News

Tuesday (21st July) saw the 5th annual challenge match between Wallasey & Crewe for the WC Cup with the Caritas Centre at full capacity as 78 players and several spectators/organisers packed into the main playing hall and another dozen or more playing social chess in the analysis room.

Photos to be added of playing hall + back room

It was only 4 years ago that Alan Kelly and Dave Price set on this journey when two cars from Wallasey brought 8 players to The Mals Club in Crewe for the inaugural match. Alan and Dave had become good friends as a result of meeting at so many congresses over the previous few years and thought it would be a good idea for the two clubs to develop a close competitive friendship. Fast forward four years and the numbers involved increased to 14, 22, 32 and now 39 players per side. This is the biggest club vs club match I have witnessed since falling in love with the game in 1972, but am told that Wallasey had a match with Pensby in the late 1980s with 42 per side. Note to Dave P – your target is to better that in 2027 !

The match itself was played in great spirit by both sets of players, with play commencing at 7.35 and the final game concluding around 10.50pm when Steve Pickles (Wallasey) and Harry Gardiner had to agree peace with a draw after slugging it out for over 3 hours.

The final result was most unexpected as Crewe cruised to a landslide win by the score of 29-10, despite both teams having identical total ratings of 57822. The full scorecard can be seen from the LMS here:

lms.englishchess.org.uk/lms/fixture/145414

As Alan Kelly was unable to attend due to ill health, Saul Marks marshalled the troops from Wallasey and ensured Alan was provided with a birds-eye view of proceedings via a Whatsapp link. Luckily for Alan he did not have to suffer all of the agony of watching his club mates struggle thanks to many internet outages caused by the sheer numbers accessing the limited connectivity !

As usual the home team provided a wonderful buffet courtesy of Dave Price’s effort, while Emma Cooke provided a superb service from the kitchen much to the delight of many of the 78 players.

The closing presentation saw Dave Price in typical jovial spirits receiving the trophy from Saul Marks, while revelling in the atmosphere and duly delivering the booby prize of the toilet roll to the beaten captain.

Many thanks go to the organisers Alan and Saul from Wallasey, together with Dave Price from Crewe, as we look forward to extending the challenge next year.

Photo to be added – trophy presentation

Thanks to Saul for providing an in depth report from the Wallasey side of the board :

https://wallaseychessclub.uk/news/92

The fabulous annual Crewe Chess Congress took place last weekend, 26-28 June. We are grateful to the people at the Mornflake Stadium for hosting us for the fifth year in a row. We were also lucky to be given a generous supply of the famous Mornflake Mighty Oats goodie bags, they really do contain some nice stuff. This year Mornflake also gave us a stack of porridge pots to hand out, loads of you snaffled a pot and I hope you were powered on to play better chess as a result. We were delighted to have a new sponsor this year too, in Chesspick, the chess coaching company, and we used their pens and score sheets for the weekend.

You can see the results here:
Open – Major – Inter – Minor

This year we were a bit worried before the start of the event, as the temperatures rose, and a few people withdrew. We need not have been concerned;there were 228 players on the starting blocks, coming from far and near, just three short of last year’s record. We hired in some air blowers, made good use of the ice machine and were ready for the 30+ degree onslaught. We also set up a small cafe, with drinks and biscuits, to sustain the players between moves.

A cool feature of the congress was that many of the boards in the Open and Major were played on live boards; so, for instance, you can check out Gee’s amazing knight sac (round 4 in the Open) at your leisure.
From the diagram below, White moves Nd5

The Open was one of our strongest ever, featuring 9 players rated over 2100, in a field of 60. Crewe players did well. Dave Lambton raced up the leader board , and was on 2.5/3, though the height proved too much for him and he lost his last 2 games. Harry Gardiner, otherwise known as Crewe CC Champion, had an amazing congress. Harry got into a couple of scrapes but nobody could beat him and he finished joint third. The overall winner was Jacob Boswell, Jacob formerly of these parts, showed incredible determination; his third round match against Mike Surtees was a 126 move epic, in which he converted a drawish rook ending into a win. Jacob showed he is also capable of a pouncing on tactical opportunities; see his round 2 win against George Zhao:

