Category: News

Another superb club night on Wednesday saw one match take place, together with a handful of internal competition games and a gathering of new players receiving coaching, as well as visitors from Alsager and Fenton clubs.

The main event was the clash between the table-topping D-team and second placed E-team. The D’s captain Nigel Gardner was absent due to other commitments which would mean they were missing their leader who is unbeaten in 14 games since we returned to OTB chess after the Covid enforced break. When the board 1 player failed to arrive, the Ds benefitted as Bart Fajfer was able to play his first league match for over 2 years as a replacement. The first game to conclude saw Pawel Stanny put the league leaders in front. Neville Layhe (E) drew with David Lambton (D) as David defended doggedly, before Kobus Nienaber delivered a killer blow for the Ds on board 4. Bart converted a two pawn advantage into a full point before the last game saw George Bulbeck finish the night as the sole winner for the E team. The final result was 3.5-1.5 for the D(ream) team, as they moved further ahead of the chasing pack, with a perfect 12 pts from 6 matches, with the E & B team both on 7 pts, their closest rivals some way behind.

In the club’s division 1 tournament, Martin Burns added another point to his tally to move into 2nd place with 6 out of 9, trailing the leader Karl Lockett on 6.5 pts who has played one more game. David Lambton remains in contention in 3rd place with 5.5 pts from 8 games, in what appears to be a marathon based competition with potential for all players to play a maximum of 24 games.

In division 3, Philip Wright got off the mark with a win in his second game, while newcomer Matthew Dean was successful playing his first long play game, as he became the 31st player to join our 3-division competition this season.

With another potential new member attending, we have now had 18 new recruits since the start of the season, as chairman Dave Price devotes most of his time to teaching newcomers, as we aim to introduce as many as possible to competitive and league chess as and when they are ready.

The current growth of the club is testimony to the efforts of Dave Price, and  shows we have more active members at the moment than any other club in the North Staffs League, which is a superb achievement for a club still in its infancy having only been formed in June 2014 !!

What a busy week we’ve had, or two nights to be more accurate as Tuesday saw us playing two 4NCL Online League matches at the same time our “A” team made the short trip to Alsager and Wednesday had four teams in League action on a brilliant night at The Mals.

So was history made on Tuesday night ? The Alsager team fielded a weaker team than normal, but had a line up with an age difference of more than 80 years between their oldest and youngest team members. Without divulging too much detail, Richard Martin who is approx 95 years young was in a line up with Isaac Stanley who is a junior player. Enquiries are being made to see if this is a record for age difference in a league team within the ECF !!

Whatever the results of the research, the score line showed that our “A” team had a resounding 5-0 win, although the team maybe renamed as “Nomads A” with only two of the nominated squad available; Martin Burns had to dig deep to find five eligible players. Thanks to the supporting cast of Julian and George Bulbeck as well as Nigel Gardner, who backed up squad members Martin and Phil Wright to win all five boards.

We also had our two online teams playing in the 4NCL on Tuesday. Our AOL team was heavily outgraded by Dundee, as their bottom board 4 was rated 80 points higher than our top board. Despite the one sided expectation, we put up a brave fight to lose narrowly 1.5 – 2.5 as skipper David Hulme clocked up a rare win after a dodgy piece sacrifice, and Simon Layhe played more sensibly to earn a draw in a tight double-edged position. Meanwhile the BOL team had an even stiffer task with an average rating deficit of just over 200 pts and a massive 490 point shortfall on board 4. It was no surprise that defeat was to come, as skipper Dave Price avoided the whitewash with a draw, but our lower boards put up terrific fights.

Wednesday night at The Mals was another busy night as more members returned to the club with the easing of Covid related issues. We had 28 in attendance, as four teams played in the League and everyone else had some coaching. According to my records the club has hosted 50 different potential members this season, with 35 now having fully paid memberships.

The two matches were very closely fought between C and E in one match and D vs B in the other. The E team have a settled batch of players and had a small advantage over the C team, especially as skipper Dave Price elected to drop himself in favour of coaching the growing number of newcomers. The “E” team notched up a 3-2 win to move up to 2nd in the league, with wins from Neville Layhe, Julian Bulbeck and 9 year old Oskar Jarzynski. The “C” team were grateful to guest players Martin Burns and Kobus Nienaber for their two wins.

