News

Our database now includes all the games played during the 2024 WC Cup. It took quite a while to add them all because they were only available in handwritten paper form, which made it very difficult (and sometimes impossible) to decipher… Nonetheless I managed to reconstruct nearly all of them. You’ll find them under the menu Useful Links > Game Database

As previously mentiond on these pages the club had its busiest ever night recently – Tuesday 21st January with approx 70-80 attendees in the club, with approx 50 playing in the Match Hall and another 20 in the Social room.

Tomorrow night could be a contender to match these numbers as we expect 20 visiting players with 4 league matches to take place.

The club goes from strength to strength as we continue to gather new members and in some cases welcome the return of past members. The Members page shows the latest list of all current members, and the secretary is looking forward to locking in many more as January has seen many use up their “free visit(s) cards”.

The Club championship is thriving with frantic activity in the top and bottom divisions. In Div 1, Andy Raeburn has been excelling and leads with 5/7 but fell victim to the defending champion Harry Gardiner last week, who has the most impressive %age score (80%) with 4/5. With “A” team skipper Martin Burns and team colleague Richard Lee keeping track – these three “A” team players are all undefeated and have two draws each. Top rated Richard may be slight favourite but Harry is determined to retain his title and searching for his 3rd title in 4 years.

Division 2 continues to be a slow burner as only 8 games have been completed in the competition so far. With only 7 active players to date, Ebube Christian and 12 year old Oskar Jarzynski share the lead with 2.5/3 each, and may well emerge victorious and gain promotion.

Division 3 is wide open as no one is dominating this section. Mario and Nathan Fourie currently share the lead with 3.5 pts each as Nathan has a game in hand. Tim Weston has the best %age (75%) score to date and sits just behind the leaders on 3pts

Division 4 has now expanded to 16 players. Two of our youngest members are making great progress with 12 y/o Tommy Cooke setting the stage alight with 5/6 and 9 y/o William Hogben chasing on 3.5/4.

The junior Rapidplay event sees another youngster leading the way with Noah Smith on 2.5 pts just ahead of a 4-way pile up on 2pts (Tommy, William, Jack Patullo and Rishita Rajput).

Now that the month of January has been and gone, we can look back at a busy fixture schedule that saw us play 18 matches despite a heavy number of weather related postponements.

Martin Burns has already reported on the chase for the NSDCA Div 1 trophy which sees our B team as hot favourites. A win from either of their two remaining matches would guarantee becoming League Champions. Due to the bizarre fixture planning, Alsager and Holmes Chapel would still have 50% or more of their matches to play. Even more strange is that 3 teams have only amassed one point between them, while the only other (top) two teams have collected 21 points.

Division 2 is the only division where one of our Crewe teams does not lead the way. Here the strongest team is Macclesfield who were playing in division one last season. This time around they have gained another player on board 1, so are able to outrate all other teams in the division. Our D and E teams have both managed to hold the favourites to a draw in the first half of the season, but are unlikely to stop them from securing the div 2 title. Tomorrow night could be a crucial time as our D team host Macclesfield. Our two teams currently have identical records and trail the leaders by one point, having played one match more already. Potentially Alsager B and Stafford are most likely to push Macclesfield.

Division 3 sees our F team with a healthy four point lead over our G team who have risen from 2nd bottom to 2nd top after picking up 5 pts from 3 matches in January. The F team is energetically captained and selects strengthened squads when opposition possess strong top boards making them favourites for the title and promotion.

Division 4 is led by our H team who have surprised me with a superb run of 10 conscutive wins. Despite this run of results they have been unable to shake Fenton B off their tails who have 3 games in hand. with matches still to play against the nearest challengers only another perfect set of results will guarantee the div 4 trophy. Meanwhile our I team sits in midtable under the enthusiastic leadership of Mario Scarpa who relishes in telling the stories of his team’s adventures on our News items.

The U1300 division only has 4 teams, with two teams from Crewe and The Gables respectively. The U team currently have the upper hand (under more enthusiastic leadership from Mal Green) in this division where it is hoped many of these players will go on to progress in higher divisions as their ratings exceed the 1300 limit.

We have just had one cup match in January where Nigel marshalled the Intermediate Cup team (U1600) to success after a long Friday night trek to Stafford. His reward is a semi final ….. another long Friday night trek to Cheddleton – it seems the cup draw gods wanted to push our club to the limits.

We have also had the short straw in the other Cups with:

1. The Open KO team AWAY to Alsager or Holmes Chapel in the final
2. The Major KO team AWAY to Stafford in the final
3. The Perry B KO team AWAY to Cheddleton in the semi-final

At least the Perry A KO team have home advantage in the delayed quarter-final vs The Gables – to be played on 11th Feb.