The Major featured many of the usual suspects, and a few new faces. Crewe had five players in this one, and our best result was by Oskar Jarzynski. Oskar scored 3.5/5. James Pack and Joel Ofeni were always in the lead, and as both had 4/4 they were paired together in the last round. A quick handshake and share the loot maybe? No way! They decided to slug it out. James was winning until tragedy hit; on move 56, when just about any move was winning, he moved e8=Q+ and allowed his opponent to give up a bishop for a text book draw. Well done to them both. See below – hope James will not mind us posting this “instructive position,” as they call them.

Crewe CC had seven players out of the 66 entrants in the Inter, including the top rated player, Karl Lockett, and fast improving junior, Tommy Cooke. Competition was tough though, and first prize was shared by Stellio Jerome and John Gibbs.

The minor looked like our best bet; we had 8 in this one, One of our favourites, Tim Weston, was nearly downed by his own clubmate, Dave Roberts, in round 1, but it was the old old story; an won endgame ain’t won until you have won it; they drew. Simon Humphries was playing well, but he faltered at the end. Our own Jack Patullo had a good weekend, ending up in a tie for second. Star of the show though was Sam Ollier. Sam joined Crewe CC last year, but this was his first chess congress. Well, Sam only went and won it with 5/5! An amazing performance. What next for Sam?

Take a bow Dave Price, the congress organiser, who put in so many hours setting up the event. He is still mithering me about stuff now as we wrap things up. I would like to thank Gerald for all his help, and for introducing me to the fabulous Benny’s Cafe, which is just across the road from the stadium ( check it out next year). On Saturday Gerald’s step counter topped 17000 steps. Also thanks to our amazing chief arbiter, Matthew Carr, who also supplied loads of equipment, live boards, sets and so on. We had three other arbiters too, who all helped make the weekend run smoothly; Dan Turner, Hambel Willow and Mario Scarpa ( who is also our IT guy). Our snack bar could not have happened without Emma, with Helen and Louise standing in as well. Finally of course, thanks to the players: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, and that we will see you next year.

All the best.
Stay tuned.

It is that time of year again, and no, I am not talking about how the strawberries are coming; though they are doing quite nicely; see picture below.

No; I refer to one of the great sporting contests of the summer; I mean of course the Crewe Chess Congress. Can you believe we are nearly there? The action starts next Friday, at the usual great venue in the heart of Crewe. It looks like we will have one of the strongest fields ever in the Open section; check out the current list of runners and riders elsewhere on this site. There are three other sections too, and chess addicts of all levels are welcome. We have 200 entries so far, so get your entry in soon to avoid missing out on one the best weekend congresses of the year. Thanks are due to the people from the Mornflake Stadium, who have given us loads of free parking at a spacious and comfy venue. The stadium is near to loads of eateries, and is close enough so you could nearly hurl that blundered piece at the train station (please don’t though).

Another important cup competition has been much in the news lately, yes the Crewe CC Knockout cup is due to start on Tuesday. Can Young James Ratcliffe, who scored a fairly reasonable 6 out of 6 to become Crewe CC Rapidplay Champion, win another trophy? Will an outsider cause a cup upset? Who knows? What we do know is that we will be in the grip of cup fever this summer.

Think there is some kind of footy contest going on too, but don’t let that distract you.

Stay tuned and keep cool.

Tuesday (16th) saw the 3rd and final night of the Annual Swiss Rapidplay covering Rounds 5 & 6. It was another superb night with 61 members in attendance including another new addition to the Minor section.

