Mon 3rd April – Our Perry Cup (U1375) team went to play Meir in the final of the KO competition in pursuit of the trophy donated by Bob Perry to the NSDCA some years ago, who was in the Meir team trying to ensure the trophy stayed on home soil. Our team was dealt the unwelcome hand of a cry-off during the day, but thanks to Matthew Dean for stepping in at the last minute we were able to field a full team without defaulting a board !

The first game to finish was on board 1 in the unusual situation of a “3-fold-repitition” leading to an early draw. Our player Steve Ballantyne was unsure of this rule, so asked for rule guidance from our captain Dave Price who assured both players this was a draw, with Steve having an advantage his opponent was forced to repeat moves that pushed Steve into a forced reply. So even-stevens for now.

On board 2, Mike Keenan produced the key victory, to underline his consistent improvement over the last 15 months which has seen his rating move from 1208 to 1336, with victory against one of Meir’s very experienced quartet. The match was decided shortly after when Phil Grocott was offered a draw on board 3, to put us 2-1 in the lead. We knew that even if we lost on board 4, the trophy would be taken from Meir by virtue of board count, where the win on board 2 gets more value than a win on board 4. Matthew Dean played a long game with Bob Perry and even when short of time sportingly reminded Bob on more than one occasion to press his clock, as Bob used all his vast experience to level the scores at 2-2.

It was an exciting journey home for our players, buoyed by the success of winning the Perry trophy from the hands of its proud donor.

Monday 27 March – The F team played away at Fenton in the 3rd division, with both teams within 64 total rating points of each other – so an absolute negligible difference. Pawel Stanny with black on board 2, got us off to a good start, as a sharp queen-side attack opened up the castled position and forced a mating attack giving us a 1-0 lead. On board 4, George Jelliss was a piece up but running very short of time. With several ways of skinning the cat available, George decided to go the long way round the houses before an overwhelming attack with two rooks chased the King into submission and 2-0 to us. Steve Ballantyne seemed to be in the ascendancy with an early exchange gain. Slowly but surely his opponent wriggled and turned the tables picking up a minor piece, and had two strong bishops in an open position with a rook, against Steve’s two rooks. Unfortunately Steve’s rooks got cramped for space as one exchange fell, before the last rook was pinned against his King by the other bishop. Faced with all this, resignation was the only choice as Steve kicked himself around the bar, with the match now 2-1. On board 1, Andrew Crosby was enjoying an attacking game but allowed his opponent to set up a strong two pawn centre. Andrew went on a queen rampage picking up a couple of pawns, while his opponent calmly advanced the central pawns to create an unstoppable monster, as the King walked down the board to join the pawns and queen. Andrew could not stop the advancing monsters as a 2nd queen arrived and forced the win. A final score of 2-2, was a fair reflection in a match of high quality.

Wed 29 Mar – our E team hosted Cheddleton C in the 3rd division with ambitions of closing the gap on top of the table Alsager B. Doug Barnett had a comfortable win on board 3, before Phil Grocott agreed a draw on board 4. As usual James Marshall was down to below 5 minutes on the clock and was grateful to agree a draw on board 2, which guaranteed the team could not lose. Dave Price on board 1, was a pawn up when offered the draw, but decided to play on looking for a full point. His decision was ultimately vindicated, as he slowly pushed his connected pass pawns to success and give a final score of 3-1. This result takes the Es to 15 pts from 10 matches, just one point behind the league leaders with a game in hand. Next up is the potential decider when the E team travel to Alsager on 11th April.

Fri 31 Mar – Nigel Gardner’s much changed D team went to play Cheddleton B in division 2, with the Ds looking to close the gap from 3rd place to the leaders. A look at the team sheets showed the match would be nip and tuck, with team ratings within 70 pts of each other and both teams deploying regular Division 1 players on their top boards. The results did not go in our favour as Chedd chalked up their first win of the season by the narrow score of 2.5-1.5. Losses on the top two boards were too much despite the best efforts of captain Nigel who drew on board 3, and George Bulbeck winning on board 4 to take his unbeaten run to 11 league and cup games. With just two matches remaining for the D team it is unlikely they can now catch the leaders Newcastle who are 3 pts ahead.