The other match saw league leaders – Nigel Gardner’s D(ream) team take on what was their nearest challengers – David Hulme’s B(ees) team. The early skirmishes proved decisive as Nigel and Pawel Stanny outmanoeuvred the Bumbling Bees on boards 4 and 5, before Simon Layhe brought the Bees back into contention with a win on board 2. On board 3 Adam Fields (D) and James Marshall (B) had a long duel before peace was agreed with a draw that meant the D team could not be beaten. The final game saw David on board 1 trying to engineer an end game advantage against Rick Renegade. Rick superbly created a counter attack with a supported passed b-pawn that was enough to prevent David’s King providing support to two passed pawns on the “e” and “g” files. However Rick’s King was able to hold the two pawns as neither could push on past the 6th rank. Rick held the position despite behind down to seconds on his clock on several occasions and ensure the D team retain their 100% record as they continue to dominate the VMS (Voluntary Mask Section of the League) after this 3-2 scoreline and put further daylight between them and the chasing pack.

This is the 2nd report of the week (commencing 31st January) which involved over 60 rapid-play games, with the previous report covering the online international aspect, and this one in respect of our 8-Round Internal Swiss Event.

Wednesday saw the delayed rounds 3 and 4 take place, with rounds 5 & 6 now scheduled for 13th April and rounds 7 & 8 to be played after the League season has ended. We had 26 members take place in Rounds 1 and 2 back in October and we had a further 5 members join the competition on Wednesday.

Round 3 saw 24 members in action, with 6 members taking half point byes due to absence. We had 5 players heading into Round 3 with 100% records, but only two emerged with their record intact as top seed Martin Burns and ungraded Jarek Czyz claimed wins. No.2 seed Karl Lockett wrecked secretary David Hulme’s 100% score, to move into 3rd place as the only member on 2.5 points, with an 11 player pile-up just behind on 2 points.

Round 4 saw the top board clash end in Martin’s favour, so he is now the only player on 100%. Karl notched up his second win of the night to move into 2nd place with 3.5 pts. James Marshall had a night to remember adding 2 points with a notable win against No.5 seed, to join four others on 3 points, who are the highly seeded Harry Gardiner, Rick Renegade, Simon Layhe , and the unseeded Jarek.

It was great to see newcomer Matthew Dean join in, with it being just his 2nd night at the club. Thanks to Marek Jarzynski for playing in Round 3, so there was no one without a game, and to Phil Wright for recording the scores so that the Events Officer could play.

The event looks like being a great success for the club as the number of players involved makes it feel like a typical congress arena. Full scores and pairings for the Swiss competition can  be seen from the LMS and the tab on the Right Hand Side of our Home Page labelled “Club Internal Competitions 2021”

Next week sees a resumption of NSDCA League matches, which starts a sequence of 9 consecutive Wednesdays of league chess at The Mals Club.

This week has seen the club involved Rapidplay chess, with this match against Nairobi the focus of our first report.

On Sunday we embarked on our 2nd International Challenge, thanks to Andrew Crosby’s links with Nairobi Chess Club, which is Kenya’s biggest and longest surviving club. Andrew managed to round up a team of 20 players from Crewe including a couple of guests with links to our opponent’s country.

This Online (Lichess) match commenced at 3pm GMT, which was 6pm in Kenya. It was very much a case of going into the uknown with many opposition players not having recognised ratings, while our intention was to give as many as possible the opportunity to play. This allowed Nairobi a distinct advantage in the lower quartile as their experienced players came up against several very new to online chess in our team.

The match scorecard shows a very even battle over the top 10 boards with Crewe edging the lead 11-9, the next five boards also showed Crewe as slightly superior 5.5 to 4.5, but alas the match was determined on the bottom five boards as Nairobi whitewashed our new players with a dominant 10-0 sector. The final result being 16.5-23.5 in favour of Nairobi.

The match consisted of two games per board, one with white and black against the same opponent, with time limits of 20 minutes plus 10 seconds increments, which is a favourite option for these type of Rapidplay matches.

The event was hailed a great success in both clubs, with coverage extended to the English Chess Federation. An initial match had been played early in 2021 with Nairobi also successful, with both clubs now committed to making this an annual event. So, we at Crewe look forward to 2023 in the hope we can gain our first success in International combat.

It was great to see the Nairobi’s club report referring to the prestigious Crewe Chess Club in England, and we look forward to a long and enjoyable relationship with our Kenyan counterparts, which has been materially  fostered by Andrew Crosby’s enthusiasm for online chess and discovering the Nairobi Chess Club website. Many thanks are due to Roberto Villuela from the Nairobi club who collaborated with Andrew to ensure that both teams could field 20 boards with evenly matched teams.