Congratulations to the winners:
Open – James Ratcliffe 6/6
Major (U1750) – Ebube Christian 5.5pts/6
Inter (U1450) – Sam Ollier 5/6
Minor (U1150) – Jasper Ludlow and Jack Taylor 4.5/6*

• = joint winners on tie break with 4 wins each. Spare a thought for Andrew Caccamo-Turner who scored 4.5 pts as well with 3 wins and 3 draws.
  
  All winners will receive their trophies at the AGM on 18th August.

Please note results for this event are being recorded on Chess Results.com
See links below for:

A) Open https://s3.chess-results.com/tnr1428952.aspx?lan=1

B) Major U1750https://s3.chess-results.com/tnr1428951.aspx?lan=1

C) Intermediate U1450 https://s3.chess-results.com/tnr1428949.aspx?lan=1

D) Minor U1150 https://s3.chess-results.com/tnr1428950.aspx?lan=1

What a fantastic night it was yesterday (9th June) with 66 members playing Rounds 3 & 4 in a record turnout !
Can we beat this next week for the finale with Rounds 5 & 6 taking place ?
Both of the top two sections have the only players with 100% records – James Ratcliffe in the Open and Ebube Christian in the Major. With a one point lead over their nearest rivals, they are hot favourites for these two sections.
The Intermediate has three joint leaders on 3.5pts and another three players on 3pts. Jack Patullo, Simon Humphries and Sam Ollier share the lead while Wallace Hung, Freddie-Lee Cooper and Mason Burke have a great chance if they can pick up two points next Tuesday.
In the Minor section the club’s youngest member Jasper Ludlow leads with 3.5pts with other juniors Andrew Caccamo-Turner and Jack Taylor hot on his heels with 3pts.
A reminder for the tie breaks are:
1. Most wins
2. Head to head scores among any joint top scorers, where all involved would have to have played each other. If there is no decisive tie-break then all joint top scorers will receive trophies at the forthcoming AGM.
It promises to be a great night next week.

Below are photos from round 3, with the Inter section nearest, Open on the back wall row, Major in the next row and the Minor section out of view to the right. The lower photo shows our two youngest members playing on board 1 of the Minor.

Tuesday 26th May was the last night of our internal club championship for 25/26 season. And boy was it hot … as temperatures soared to around 30C, it was not surprising that many members were absent presumably enjoying the glorious weather or relaxing on holiday with schools being on half-term.

With four of the five divisions already decided, the main event was the climax in division 3 where Phil Grocott, Mario Scarpa and Jude Canvin-Ross were all trying to secure the trophy and promotion. Jude was the outsider starting the night with 7 pts and playing joint leader Mario on 8pts. Phil also on 8pts was playing recent newcomer Wallace Hung. For Jude to win the event he needed to beat Mario and pray for Wallace to beat Phil so all three players would end up as joint champions ! While Jude completed the controllable part of the plan to win his game, Phil was “non-compliant” and gained victory to secure the trophy and promotion to division 2.

In division 2, the trophy was already heading the way of 14 year-old Tommy Cooke who was in an unassailable lead with 6.5 pts as nearest rival, Martin Frisher on 6pts was away on holiday. Tommy won his final game to stretch the winning margin to secure the trophy and promotion to div 1. I would like to mention that Tommy’s progress has been amazing having joined the club in August 2024 to play his first ever competitive game over the board. During his debut season he smashed his way to the division 4 trophy and I made the unusual decision of promoting Tommy two divisions for the start of the 25/26 season. This decision has been totally vindicated by Tommy’s stunning performance to win division 2.

In division 4, the trophy chasers hit a road block over the last few weeks. Simon Humphries had been in the lead for some time having racked up 9 pts by 24th March but unable to play his final game due to withdrawal by another member. It has been a nervous wait for Simon as Sam Ollier was closing in to try and overtake Simon. Having gained 7.5 pts by the same date and with 3 games in hand it appeared that Sam was favourite. However Sam was cruelly thwarted as he was unable to play 3 of his remaining 4 games and despite winning his last game on 12th May to move to 8.5 pts, the absence of a further opponent left Sam stranded in 2nd place. As a consolation prize Sam will be offered promotion alongside Simon.