Club Championships were eagerly contested on Wednesday (29th) with 9 games taking place plus a further rated game with two members in separate divisions.

In division 1, Carmel Barwick extended her 100% record to make it 4/4 as she demolished the Tournament Officer (David Hulme) to leave him in a relegation battle on 2/6. David Lambton’s win against trophy chasing Julian Hawthorne (4.5/6), put him also on 2/6. Lukasz Michalek’s win took him to 4/6, to leave Karl Lockett on 4.5/9. Richard Fish’s hard earned draw against leader Harry Gardiner (5.5/9) means he is the 3rd player on 2/6. The chase for the trophy looks wide open with Martin Burns slight favourite now on 5/7, with his game against Carmel probably being pivotal. With just 9 weeks to go to the 31st May deadline, the key will be whether all games can be completed alongside league and cup fixtures.

In division 2, Andrew Crosby won the top of the table clash with George Bulbeck to conclude his campaign with 7pts from 12 games, while Goerge is on 5pts with 5 games still to play if he can fit them in. There were wins for Kobus Nienaber (4/7), Oskar Jarzynski (3.5/7) and Julian Bulbeck (3/7) to ease relegation fears.

In division 3 Vicky Kelsall added a half point to her tally to move into joint second place on 2.5/7, while Mark Randell moved to 2/4. Leader Phil Grocott has quite a cushion with 5.5/6.

The first division in the North Staffs League is the closest it has been in years. Although Crewe A are currently top, Crewe B, Fenton A and Cheddleton A also remain in contention having matches in hand on Crewe A. Therefore last Friday night’s trip to Cheddleton was a 6 pointer to use football terminology. On the way there it was agreed that a draw would not be a bad result. After negotiating some of the seemingly narrowest roads in Britain through which the Sat Nav had taken us, we arrived safely just in time, just before the clocks were to be started.

The openings in three of the games were very close however captain Martin Burns on board two playing black had a worse position, with his King unable to castle, double central pawns and a bad bishop he looked to be struggling. Harry was first to finish. Winning a pawn and then keeping control of the position he managed to turn his extra pawn into a passed pawn on the 7th rank. Then he twice put his opponent in check on consecutive moves only for his opponent to make a move apparantly not noticing he was in check, until Harry told him. A few moves later being unable to prevent the passed pawn from queening he resigned giving Crewe their first win. On board 4 Karl playing black in a relatively cramped position sacrificed a central pawn for more piece activity, winning the pawn back a few moves later. Then in an even position his opponent failed to notice that his queen was en-prise and so blundered his queen away, he carried on but a few moves later lost a bishop after which he resigned. This meant Crewe had two wins so at least a draw was guaranteed. On board 1 Bart, with White was two pawns down but had a dangerous passed on the 7th rank. His opponent was blocking it from queening but his pieces were awkwardly placed. After Bart’s attacking moves his opponent decided that he could not prevent the pawn from qeening without the loss of a piece and so resigned. This meant Crewe had won the match, On board 2 Martin was now in an endgame somehow a piece up, whilst both also having a rook, a bishop and a number of pawns. His opponents position was almost resignable but he kept going probably because Martin only had three minutes on his clock. His opponent set a few traps for him which Martin did well to avoid, considering he was short of time. Martin simplified the position (after the exchange of a couple of pawns) by forcing the exchange of rooks, his opponent seeing he was lost immediatly resigned. 

This meant Crewe A had gone to Cheddleton A, usually one of the best, if not the best teams in the league and beaten them 0-4, this was an amazing result which had not been achieved by any Crewe A team at any time in its history. You can therefore imagine there were high spirits on the car journey home (on better roads this time!)