Match scorecard 

It was nice to see two matches take place at The Mals again on Wednesday (26th) with teams back to the full five board compliment. On one side we had Crewe E hosting Alsager and on the other we had Crewe A vs Crewe D.

Alsager had intended to field two new players but due to a last minute Covid related issue, had to revert to a more experienced team as captain Andy Barker had covered all possibilities by having himself and Neil Hankey in attendance as reserves if needed. Crewe E had a marginal advantage in ratings but the teams were very closely matches overall, being one of the purposes of splitting squad strengths evenly to make all matches interesting. First game to finish involved 9 year old Oskar Jarzynski playing his 3rd league match for the club, all in this month. Opponent Neil Hankey used his time well in a game that swung too and fro, with Oskar having the advantage from the opening, but then Neil fighting back to have chances of winning the end game, before peace was achieved with a draw. The E team took the lead as Julian Bulbeck gained success with the white pieces on board 4, and Neville Layhe added a half point with a draw on board 2. The visitors fought back from a 2-1 deficit as white pieces held sway with John Booth and Andy Barker getting Alsager to the winning post 3-2 !

Meanwhile the other match saw the D team defeat the As by the same 3-2 scoreline. Signifcant here was where the ratings differed by more than 100 pts between players, the higher grade backed up the predicted result with wins, while their were draws where rating differences were less than 100. For the D team it was David Lambton and Pawel Stanny who D-livered the full points, with Adam Fields and Nigel Gardner D-liberately dragging out draws. The A team’s victor was captain Martin Burns on board 1. The D team are the only side with a 100% record in the table and have the luxury of knowing they can afford to lose a match and still retain top spot as all other teams have dropped at least 3 points already. They face closest contenders – the B team in their next match.

Tuesday (25th) saw the start of 4NCL Online Season 5. With a drop in teams entering the event, both our our teams have been moved to higher  divisions as our A(OL) team in division 2 and the B(OL) in division 3.

It was a close encounter for the A team but they lost narrowly to Cornish Choughs 1.5-2.5. Karl Lockett was the standout performer with a win on board 2 and David Lambton excelled against a much higher rated player to pick up a draw with black on board 1.

The B team as usual outperformed the As, and picked up a superb match draw against Hackney Hackers, a team with an average rate over 400 pts higher per board. Harry Gardiner and Jarek Czyz performed (the now expected) miracles to win on top two boards !! Pawel Stanny and Mike Keenan both lower rated by well over 500 pts pushed their opponents all the way before both running out of steam after valiant efforts. A great start to the season for BOL.

The 4NCL competition is so tough that one of the the AOL team will have to face Grand-Master Dr John Nunn in a few weeks time. Captain David Hulme is suggesting we “draw lots” to see which one of our members wins the lottery to play a GM.

Wednesday saw the start to the second half of the League season, as Crewe B played against Crewe C. Both teams were missing regular members, so the B team recruited two replacements while the C team needed one to field five board teams. As usual team grades were evenly matched with less than 100 Rating points the differential. First blood went to the C team with Mike Keenan keeping his wits about him as he beat the quick-fire Oskar after an early onslaught from the nine year old. Matters were levelled up when Reinhard Haack gained success on board 4, playing a board higher than was planned with the original squads. The match was decided in the “engine room” of the teams in the middle order where father and son Neville and Simon Layhe emerged victorious after two hard slogs. The game on board 2 was particularly wild where Simon could easily have fallen on his sword against the experienced Doug Barnett. Neville was able to win an equal looking endgame as his experience came to the fore, to give the B team security of 3 wins from the middle 3 boards. It was left to Karl Lockett to inflict some damage to the Bees and he duly put opposition captain, David Hulme through the wringer to make the final score 3-2.

With a further two matches next week we can expect the Bees to be knocked off their perch.

There were a few Winter Tournament games played, as David Lambton notched up a draw against Lukas Michalek to move into 2nd place in division one, that takes his tally to 5.5/8 just one point behind leader Karl Lockett with a game in hand. Martin Burns and Harry Gardiner played out another draw to keep them in contention in the marathon event, with a total of 24 games possible for each member.

In division 2 the top three players were all in action. Leader Nigel Gardner extended his lead with a win against 3rd placed George Bulbeck, which was amplified by Julian Bulbeck’s win against 2nd placed Lee Tilton. Nigel has an unbeaten 7.5/9, while Lee is on 5.5/8 and George 4/6.

A couple of matches took place this week, with Crewe D travelling to Alsager on Tuesday and the “A” team hosted the “E” team on Wednesday.

