I have been playing competitive chess for over 35 years, that’s over 1700 long play games, and hundreds of rapid games. What a complete waste of time, you might think, and you might be right. In all that time I have never achieved that holy grail of checkmates; the smothered mate. Well, on Tuesday night, Adi Kostic, who has only started playing rated games in the last few months, managed to pull off this famous checkmate. He was playing Mayank in the Crewe CC Grand Prix.

Pictured below is Adi, about to pounce

Here is Mayank, realising he is in trouble. You can see the mate is coming.

Congratulations are also due to another of our younger members, Tommy Cooke, who recently beat George B to win the Major Knockout. George is no pushover, he is so keen he recently went all the way Roumania to play chess.

13 year Oskar is a chess veteran compared to Adi and Tommy, he has been coming to Crewe CC for years. Oskar had a major influence on the derby match on Tuesday. League champions Crewe B were expected to beat Crewe C, but Oskar, playing for the C’s, won the only decisive game of the match, leaving the old-timers to slug out some hard fought draws. Crewe C 2.5 – Crewe B 1.5

Now I think about it, if Crewe CC fielded a junior team it might come out on top against a good few teams in the NSDCA league. On Monday night Jamie Roberts, another junior, played his first game for the A team. Even though he was full of germs, he was close to winning. One of those fundamental rules in chess is that if you are a pawn or two up in a rook ending, it’s a draw; whereas if you are a pawn or two down in a rook ending, it’s a loss. In the end Jamie had to agree a draw in time trouble.

Great to have Jamie on the “A” team, even though our trip to Macclesfield did not go too well. Things started badly with a battle with the ticket machine in car park, and only got worse. We came away on the wrong end of the 2.5/1.5 scoreline.

The club secretary keeps an eye on the numbers and told me that on Tuesday “only” 53 players turned up. The league is now under way, as are the main internal competitions. Harry G is already on 2/2 in the main championship; there may or may not be a substantial reward for the person who can end his 2 year unbeaten run in this event. Just to show that our older members can play a bit, Neville is on 2/2 in the second division, and Phil G is on 2/2 in the third division.

It’s all happening, come down to St Mary’s for a look.

Crewe held its first all junior tournament at the Caritas Centre on Saturday 20th September

We had 42 players with 2 sections

The Open only had 4 players but it was still a tough fight to decide the final position

The U1300 section was well represented by Alsager Owls, Crewe, Potteries Juniors, Gables Tunstall and Stafford Library.

A big thank you to all that supported the event.

The team trophy went to the Gables

Open Winner Oskar Crewe

Two of the tournament helper Ruby and Emma

The NSDCA league season got underway this week with 3 of our 12 teams in action, while 2 teams were sidelined by opposition postponements.

Div 2 – D team – won at Cheddleton 2.5-1.5, with David H winning and draws from Simon L, Ebube and Pawel.

Div 4 – I team – won against Gables B 2.5-1.5, with Tim and Phil winning, backed up by Steve B’s draw.

Div 5 – K team – lost vs Meir 1-3, with Lee B picking up our sole point.

Meanwhile at a packed Caritas Centre on Tuesday (59 members + 2 visiting teams), the Summer knockout semi-finals were all completed to give line ups for the finals as:

OPEN – Richard L vs Carmel

MAJOR – George Bulbeck vs Tommy

INTER – Dave R vs Ian

Oh what a night – to remember – on 9th September 2025 as we held the 11th Annual Time & Point Handicap with a massive 56 players taking part; 60 members attending in a record turn-out plus a number of spectators and parents sat around the hall’s perimiter.

As usual the night started with a little expected chaos, as two members failed to arrive out of the 55 entries which caused hiccups with 1st round pairings. This was compensated for by two late entries and just after a bye was awarded to the odd numbered mid range player, we had another new arrival.

This was the first time the club was using its Swiss Manager software and Harry Gardiner took on the challenge of sorting byes, withdrawals, new players and pairings which was pretty daunting. Harry did a phenomenal job, after Keith Dudeney had expertly input all the 1st round results, as we emerged with pairings for the 2nd round at 8.25pm, a little behind schedule. However the 2nd round started at exactly the same time as the 2024 event, which was a credit to Harry’s efforts bearing in mind we had 20 more players than the previous year

After this things ran a little more smoothly as the Events officer started reducing time allowed in all games with an excess of 20 minutes in total. As regular readers will know this 5 round event is unique as it gives handicaps to most players to add to their scores as well as extra time for lower rated members. This makes it very difficult for the top players to win the competition as they need to score 5/5 to have a chance.