Crewe A’s next two games are against Crewe B in second place and away at Fenton (which could be a title decider) it will be interesting to now see how the chasing teams perform in the meantime. What may also be significant is that, thanks in part to last night’s result, Crewe A have by far the better board difference.

It’s all up for Grabs now

What a week it has been for our teams in league action. After last week’s reference to “squeaky bum time” five of our teams have been in action and all remain firmly in the picture for possible divisional trophies, as we continue to chase every trophy the league will present at the 2023 AGM in July.

Tue 21st March: 2nd placed Crewe B made the short trip to face Alsager A in the NSDCA 1st division. Alsager although at the foot of the table, are only one of two teams to inflict defeat on our brave Bees. As always the B team were the underdogs due to being the lowest rated team in the division, but a 267 point shortfall is far from insurmountable especially when the imbalance is more than exceeded on board one, to allow us smaller advantages on lower boards.

First over the line was Dave Lambton on board 3, who for the second week in a row faced the same opponent and emerged with a monster pass pawn in the early middle game. It did not take too long to convert into a 1-0 lead for us, and with Carmel Barwick much in the ascendancy on board 4 where a neat combination produced a full piece gain it was 2-0 not long after 9.30pm. The key to the match was whether we could generate a draw or more from the top two boards. On board 2, captain David Hulme had unsoundly sacrificed a Knight for 2 pawns on move 9. However David had stayed in the game to fight on and appeared to have created drawing chances when his opponent had refused to swap pieces and allowed a dangerous attack to unfold. David’s optimism was unfounded though as John Booth used his time wisely to find a controlled defence and finally produce the killer counter-attack despite both players being down to less than 10 seconds on several occasions, so just before 10.25 Alsager had reduced the score to 2-1. The remaining game saw our Simon Layhe up against the near 2300 rated Jonathan Blackburn and seemed to be holding his own with a pawn advantage. Gradually Jonathan was building pressure for the pawn and was taking the game as deep as possible. With time pressure adding to Simon’s dilemma, the position became too complicated as he was “flagged” facing tough options. A final score of 2-2 pushed the B team to joint top of the league with our “A” team, having played one more match.

Wed 22nd March – the division 2 derby took place between Crewe D and C – with the D team winning the “Showdown in Hightown”. For full details and a brilliant report please see Nigel’s Match Reports .

League division 2 took on a big turn on Wednesday as both of the top two teams (Newcastle and Crewe C) were beaten by two of the chasing pack, as Stafford and Crewe D threw their hats in the ring to contend for the trophy.

Thur 23rd March – Crewe E (3rd place) travelled to Kidsgrove (5th place) for a re-arranged Division 3 match. On this occasion it was Crewe who went into the match as slight favourites with a 247 rating point advantage (very similar to Alsager’s in the div 1 match). Captain Dave Price reported that it was a relatively calm team performance as Mike Keenan (board 4) and Kobus Nienaber (board 3) took us into an early 2-0 lead. On board 2, Doug Barnett applied the “team first” mantra by accepting the draw offer to ensure match success. This left Dave on board 1 with a “free-hit” to push for a win, but was held by the opposition’s Dave Johnson to a draw, to make it 3-1 to the E team.

This win leapfrogged the E team into 2nd place to put them in the mirror of leaders Alsager B who sit on 16pts from 10 matches at the Div 3 summit, while the E team have 13pts from 9. Although Alsager are stronger on ratings and hold all the aces, they can be overtaken if the E team win their game in hand and the head to head on 11th April.

Fri 24th Mar – our division 1 league leaders – Crewe A – made the trek to the moorlands to face title contenders Cheddleton A.(See above report)

In our internal Club championship Div 1, Julian Hawthorne’s 100% record was halted by Dave Price with a draw, that looked like Dave would win at one stage and later reversed with Jules as the likely victor. The draw moves Jules to joint 2nd on 4.5 pts trailing joint leaders Harry Gardiner and Martin Burns by half a point, but having two games in hand on Mart and three on Harry.