January was the busiest month yet in this season’s quest for the NSCDA league title.

Readers of this stuff will already know that Crewe A narrowly beat Crewe C on the 7 January.

On the 16 January we joined Crewe D to do a flash mob in Holmes Chapel. Things started badly. The Victoria Club is accessed by a narrow street, which was so rammed with cars that we struggled to get anywhere to park. Not sure why the club was so busy, I mean Manchester United were on the big screen in the bar, so you would have thought that would have put people off. Anyhow, the A team captain was a bit late and a bit stressed before the chess had even started. Even worse for the A’s, Bart went down on board 2 early on, the captain was in trouble despite being over 200 points higher rated then his an opponent, and Harry was under the cosh too. As usual Richard won on board one. I then heard a little shout on board 3, as Harry opponent dropped a queen in a winning position. The bottom board had turned into a draw, and so we won the match 2.5-1.5, Phew!

While this was going on the D team showed how it should be done, they wiped out Holmes Chapel B 4-0; impressive.

12 days later the A’s played host to Holmes Chapel at St Mary’s. This time things went a lot smoother. Richard won again. Ebube, playing his first ever game for the A team, picked up another point. Martin and Harry both drew from decent positions. Match won 3-1.

Yards away, the B team squeaked past the C team. Last game to finish was board 2, where Captain Lambton blundered a piece to Simon Layhe. Simon could only draw the tense finish, mainly because he was playing on increment, so the match ended Crewe B 2.5 -Crewe C 1.5. The C team have had a couple of really close matches this season, but remain on zero points. The B’s stay out in front with only 2 matches to go.

I should, in fact I am going to, take time to appreciate what a great asset Richard Lee has been to the club. He is currently our strongest player by a distance, and has won 6 out of 7 games on board one for the A’s. He is just as happy in the social room doing coaching as he is battering people in the match room. Most amazing of all though, is that he recently moved down south, and he now has to travel about 130 miles to play for us. He is pictured below getting a power nap before the latest match against Holmes Chapel.

It was great to have a new A team player in reserve. In contrast to Richard, Ebube’s journey to the club takes about 130 seconds. Here he is looking fresh and alert for the Holmes Chapel match.

Watch this space for more exciting updates, as the season continues….

I was pleased to be able to field a strong team for this away fixture against Gables V.

The Team battled marvelously

Board 4 fought valiantly to defend his King -but trapped and boxed in on the back row, he was mated by a Knight/Queen combination. He will live-to-fight-another-day!

On board 3 Mal played white with a new opening that saw his opponent forked by an advancing e-pawn with a choice of sacrificing a knight or bishop. Moving his Knight out the way Mal went a piece up, followed by an exchange of Queens, he then promoted a pawn to a Queen and exchanged off his other Rook. A win on board 3 followed.

Tommy played a solid game on board 3 with black pieces, showing a calm maturity after making an illegal move while his King was in check. His opponent gained 2 extra minutes, yet Tommy proceeded to out play and beat his opponent with an ease that reflects his ability to play well under pressure.

That left Nathan on board 1 with the longest game of the evening. After a strong opening as white, his opponent was under pressure. Through a middle game of exchanges. The game was drawn out into a Rook ending with 1 Rook each and Nathan having a passed pawn advantage. It may have swung either way, however Nathans expertise and calm play with only half of his opponent time left on the clock, he managed a check followed by capture of the final Rook. Nathan’s win rounded off the evening.

With wins from Nathan, Tommy and myself Crewe U-Team won the battle and now sit comfortably top of the new U1300 division.

Well done Team – thank you for all your support and contribution to a fun outing.

Mal Green.

Tuesday 21st saw records broken at Crewe Chess Club as over 70 chess enthusiasts packed into the playing hall and social room. With four league matches taking place we had 18 visiting players from teams belonging to clubs – from Cheddleton, The Gables, Newcastle and Meir. This was supplemented by a number of games played in the Club’s Internal Championship Sections, and a full social room where some played friendly games and others entertained nine more potential new members.

As some players arrived they struggled to find parking spaces as the Centre’s car park was overwhlemed by numbers. It was bad luck for the secretary who missed the best ever night since the club’s reincarnation in 2014 with a record number of 53 own members in attendance.

Quite a busy night at the club yesterday… so busy that late arrivals struggled to find a parking spot. Among the many matches, Crewe I lost against Cheddleton D.