By the time we got to the end of Round 4, it was time to work out who had a chance of winning before we started the final round. And what excitement this created as it was announced 3 players were on 4.5 pts after 4 rounds (incl handicaps) and then there were a further 11 on 4pts, with 3 players on 4/4 and others on 4 pts due to their handicaps being added to their running scores. On top of all this David missed one other player who was 4.5 pts !

Luckily as the results rolled in for round 5, just one player emerged with 5.5 pts which was Richard Fish who had scored 4/5 plus his 1.5pts handicap. From the group of 3 who were on 4/4, two players drew and eliminated themselves from the Trophy chase, as Carmel Barwick was the only member to complete the course with 5/5 which guarantees an automatic share of 1st place.

And so we came to the conclusion of the competition which required the Armageddon tie-break to be applied. Carmel won the toss for choice of colour, selecting white thus gaining an extra minute on her standard allowance of 5 mins, while Richard had 11 minutes and just needed a draw to win the trophy.

See the play-off game here …. which ended in dramatic style with Carmel emerging victorious with just two seconds to spare. A great credit to both finalists who played in such a sporting manner, with chairman Dave applying his Arbiter skills in a tense climax.

The scores and results can be seen on the sheet below taken from Swiss-Manager, with handicaps added afterwards to show Final scores and positions

Congratulations to Carmel who becomes the 10th different winner of this event, with Richard as runner-up. There were some great performances as youngsters JJ Patrick and Jack Patullo finished joint 3rd with 5 pts alongside the ever-youthful Mal Green.

Thanks go to everyone who played and contributed to a fantastic night, and special mentions go to Harry and Keith for their work with the Swiss-Manager software and the team of clock setters (Harry, Dave Price, Lukasz) as well as those that set up the room at the start of the evening (Barrie, Doug, Harry & Dave P).

Tuesday 2 September

It has been a long hot one, and my tomato plants are still gamely popping out the last goodies of the summer, but time stops for no chess club, and the internal individual leagues are slowly starting to bud some results. Nev, in Divison 2, Phl and Tim in Divison 3 and Ian in Divison 4, all bagged points.

No less than 37 games were played in the Grand Prix Rapidplay on Tuesday. Yup; 37. The Grand Prix is a great new internal tournament special to Crewe Chess Club. It was dreamed up as a simple way of getting new and lower rated players as much rated chess as they can eat. If you enter this contest, you can play as many rapidplay games as you like. The winner is the one who has the highest pecentage score of those who have played 10 games or more. This week Harry and Dave H were kept busy by a heaving pack of players, desperate for another game, and another and another. Jack Patullo, and Freddy Lee Cooper are vying for first place in a competition that will end soon.

The club social room is normally packed, as you can see below, with people playing skittles, bug house, moaning about defeats, and so on. This week things were different, the room was made ready for club legend Richard Lee, who had prepared a training session for us; move over Ben Finegold. Richard has long been concerned about how rubbish we all are and has beeen threatening to teach us some stuff for ages.

As Alekhine said (maybe), chess is an ocean where a gnat may drink and an elephant may bathe. Chess is endlessly beautiful, so where do you start? Well, Richard lead us to the shore and took us for a paddle into bishop endings. He had clearly done a lot of prep for this, not only collecting some fascinating problems, but also he had put it all on powerpoint, to make it easier for us to get what he was on about. He would set up a position, let us argue about it until ours heads hurt, and then he would explain the solution. Some positions were solved by one or two of us, after much nudging. Some of the problems we found impossible, but, knowing us, that will not surprise you. It was a very enjoyable session and, on behalf of the baffled and delighted bunch of members who took part, I cannot thank Richard enough.

Below is one of the positions we looked at, a composition from way back in 1928, by the Sarychev brothers; a thing of beauty is a joy forever.

(white to play and draw)

Just a quick note to say we had 171 attendances averaging out at 43 per week for the month of August, despite dozens of members taking a break or being on holiday. This represents an increase of more than 28% on last year when we had 133 attendances, and is pretty remarkable for the time of year.

September promises to be a great month as members return after summer/school holidays and we have the following scheduled itinerary:

Sept 2nd – 6.30pm onwards – summer knockout semi-finals, Grand prix Rapidplay and Club championship games.

Sept 2nd – 8pm – Richard Lee coaching session in small room

Sept 9th – 7.20 arrival for 7.30pm start in the Annual Time & Point Handicap event for the Les Hall Memorial Trophy – all members welcome. Please let David Hulme know if you can play in this fantastic annual event.

Sept 16th – NSDCA 2025/26 League season commences with four home matches for teams A (div 1) , I (div 4) , K & L (div 5), together with outstanding knock-out semi finals and the usual club night with internal competitions and social chess in the small room.