In Club Championship Div 2, Andrew Crosby’s commitment to organising games is bearing rich fruits. Having played 11 of the possible 12 games, he now sits at the top of the table with 6 pts, ahead of George Bulbeck and Doug Barnett who both have 5 pts. Andrew’s remaining game is against George so could be critical in deciding who the trophy is awarded to.

Phil Grocott has taken total control of the Div 3 Club championship, and added another full point on Wednesday to move onto 5.5/6, and has a huge lead over 2nd placed Matthew Dean on 2.5/7.

Again it was great to see 35 members at the Mals on Wednesday as attendances stay their near record levels, as we cement our position as the NSDCA’s largest club.

Wed 15th March: Another busy night at The Mals Club witnessed two matches, Club Championship Drama, and even more potential new members.

Starting with the NSDCA Cup competition, our U1825 team hosted local team Alsager over 5 boards, and were firm favourites when the team sheets revealed an advantage of over rating 600 pts which sounds much grander than it really is. First past the winning post was Neville Layhe on board 5 as he carved open his opponent’s defences using his vast experience against a relative newcomer.

The match swung decisively in our favour when David Lambton found the way to win a tricky endgame, by picking up an isolated “a” pawn with an active King and having enough time to stop a passed “E” pawn. David’s own “A” pawn set up a diversion for white’s King. This allowed David to break the support for the E pawn to stay one pawn ahead and ultimately chaperone home one of the remaining pawns. At 2-0, skipper David Hulme became aware that a draw on board 2 would be more than enough to secure the match on board count, so was happy to agree a draw by 3-fold repitition after being on the back foot for much of the game. Next to finish was Crewe’s form player Carmel Barwick who was held to a draw by opposing captain Andrew Barker on board 3, with this ending Carmel’s 100% winning streak after 9 wins in a row in league and club tournament games. The last game to finish saw Martin Frisher playing just his 4th game of the season. Earlier viewing witnessed Martin with an exchange advantage, but by the time other games had finished the table had been turned so that he was the exchange down in an endgame with a Bishop and 3 pawns against a Rook and two. Martin then snared another pawn with his active King and was pushing for victory until Lukas Hancock recovered one pawn with his own King and then had to sacrifice his Rook to stop the sole pawn on the 7th from queening. All in all, a very satisfying result to progress to the Major Cup Final as the club made sure we have a team in all four NSDCA Cup Finals.

Alongside the cup match, our F team had a division 3 encounter with Kidsgrove with teams within one point of each other in 3rd and 4th position respectively. The visitors delivered an early blow with Mo Farah winning on board 3 after accepting an early pawn gambit, and then adding another and playing solidly to convert to a comfortable win. Tom Smith on board 2 levelled matters for us, and George Jelliss agreed a draw on board 4 to leave the match in the balance. On board 1 for us, George Bulbeck seems to thrive when his clock is near to the virtual flag and enjoying the sense of drama found his way to overcome what appeared to be a difficult defensive position and edge his way to victory for both himself and the team, securing a narrow 2.5-1.5 win. George boasts a 5/5 record for the F team and is now unbeaten in 15 games since his last reverse on 5th October. This result takes the F team to the dizzy heights of 2nd in the table – far ahead of our wildest dreams for a team that’s main function is to provide opportunities and so far has used 16 different members !

Turning now to the Club Championship, there was a shock in Div 1 as Julian Hawthorne beat the defending club champion and number 2 seed, to take his score to a perfect 4/4 in pursuit of the trophy. Jules is now just one point behind the joint leaders with 3 or 4 games in hand, and has the destiny of the event in his own hands. Meanwhile Karl Lockett consolidated his 3rd position with a win to move onto 4.5/8.

In division 2 of the Club Championship, Andrew Crosby put a dent in Doug Barnett’s title aspirations with a win that takes Andrew into the joint lead on 5pts. However Andrew has now played 10 games, compared to Doug’s 8, while favourite George Bulbeck has played 6 of the maximum 12 possible.

