Category: Crewe’s Congress Crew

James Ratcliffe has entered the British Under 16 Championships being played as part of the annual British Congress, taking place at Coventry (University of Warwick) this week. It seems James is the only Crewe representative this year.

On Sunday, James started as 15th seed out of 27 in the U16 Blitz Event and performed extremely well to score 5/7 and finish joint 3rd. Results can be seen from the following link:

https://s2.chess-results.com/tnr1452121.aspx?SNode=S0

The main event for James is the main U16 Championships played over 7 rounds. James is ranked No 12 out of 33 here, in a field led by FM Max Pert. Rankings are based on FIDE ratings, with the top six all rated over 2000 (something the writer can only dream of) and another five rated over 1900. This shows the exceptional talent in the tournament, and when you consider most of these players have ECF ratings far in excess of the FIDE ratings used. James started well winning with the black pieces in Round 1, before facing the No 3 seed in round 2, losing after a valiant effort. Today’s round 3 game saw James find a neat finish after a piece sacrifice with black to win again. So after 3 rounds he trails the leaders (3 players on 3 pts, 1 on 2.5 pts) within a pack of 12 players on 2 points.

See link below for James’s win today and all other games at The British.

https://lichess.org/broadcast/2026-british-chess-championships-under-16/round-3/HCH490Yf/yNK16n9W

I understand that our youngest member Jasper Ludlow, is visiting the Congress and taking on board some training. It may not be long before Jasper is competing there as well

Good luck to James for the rest of the Championships

Six of our travellers made the journey to Nottingham this weekend.

We had two players in the Open, two in the Major, one in the Inter and one in the Improvers.

Jamie pushed himself into the Open section and who should he draw in round one, no other than our club champion Harry.

Both played really well Harry was the victor.

Also winning their first round were Oskar, Tommy and Mal

Round Two was even better with 5 of the six players all receiving a point to their score. (Don’t tell anyone but Dave’s was a full point bye) 😂😂😂

Saturday is always a tough one as 3 games played in one day. With lots of players choosing a 1/2 point bye the room thinned out.

Round 3 Jamie and Mal had wins with Oskar having a good draw.

The games went to the bitter end, with a quick rush for a few of us to the Indian and more chess talk.

Mal was in the best position he has ever been with 3 out of 3,

Oskar was on 2.5, Harry and Tommy were in a good position with 2

The first round on Sunday went well Harry and Oskar both having wins.

Dave, Jamie and Tommy all gaining 1/2 point.

The Motley Crew before the final round

After the final round a very big

Well done  to Oskar

Securing second place with a fantastic score of 4/5 not loosing a game 👍

Click on the links below to see final scores in all sections

Open

Major

Inter

Minor

Improver

Follow Carmel and Jamie in Cardiff

Carmel

Jamie

Today has seen two of our 14 year old stars take 1st prizes at Manchester’s Rapidplay which took place at The Bolton Arena.

Jamie Roberts shared 1st place in a 4-way tie for the Major section (U1900) scoring 5/6.

Meanwhile in the Knight section (U1630) Tommy Cooke scored 5.5/6 in a 2-way tie for 1st place.

Also in the Major U1900 Oskar Jarzynski had a very impressive 4/6