In division 5, Mayank Patil has runaway from the pack to win the trophy and promotion to div 4 with a superb score of 12/14. Having lost two of his first three games Mayank has put together a brilliant streak of 10 consecutive wins to secure the trophy.

In summary we have had 72 members play in the 5 divisions with a total number of 345 gamed played. Thanks to everyone that has made this such a successful series of events.

Congratulations to all of our champions who will be presented their trophies at the 2026 AGM in a few weeks time:

Div 1 = Harry Gardiner; Div 2 = Tommy Cooke; Div 3 = Phil Grocott; Div 4 = Simon Humphries and Div 5 = Mayank Patil.

Next week we start the first of our Summer Competitions with the Annual Swiss Rapidplay. Please contact me (David Hulme) if you wish to play in this event but have not yet told me.

Last Night 7 Crewe players travelled to play at a newly formed club in Congleton.

It was a fun night everyone was made to feel welcome in a very friendly atmosphere and a great venue.

Time control was 15+10, a short introduction in the use of the clocks and the games began. It was no surprise that some of the games were over very quickly as our junior players took the first scalps. We had agreed to play two games v the same player and the results started to come in. The games were very close on all the boards. When the final result came in the home team had 5.5 But the experience of the Crewe players showed with a result of 8.5

Well done Crewe and a big thank you to Congleton for the invite.

We would like to offer a rematch our doors are always open

We look forward to seeing Congelton chess club grow and hopefully play in a local league

Below the Motley Crew

It’s been a very successful week for the club as we secured two more trophies as the NSDCA season comes to a climax.

On Tuesday, the league division two trophy was up for grabs and destined for our Trophy Cabinet at The Caritas Centre, but it was a straight fight between our own D&F teams, with the F team in control of its destiny. George Bulbeck has had a terrific first term as a captain guiding the Inter team to the U1600 Cup and taking the F team down to the wire. The opening announcements advised that the F team needed to win 3-1 or better to take the title on tie break. This was after welcoming the Division 1 champions (Alsager “A”) who played our C team.

If the F team’s target was not tough enough before the match, then I allowed myself a cheeky smile (being D team captain) as Stafford brought their strongest team of the season to make sure the F team would not have it easy. So much so, that Stafford outrated us by approx 500 pts with a team worthy of 1st division status and it was therefore unsurprising that Stafford won the match and in doing so pipped the F team into 2nd place on the last tie break of head to head scores having finished level on match points, match wins and board points.

Congratulations to the D team who have the daunting task of being our 4th choice in division 1 next season.

Roll on to Friday night, as we took two teams to Cheddleton. The E team came off second best to Cheddleton A in their final division two match, but the cameras were focused on the main event …. The Perry Cup (U1375) Final between our Perry1 team and the hosts from Cheddleton. The team line ups saw Chedd deprived of their top two players leaving them rated 350 pts lower than the semi-final while Steve Ballantyne was able to field a team with all four above 1300 totalling 5379 – some 700 pts above our opponents.

First blood went to us on board 4 as Keith Dudeney found himself faced with a huge Knight fork of Queen and Rook to find he had to sacrifice his rook (with a check) for a pawn to save his own queen. Fortunately for Keith this prized the black’s defences open to threaten a mate in two. Luckily for us, they failed to find the correct defence allowing the mate. Well done Keith 1-0 to us !

I was watching very nervously as Wallace on board 3 seemed to be in a world of hurt facing a passed pawn and appearing to be lost. Again fortune favoured us when his opponent misplayed the position allowing Wallace to collect the killer pawn. They managed to “queen a pawn” before Wallace, but this allowed the b pawn to get to the 7th supported by the King, and with an advanced a pawn Wallace worked out how to force queens off (after using his b pawn to queen and block checks) and then queen the a pawn while the opposition g & h pawns could only make it half way. Phew 2-0 to us.