On top of all this drama, there was plenty of social and friendly chess taking place as another couple of newbies arrived and seemed to enjoy the club atmosphere, as a hand full of members moved down to the bar to discuss games so not to disturb the matches in progress.

Next week sees a full schedule with five (A to E) of our league teams all playing and in possible contention for league trophies, although all must be underdogs with other teams in the driving seat in all three divisions. As Alex Ferguson was fond of saying, it’s getting close to “squeaky bum time” !

It was our 3rd Annual challenge against our African friends.

But we didn’t have to travel far as we were challenged to play on Liches.

Andrews Report and below that is the report from the Nairobi captain Roberto were full results and all games can be viewed at the bottom of the report

Match “Nairobi vs Crewe” 2023

BY ROBERTO VILLUELA · PUBLISHED 14/03/2023 · UPDATED 13/03/2023

18 members of Nairobi Chess Club (NCC) had the privilege to play an overseas online match against the prestigious Crewe Chess Club (CCC) from England. The match took place on March 12th.

In fact, it was the third match because both teams already played in 2021 and 2022 with two victories for Nairobi.
Both clubs met for the first time in February 2021 in an online match whose score favoured Nairobi (14-6).
After another defeat in 2022 (23,5 – 16,5), this year Crewe came really prepared for a revanche.

All games were played online on lichess using a time control of 25 min + 10 s increment.
The match consisted of 2 games/player and pairings were arranged according to FIDE and ECF (English Chess Federation) ratings.

The result of the match was 13-21 for Crewe Chess Club, which established an overall score of 2-1 for Nairobi.

Unfortunately, the match was not free of irregularities, mainly due to the inexperience of some players in this type of competition:Dadson and his opponent didn’t show up on time and when both were online, Dadson played against a different opponent. So these games don’t count for the final score.Jackim won the first game. Then he received a challenge for a correspondence game and later a new one with correct time control but without reversing colours. When finally the challenge was correct, his opponent disconnected. 2 points for JackimCyril won his first game but played a rematch against a different opponent. Penalty: 2 points for CyrilSarthak won his first game. In his second game Sarthak choose the not allowed ‘Takeback’ option which triggered the message of cheating. Penalty: game lost for Sarthak

But all in all, the meeting took place in a friendly atmosphere and it was a useful learning experience.

Final Results

NAIROBI	13 – 21	CREWE
Artem Gurevich	1,5 – 0,5	Simon Layhe
Peter Gilruth	2 – 0	Karl Lockett
Vasant Ramesh	1,5 – 0,5	Harry Gardiner
Jay Naker	0 – 2	Danny McMenamin
Willy Simons	0 – 2	Phil Seery
Jackim Arigi	2 – 0	Richard Walsh
Viacheslav Chvoro	2 – 0	David Lambton
Sarthak Patnaik	1 – 1	Martin Frisher
Reyansh Agarwal	0 – 2	Myron Odingo
Suraj Shah	0 – 2	Lukasz Michalek
Hiram Gakembu	0 – 2	George Bulbeck
Sufian Nathani	0 – 2	James Marshall
Collins Oduor	0 – 2	Tom Smith
Johnmark Njaramba	0 – 2	Kobus Nienaber
Cyril Teddy	2 – 0	Oskar Jarzynski
Nandini Sardana	0 – 2	Pawel Stanny
Aseem Sardana	1 – 1	Phil Grocott
Dadson Rwamba	– – –	Christopher Marais

All games of this match:

https://www.chess.com/emboard?id=10226119

Wed 8th March: The NSDCA’s top two teams (from Crewe) hosted the division one’s bottom two teams, as leaders Crewe A played Alsager and Crewe B faced Macclesfield. The playing room was packed yet again with over 40 players involved in a mix of league matches, club championship and friendly games, not to mention several parents and a visiting (non-playing) captain.