That said, Gerald keeps defeating his opponents with incredible speed. Despite the game consisting of 60 moves, they were all done so quickly that I sometimes wonder if board 4 is in Blitz-mode.

I found myself once again facing an opponent rated about 100 points higher than me and, in keeping with the ongoing trend, I made him sweat as much as I could… this time, even managing to secure a draw. Initially, I refused the offer, but shortly after I accepted it, fully aware that time pressure would have caused me to lose (and a draw is always better than a loss).

“Experts” say that January is a depressing month; the Christmas licence to stuff your face and drink more than usual has expired; some have to go back to work or school; some foolishly try fitness fads, or even worse, stop doing stuff that they like doing; it’s dead cold; and so on.

Do not despair, I am glad to be able to cast some light into the darkness. In January there is an excellent chess congress in the pleasant town of Telford. The venue is plush and warm. They have a nice cafe. If you win a couple of games, no matter what section you are in, you might get the chance to play on a “live” board, which means that when you blunder there could be someone, maybe in Turin or Truro, who is watching and laughing. This year several of our members ignored the government weather warnings and headed down. Harry, Simon, Martin, Andy, Dave P, Jamie, Dave R, Doug, Mal and Peter were all there. Our best scorer was Jamie Roberts, who got 3.5 /5 in his section. I hope Harry will send in one of his games, as he found a very nice mating trap which deserves a look. Check out the Telford Congress website, and go do it next year!

Even better news, on 7 January Crewe CC opened up again after the Christmas break. Sadly, more snow and fog meant that not all visiting teams could make it, but Crewe A managed to scrape a win, against Crewe C, with Richard and Harry winning on the top 2 boards.

Nod of gratitude to Nige, who has restocked the club cafe.

Mario has put in another excellent report on our website for the I team.

On the 14 January there was no league action at St Mary’s, but the G team did get a win away at the Gables. Special mention to Ebube, who won his game, though he did cause his captain a bit of pre-match panic as he thought we were playing at home! On the night before the V team won 4-0, also at the Gables.

So the 14^th it was a quieter night than normal, but there was still some action in the match room, as the internal competitions continue. In 1603 James of Scotland came down to take over the English throne, and at the club there could be an event of similar significance. Andy Raeburn won again in the Crewe CC Championship, and is still the clear leader after reaching the halfway stage. Others could catch up, but could we have a scottish club champion for the first time? Division 2 is currently lead by Ebube and Divison 3 by Nathan, Division 4 looks very interesting, as 2 of our junior members Tommy Cooke and William Hogben, are in first and second respectively. They are both pretty good players already and I suspect their ratings will continue to climb.

If the above is not good news enough then just think, spring is on its way.

All the best.

Last night we had our first game of the year. Unfortunately, we lost 2^1/2 – 1^1/2 and that would be all there is to say… or would it?

Malcolm managed to secure a draw, thus granting us the extra half point that prevents the match from being classified as a crushing defeat—it sounds much better than 3-0, doesn’t it? Gerald won straight away before I even finished my first pint of Coke. Nowadays, he seems to dispose of his opponents very rapidly, unlike myself, who linger in the struggle until the very (and in this case, bitter) end. I played on board 1 against someone rated some 200 points higher than me. Considering that, I’m quite satisfied that, despite my loss, I made him sweat to exhaustion and gave him some good headaches… time pressure did, however, get the best of me in the end, as one blunder leads to another…

I would like to thank Chairman Price for hosting such a pleasant evening. There was a fine buffet, supplemented this year by the fabulous baking skills of Gee, who outdid herself with loads of delectable cake. Dave P heroically organised the traditional chase-the-ace contest; extra cards had to be found to accommodate the large throng clamouring to join in. Mario won the poker; he’s a bit of a shark, it turns out. Dave H even sorted out a team blitz event, so there was a bit of chess going on. (Shocking, we know.)

We bade farewell and (dare we say?) good riddance to Kobus, who has been threatening to emigrate for ages. It feels like a few have left us for other parts this year: Wallasey, Nottingham, Cornwall, Germany, Poland, Malta (though that last one keeps coming back) and so on. They will all be missed—eventually.

The match room (in contrast to the social room) is normally a place of silence and tension, strained nerves, and in Frisher’s immortal words, of joy and misery, but for one night, it was given over to laughter, music (regrettably) and talk of cabbages and kings.

We had a couple of new visitors, most notably Alfie, who came in with his devoted servant Phil:

There will be no club night for the next two Tuesdays. This should give you all a chance to polish up your game in readiness for the second half of the season. The next club night will be on 7^th January 2025.

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a cracking start to the year!
See you all in 2025!