The match at Alsager was a very close affair, and could easily have seen the D team suffer their first loss of the season in the absence of captain Nigel Gardner. Dave Price assumed team leader role for the night which strengthened the regular team by pushing Adam Fields down to board 4 from his designated place on bd 3. Rick Renegade made it 3/3 as he continued his excellent form on top board. Draws from two Davids – Lambton on 2 and Price on 3 helped the team, with the key success coming from Adam playing his first match since February 2020. The final score being 3-2 for the “D” team as they jumped back to the top of the League Table.

The “A” team were probably slight underdogs against the E team, with both teams reduced to four boards, with the As missing the normal bd 4 and the E team without their previous board 5. For the second week running the “A” team only avoided the whitewash as youngster Lukasz Michalek was the sole victor on board 2, underlining his recent improvement in rating. The E team’s successes came from their own youngsters Harry Gardiner and George Bulbeck with white pieces on boards 1 and 3, while Julian Bulbeck’s grade advantage was decisive on board 4, to give the E team a winning margin of 3-1. The E team remain 4th in the league and the A team stay 5th.

There was a couple of Internal Winter Tourney games played, with Karl Lockett extending his lead at the top of division 1 with another win to take his tally to 6.5 pts from 9 games.

In division 3, Oskar Jarzynski who is just 9 years old, played his second game in the competition, and propelled himself into the joint lead as he made it 2 from 2. This division now has 7 members taking part and is aimed at newcomers and existing members graded under 1300, and looks like it will develop into quite a healthy competition. This division is an “all-play-all with two games”  and sits alongside divisions 1 and 2 with 13 members and 10 members respectively. These divisions are set up to allow all members to play competitive games at their own pace, with a deadline of 30th June 2022 intended.

Tuesday 11th January – Alsager vs Crewe D in the NSDCA League

Wed 12th Jan – Club Night

Wed 19th Jan – Club Night + Crewe B vs Crewe C in NSDCA League

Tuesday 25th Jan – 4NCL Online (Lichess) Season 5 starts

Wed 26th Jan – Club Night + two NSDCA league matches (Crewe A, D, E)

Sunday 30th Jan – International Online (Lichess) Match vs Nairobi

Wed 2nd Feb – Swiss Rapidplay Rounds 3 and 4

For anyone wanting more details about:

4NCL online teams – contact Dave Price

International Match vs Nairobi – Use link below to join https://lichess.org/team/crewe-international

Swiss Rapidplay – contact David Hulme

For general information about Club nights contact Dave Price (club chairman) or David Hulme (club secretary)

There was a welcome return to league chess at The Mals last night, after a series of postponements had prevented us playing any league matches since 17th November.

Two matches took place with the “A” team hosting the “C”, and the “B” team against the “E”. The original squads for all teams have been effected by the ongoing Health Pandemic, but it was pleasing to see four teams playing with a reduced number of four boards, utilising the large playing area at the club.

The planned line ups for the A vs C clash saw sides within 10 grading points of each other. There was a surprise addition with Martin Frisher playing his first match since March 2019, but the strict grading rules forced him to play on board 2 for the C team. With Mike Keenan winning on board 4, soon followed by the C’s skipper Dave Price on board 3 the Cs went into a 2-0 lead. Lukasz Michalek had gained an exchange and a pawn and it was not long before he pulled one back for the As on board 2. This left the board 1 match to decide the result and Karl Lockett won the battle of the top two club players to give the C team a resounding 3-1 victory, and take them to the top of the table with 5pts from 3 matches, while the A-team struggle near the bottom with just 2 pts from 4 matches.

The other match was a much closer affair. The E team started well with a win for Julian Bulbeck on board 4, but this was expected as the B team were missing two regulars and handed a league debut to 9 year-old Oskar Jarzynski who shows great promise and will be one to watch for the future. Next to finish was board 1 with the only draw of the night as Harry Gardiner offered a draw to the B team captain David Hulme, who accepted the offer on the basis it gets something on the scoreboard. Simon Layhe levelled the scores with a sound win on board 2 having won a piece for two pawns and then converted into victory. The board 3 game was predicted to be a long game as both players are renowned for using all of the time permitted. What looked to be very equal in the middle game turned as James Marshall’s activity generated a pawn advantage and then added another with pieces strongly co-ordinated in attacking vain. Despite the inevitable lack of time for James, he finished off the game avoiding various tricks and pitfalls to edge the B team over the winning line to conclude the match in the B team’s favour by the score of 2.5-1.5, and take them 2nd in the league with 5 pts from 4 matches, having played more matches than the other title contenders.