Crewe “A” went into the match as slight favourites, but Alsager were not fazed by the challenge ahead. With Jonathan Blackburn rated nearly 2300 and having the white pieces, it was expected he would ensure Alsager a full point on top board and he did not disappoint. This effectively meant our “A” team needed to collect 2.5pts from the remaining 3 boards to extend their lead at the top of the league table. Our A team’s record is built on strength in depth as there is little difference between all four players in terms of ratings. As usual our big-hitters Harry Gardiner and Karl Lockett provided the wins, but we did not get anything from the board 2 game as John Booth won for the visitors to leave the match drawn at 2-2.

Meanwhile Crewe B have been performing above expectations as the lowest rated team in division one by some way. Starting the match in second place just one point behind our brothers, the Bees were dealt a cruel blow as top board Simon Layhe succummed to a cold/flu leading to a last minute change of line up. On board 4 Jarek Czyz was playing only his 2nd match of the season and after gaining an early pawn held onto the advantage ultimately queening a pawn and putting us in the lead. Visitors Macclesfield have recovered after a shaky start and are currently the form team in the division, and took the lead following wins on board 3 by Phil Cattermole, and on board 1 for John Ewens who got the better of a Ruy-Lopez to strangle the life out of David Hulme’s position. On board 2, Rick Renegade produced the necessary magic to pressurise his opponent into a mistake late on, with a match-saving knight fork of King & Queen as the score levelled out to 2-2 with all games being won by the white pieces.

These results still leave Crewe “A” at the top of the table with 11 pts from 9 matches, and Crewe “B” in second place with 10 pts. However the chasing pack will all believe they can win the title now, as Cheddleton “A” have 9 pts from 8 matches, Fenton “A” have 8 from 7 and Holmes Chapel have 8 from 8. With all contenders likely to drop points from here, any one of these five teams could easily win the league trophy.

In club news, we continue to grow as our membership increased to 52, with many of our recent additions being much younger than the average player. Alongside the two league matches, there was one game played in the Division 1 Club Championship, with Carmel Barwick continuing her excellent run with her 13th win from 14 games since October, and maintaining her 100% record in the Club championship as she joined Julian Hawthorne on 3/3 in pursuit of joint leaders Harry Gardiner and Martin Burns (each on 5/7).

In division 2 of the Club championship, there were wins for Tom Smith and Doug Barnett, with draws between Andrew Crosby and Jakub Grabowski as well as James Marshall and George Jelliss. Doug’s win takes him into the joint lead with 5/7, while George Bulbeck has 5/6. James is the nearest contender with 4/6 while Andrew has the same score having played 3 more games than James.

The matches scheduled for D & E teams at Cheddleton tomorrow (Friday 10th) have been postponed due to the weather.

Next week we have two more matches at home, with our U1825 cup team in action against Alsager and our F team playing Kidsgrove.

Wed 1st March: The club reached a milestone of achieving its’ 50th current member at the Annual Swiss Rapidplay rounds 5 & 6, as four players were added to the competition and all under age 21 – boding well for the future.

Club chairman Dave Price was extremely proud as he encouraged the latest newcomers to join in the Rapidplay, as Events officer (David Hulme) tussled with the complications of adding the new players while dealing with a late bye request and a last minute non-appearance of one of the members. The Rapidplay now has 44 competitiors, even with a number of others who are unable to commit to the event or simply prefer to avoid Rapidplay.

As usual it was a chaotic start to the night, waiting for all players to arrive before play could commence, and then having to revise some pairings. As everyone sat down for Round 5, we had a new record attendance of 38 members, as our stock of chess clocks was pushed to the limit, with the playing room full of the buzz of excited anticipation in a set up superbly provided by our committed young steward Harry Gardiner. (I don’t think many appreciate what a job Harry does in setting up the club each week ready for everyone to come along and simply start playing with tables, chairs, boards, sets and clocks all in position).

