Tuesday 18th August – Club AGM 7.30pm followed by the AGM Team Blitz (approx 9pm start)
Tuesday 25th August – 1st night of club championship 26/27 (if not involved in knock-out semi-finals **)
Tuesday 8th September – Annual Time & Point Handicap for the Les Hall Memorial Trophy. Arrive 7.20pm prompt for 7.30 start.
Tuesday 15th September – Last night to complete all Summer KO semi-finals
Tuesday 29th September – Last night to complete all Summer KO finals.
NSDCA League fixtures to commence either w/c 14th or 21st September.
** Knock-out Semi-Finals: Open – David Lambton vs Tom Lee and Jamie Roberts vs Doug Barnett Major – Steve Ballantyne vs Mario Scarpa and Julian Bulbeck vs David Roberts Minor – Andrew Caccamo-Turner vs Mal Green and Barrie Wood vs Mayank Patil
Following on from the previous news item, James Ratcliffe completed his work in the U16 Championship to finish on 3.5/7 in the mid-table. The full table can be seen
There were a couple more Crewe players involved in the weekend events. In the Yates U1500 competition Matthew Dean played 5 games – all against higher rated opponents, and did manage one outstanding win against a player rated 220 higher.
Jamie Roberts played in the Penrose U2000 and scored a strong 3.5/5 to finish joint 6th – just 1 point behind the winners – in a field of 61 entrants. This has taken him to a new personal best rating of 1937 – up 150 pts since 1st January !
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:
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.
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
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.
Playing Hall
Analysis/Social 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:
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.
Thanks to Saul for providing an in depth report from the Wallasey side of the board :
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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