Meanwhile on board 1 Mario had played a typically aggressive opening and was positionaly sound until he found his white squared bishop trapped by advancing king-side pawns. Giving up the bishop for two pawns was the best he could muster. However these two pawns became rolling monsters as his opponent failed to stop the threatening advance. Despite having his two rooks attacked by one bishop, Mario found a way to overwhelm the centralised King with his own bishop and solitary rook supported by the two monster pawns. The pressure was too much and with no escape Mario won to make it 3-0.

The final game to finish saw the two captains battle it out. Steve Ballantyne played superbly to completely dominate the board 2 game as he rounded up two pawns in the middle game due to active pieces pushing his opponent into a very passive position. Two pawns became three after an exchange of all pieces as Steve threatened to promote multiple pawns and win convincingly.

The final score 0f 4-0 looks very one sided, and probably not unexpected when looking at the line ups. This clearly does not reflect the reality of the match as Chedd could quite easily have taken at least 2.5 pts. Well done to the Perry team.

This means Steve B has captained his teams to the dream of a Double in league and cup, while also retaining the Perry Trophy. Congratulations to all involved with the Dad’s Army teams and supporting casts !

We have had several junior tournaments between Alsager Owls, Crewe and the Potteries Juniors. It was the turn of the Owls to host the tournament again.

Due to the growing popularity of the event the Owls hosted the event at Lawton Memorial hall.

Dave Price and Harry Gardiner looked after the under 1300 section and Chris Hankey looked after a beginner section.

we had 50 players in the under 1300 section which consisted of 10 teams of 5 players.

Our A team did excellent with everyone scoring 50% or more scoring a total of 20 points and securing 3rd place.

Below 3 of our A team:- Jack, Freddie and Jasper

Freddie with his trophy for scoring a perfect 6/6 on board 3

Well done everyone

Full detail
Alsager Owls Junior Rapidplay

Chris looked after a section of 20 beginner’s Full details

Alsager Owls Beginners Tournament 2026

Last night saw George Bulbeck lead the U1600 Cup team to success at Alsager, retaining the trophy with a convincing (looking) scoreline of 4.5-0.5, although the secretary has no evidence of the actual games played.

There were only two survivors from last season’s cup winning team, with captain George taking full responsibility winning on board 1 (having played board 5 vs Kidsgrove last year). A review of the scorecard shows only 44 rating points separated the two teams (based on September’s ratings) but as is often the case ratings seem to bare no relationship to the score. Such was George’s methodical planning that he prepared the team to play with 3 blacks, but the card does not tell me whether we won the toss or Alsager did.

The other player from last year was Pawel Stanny who held out for a draw on board 3 with black pieces. Two of our promising juniors had the white pieces and both got the full point with Tommy Cooke on board 2, and newcomer Jude Canvin-Ross on bd 4. To round things off George’s dad took on the important mantle of team driver, so was allowed the comparative luxury of playing board 5, also doing the business to give a glossy finish on the score-card.

Congratulations to the team.

What many may not know is we now have two armies aiming to complete “league and cup doubles”. Bulbeck’s youthful army have a league division two decider on Tuesday 12th under the flag of our F team. They have a tough match (sitting in 2nd place) against 3rd placed Stafford at home and need a 3-1 win (or better) to secure the NSDCA div 2 title on tie break and condemn our D team to runners-up spot. Any lesser result means the D team are champions.

Bulbeck’s Youthful Army is in competition with Ballantyne’s Dads Army, as Steve leads the Perry Cup 1st team into the final against Cheddleton at Leek on Friday 15th in pursuit of another double after leading the I team to the NSDCA Div 4 trophy a few weeks ago. Interestingly the Perry KO team is also aiming to retain the trophy after a derby-final last year.