As we commenced round 5 a few minutes later than planned, we had one player on 4/4 – first team captain and 2nd seed Martin Burns, with a one point lead over a gaggle of 6 players including No.1 seed Bart Fajfer, defending champion Jarek Czyz seeded 4th, Doug Barnett, Karl Lockett, Rick (the grenade) Renegade and Carmel Barwick. From this batch of players half were succesful in round 5 with wins for Martin, Jarek, Carmel and Rick, meaning Martin was now 5/5 with these three a single point behind. A further four players moved onto 3.5 pts being Dave Price, Harry, David Lambton and Adam Fields seeded at No. 32 punching well above his weight. Of the newcomers there were wins for Kruspin Kapusta and Antrea Bileros, with all of the newcomers given four half-point byes to join in the competition on the mid-score.

Round 6 saw the defending champion Jarek paired with leader Martin, and he stopped the leader in his tracks finding a mating attack after Martin missed a chance to secure a draw, and throw the competition wide open to share the lead on 5pts. Also moving into the joint lead is Carmel Barwick who managed to detonate Rick (the grenade) safely to also move onto 5 pts. David Lambton and Harry Gardiner hauled themselves into joint second place as they both finished the night on 4.5pts after back to back wins. We have five players still in contention for the trophy on 4pts – these are the previously mentioned Bart, Karl, Doug and Rick now joined by our outstanding 10 year old – Oskar Jarzynski – seeded at No 31.

With all 44 players on the scoreboard, it is hoped the final night will be another resounding success for the club, when it can be arranged. This is likely to be in May before we have a Wednesday night free of matches.

Finally I would like to say thank you to all of our members for participating in this event in such a sporting and friendly manner, as we apply some of our own club rules; and also to Marek Jarzynski for keeping track of all the scores to allow me to play and for taking pictures of the event. (to be added shortly)

Full scores can be seen using the link below

Internal Comps

Written by David Hulme – Events officer

Monday 27th Feb: Crewe travelled to Fenton to play in the semi-final of the Open knockout, for the right to play Alsager in the final.

The match was contested over 6 boards, with Crewe having an approx 300 pts advanatge in total ratings, which in reality is a very small difference of about 7 pts per board based on the old 3 digit system, mainly due to the absence of Fenton’s 2nd highest rated player – so all things considered – a pretty even contest.

Fenton struck the first blow against the grain, with a win on board 5 from their acting captain Ray Hyde in the absence of the ubiquitous Steve Emmerton. In John Motson commentary it was 1-0 to the home team. Fortunately it did not take too long to hit the equaliser as Karl Lockett proved too strong on board 6 enjoying the biggest rating advantage of 230 pts. Visiting captain Martin Burns deployed on board 4 found a sweet skewer to emerge victorious and put Crewe 2-1 in the lead. Then around 9pm a little pandemonium broke out as Fenton’s Petru Floresc (on board 2) had his mobile phone loudly ringing out of his pocket. When he eventually located the phone a discussion took place between captains to agree that a warning was the rule in place, but before returning to the board his phone was set off for a second occasion meaning automatic loss under the rules. However Simon Layhe did not want to claim a default and sportingly agreed with all parties that the game could continue, adding to the tension of a close match.

As the match moved towards 10pm, Crewe had gained the upper hands on boards 2 and 3, while Fenton appeared to be in better shape on the top board. Simon by this time was two pawns ahead but faced with very active opposition pieces, found his way to sac one exchange before swapping all the remaining pieces to leave himself with an unstoppable choice of pass-pawn (either a or g), while his King arrived just in time to stop Petru’s central connected pass-pawns and give Crewe a 3-1 lead.

As we moved past 10pm, Lee Farrington had gained massive control with a Bishop on h6, with Queen and Rook controlling the open e-file, while Fenton’s castled King (on the kingside) was looking very vulnerable to mating attacks on g7 and e8. There was no counter play available as Lee assumed dominance and forced resignation to make it 4-1. The writer was now thinking about the late John Motson and his commentary of Germany 1 England 5, and thinking “this is getting better and better and better” and so it transpired with Bart Fajfer turning the tables on board 1 to make it an unexpected and resounding 5-1 to the visitors, just like England all those years ago coming back from 1-0 down !!

