself an exchange down but boldly went for a king-side attack playing Qf5, allowing Lukasz to retain a whole rook advantage. Lukasz seemed to be cruising to victory, but Amy unleashed a blistering double Bishop attack supported by the Q against a king-side castled position. As Lukasz centralised his piece majority, Amy had advanced her h pawn and when Lukasz decided to capture this pawn, this allowed a Rook to swing over to the king side open h-file. Lukasz defended against the bishops with some pawn blocks and eventually gave up his Queen for the rook and exchanged some minor pieces. Lukasz held his nerve and allowed Amy’s attack to fizzle out under time pressure to become the deserved winner.
Congratulations to Lukasz , who becomes the 8th different winner of this event and will collect the Les Hall Memorial Trophy at next year’s AGM. Commiserations to Amy who has fallen at the final hurdle (Armageddon-style) two years in succession, and we hope she will be back next year for another assault on our favourite competition.
Leading Scores after 5 rounds:
1st = 5pts – Amy Lovatt, Lukasz Michalek
3rd = 4.5 pts – James Grange, Jarek Czyz
5th = 4pts – Bart Fajfer, Simon Layhe, Doug Barnett, Jakub Grabowski, Joe Hignett.
Many thanks to all 30 of our players who made it such an enjoyable night; Steve Cross who did a vital job in writing out all the pairing cards, and our new club steward – Harry – who prepared the room before the players arrived and managed resetting clocks for every board in every round.
A final note for Lukasz to remind him that defending the trophy will be made much tougher as he will suffer the same fate as all previous winners – a reduction in time allowed and removal of half-a-point from any scheduled handicap !
There were 19 members at the club last night. This is likely the lowest number we have had at the club for some time, probably due to it being the holiday season. Even so this is still a good number compared to most other clubs and there were a number of serious games played between those members that were in attendance.
Both semi-finals of the summer knockout competition were able to be played last night where both players with the black pieces managed to win. Simon Layhe won a piece against Dave Lambton and went on to convert this to a win, in the shadow of an appreciative crowd. In the other game Karl Lockett fell into the opening prep of Harry Gardiner and with his king unable to castle he soon lost. That means the final will be played between Harry and Simon, Wed 21st September 2022 the same night that we are hosting a pre season game between Crewe and Newcastle.
Both Harry and Simon have improved significantly over the last season and are now amongst the best players in the club. Harry for example has now won his last 11 graded games straight and is close to a 1900 rating, in fact the last time he lost a graded game was last March against Simon! So an interesting final is expected.
Several players took the opportunity to play a match in this new season’s Club Championship. Although this tournament requiring 10 games in total runs until next June, there wont be that many free nights due to NSDCA League matches etc. so its a wise decision to play these games when they are available. In division 1 Martin Burns huffed and puffed, and finally got the win against Neville Layhe and in division 2 Steve Ballantyne also playing white drew with Mike Keenan. Division 3 has yet to kick off. In addition to the above some members played graded games which will lead to a more established rating. Jacob Grabowski beat George Jellis but the most notable was the first ever victory in a graded long play game for Vicky Kelsall, may it be the first of many.
Next week sees the popular Time and Point tournament takes place. Harry the H pawn attempt to defend his title in the eagerly anticipated Time-and-Point Handicap. The winner will have the honour of having their name inscribed on a handsome trophy, which was recently purchased in memory of the much missed Les Hall. We hope to see you there, to maybe raise a glass to Les, and to enjoy what should be a riveting evening
This is a fun (but competitive) 5 round quickplay tournament where lesser graded players are not only given extra time on their clock but also receive handicap points. Any member wishing to enter, who has not done so already, please contact the Events Officer Dave Hulme.
Subscriptions held at £20 p.a for Adult Members and £10 for juniors (under 18 @ 1st September 2022)
Committee positions: a)Chair – Dave Price – continues. b) Treasurer – David Hulme appointed as Neville Layhe retires. c) Secretary – Karl Lockett newly appointed to be assisted by David Hulme. d) Events – David Hulme to continue assisted by Harry Gardiner. e) Club steward newly appointed – Harry Gardiner. f) Club Librarian newly appointed – Neville Layhe.
Club’s 8th Annual Time & Point Handicap to be held on Wednesday 14th September, commencing at 7.30pm prompt. Contact David Hulme for details and to register beforehand.
New NSDCA League season to commence 3rd October. with two teams in each of three divisions. Teams to comprise 4 boards. More boards may be agreed with opposition. No team grade limits, with players unable to play for any lower team if playing on board 1 or bd 2. Cup competitions to commence in new year.
Internal long-play events to start on Wednesday 7th September for all members interested – games to be graded, and ECF membership required in addition to club subscription. Members to be assigned to divisions based on ratings and previous winners to be promoted.
Summer KO Tournament to be completed in September.
Pre-season friendly arranged with Newcastle at The Mals on 21st September.
Eight Trophies awarded and presented including the new Les Hall Memorial Trophy for the time & Point Handicap. See Honours List for details and photos to be added asap.