Crewe have been drawn at home in the final against Alsager, and will play in their first ever Open KO final. The winners will be breaking the domination of Cheddleton and Stafford who have held the trophy between them over the last decade !

It’s been a very busy week for Crewe Chess Club with 5 teams in action playing on four different nights.

Mon 20th Feb: Our A team travelled to Macclesfield in high spirts, sitting at the top of the League Table to face a home team who had not won a match in 7 attempts and occupied bottom spot in the table. Well the tables were well and truly turned as Macclesfield upset the form books with a stunning win, as the league leaders left almost empty handed, only spared a whitewash by Harry Gardiner’s draw on board 2. The smiles could be felt coming from all the challengers as Fenton and Cheddleton had title aspirations put back in their own hands.

Wed 22nd Feb: Two matches at The Mals as Crewe C hosted Cheddleton B in division 2 and our U1375 played in the semi-final of the Perry Cup against Fenton. Looking first at the Div 2 match, the visitors got off to a flying start as their captain Caroline Mountford had early success on board 3. Fortunately the rest of the C team were all on form as David Lambton (board 1), Neville Layhe (board 4) and Carmel Barwick completed the fight back with a 3-1 win, with Carmel currently in a hot streak of form with 10 wins and a draw since her last loss over 4 months ago (at the Crewe Congress). The C team remain on the tails of league leaders Newcastle.

The Perry Cup had a strange feeling to it, as Fenton only arrived with 3 players with a default on board 2 which would cost them dearly. The visitors won on boards 3 and 4 to take a 2-1 lead, but George Jelliss on board 1 ensured Crewe got to the final as he held his nerve to avoid any tricks and traps and gain the crucial win that levelled the score at 2-2. Thanks to the tie break rule of “board count” Crewe progress to the final, but had Fenton chosen to default on board 4, the same results would have seen Fenton go through to the final on “bottom board elimination” as the board count tie-break would have been equal.

Besides these two matches, there was a full program of Club Championship games in Division 2 as 10 of our members slogged it out, and another 4 members played in Div 1.

In division 2, George Bulbeck went to the top of the chart after winning the clash between the top two players, while Doug Barnett, Andrew Crosby and Oskar Jarzynski added a full point to their tally, and Mike Keenan drew with Jakub Grabowski. It is noted that George B is now unbeaten in 14 games since the Crewe Congress.

In div 1, Karl Lockett put a dent in defending champion Harry Gardiner’s record with a win that leaves Harry on an identical score to Martin Burns with 5/7, as both players have 3 games remaining. In the only other game Richard Fish overcame chairman Dave Price to move onto 1.5 pts and leave Dave routed in the relegation slot with just half a point so far – although both still have 6 games to play.

Thurs 23rd Feb: The B team went to Holmes Chapel in similar spirit to the “A” team, sitting in 2nd place in the league table. However it was evident on arrival that the Bees would be in for a tough time as Holmes Chapel fielded their strongest team of the season with all 3 of their top players involved for the first time. It was no surprise when all top 3 boards went their way, with only Carmel on the scorecard for the battered Bees with another comfortable win to extend her current run.

Fri 24th Feb: The E team travelled to Chedd on Friday evening for a division 3 match against their C team. Wins from Andrew Crosby (board 2) and Phil Grocott (board 4) were enough to get a share of the spoils. This draw leaves the E team in 2nd spot in the table, 2 pts behind Alsager B.

Looking ahead to next week, on Monday our Open Cup KO team travel to highly rated Fenton, and on Wednesday we have Rounds 5 and 6 of our Swiss Rapidplay Event.

Matthew Dean has been taking part in this prestigious event which started on 15th Feb and concludes today. Seeded at No. 121, he clearly likes a challenge as the field hosted 9 GMs and 6 IMs in the nine round Swiss. As the lowest rated player in the event he has done extremely well to pick up two wins.

Matthew is so quiet at the club, we did not know he was there until Martin Burns was looking through this weekend’s congress action and spotted Matthew’s name among the stunning field of the chess stars.

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Matthew Dean

Game 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9