Sept 23rd and 30th – Usual club nights with mix of NSDCA League matches, social chess in the small room and internal competitions in the main hall, noting 30th September is the cut-off for the Summer knock-outs and Grand Prix Rapidplay.

Finally a gentle reminder to all members that annual subs are now due. Adults £30 and Juniors £20 (U18 @ 1.9.25) for the year 1.9.25 to 31.8.26

1. PRE-SEASON MATCH: We suffered a big defeat in Tuesday’s (19th August) Pre-season challenge match as Chester made their first trip to Crewe since we formed our club in 2014. We sent the invitation a few weeks ago and after an original plan to play 10 boards each, Chester pulled out the stops to increase the teams to 13-a-side. Like the annual Wallasey challenge, the idea was to make teams reasonably close in ratings and we succeeded by selecting teams with just a 26 total point rating difference. As the News at Ten gongs sounded the match was perfectly balanced at 4-4. After that things went down hill for us as Chester reeled in several wins to emerge comfortable winners 8.5 to 4.5. Full score card is on the LMS.

It is planned for us to take a team of up to 20 players next August, to see if we can gain revenge !

2. SUMMER KNOCKOUTS: After the recent AGM the draws were held for the semi-finals of our Summer knockouts as follows:

OPEN: Carmel vs Oskar and Lukasz vs Richard

MAJOR: Tommy vs Doug and Nathan vs George (Bulbeck)

INTER: Simon Humphries vs Gerald and Freddie vs David Roberts

All games to be played by 16th September, with Simon already through to the INTER final.

3. SUMMER GRAND PRIX U1300 RAPIDPLAY: This new event is well in progress and is a little different to most of our competitions. As many players take holidays and summer breaks, this competition winner’s trophy will be awarded (at the next AGM) to the player with the highest percentage score rather than the most points, as at the closing date of 30th September. Any player who has completed less than 10 games will not be eligible to win the competition and players can play a maximum of two games against any other opponent, with one as white and black.

4. CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP 2025/26 – The new competitions start on Tuesday 26th August. Pairings have been posted on the club’s LMS section. There are five divisions this season due to the increase in number of members. The pairings can be seen by following the links from the fixtures tab which show all NSDCA fixtures (once they are published) as well as all Internal Competitions.

5. TIME & POINT BLITZ HANDICAP: This will take place on Tuesday 9th September, commencing at 7.30pm. It is a five round (swiss-type) blitz event with a combination of different times being allocated to all members to complete their games and handicap points (between 0.5 and 2.5) to add to players scores on top of their results. The idea is to make sure lowest rated players have a chance of competing with the highest rated.

This will be the 11th annual competition and is usually chaotic and a lot of fun. The winner will receive the coveted “Les Hall Memeorial Trophy” at the next AGM.

PLEASE CONFIRM WITH DAVID H IF YOU WISH TO PLAY IN THIS EVENT ASAP.

6. NSDCA LEAGUE SEASON 2025/26: Fixtures are due to be published by 31st August. Since our AGM on 12th August, the league has decided to run an extra division so there will now be 5 divisions and therefore we have chosen to enter two more teams (K&L) into division 5, making 12 teams from Crewe.

7. ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS: The secretary has recently sent an email to all members asking for payment of subscriptions for the year 1st September 2025 to 31st August 2026. Adults £30 p.a and Junior (U 18@ 1.9.25) £20 p.a

8. Any questions on the above please contact secretary David Hulme or any other member of the committee.

Last night saw our Annual General Meeting being held in front of a record attendance of 43 members plus a few guests and potential new members, after receiving 15 apologies for absence (mainly due to holidays).

The main highlight of the night was as usual, the Presentation of Trophies. This year the guest presenter was our top player Richard Lee who continues to attend the club every week despite a 100 + mile trek each way ! Before making the awards Richard told the assembled audience that he felt priviliged to be asked and how proud he was to be associated with such a friendly club which in his words; is the best he has come accross in 20 years or so of competitive chess, which includes playing 4NCL chess for Cambridge University.

The presentation took much longer than previous years due to the volume of awards. There were 15 internal club trophies presented, plus 7 NSDCA league trophies and the South Cheshire Shield. To supplement this there were further awards made by Steve Ballantyne to individual members of the victorious South Cheshire Shield “A” team and the Perry Trophy “A” team.

After the prolonged meeting, we held a four team Blitz competition with 28 players staying behind until after 10.30pm. The four highest rated players in the club were assigned to different teams with Gee Cross’s team (Crewe 4) emerging as the winners on board difference just ahead of Crewe 2 led by Harry Gardiner. Full details are shown on the LMS under AGM Team Blitz

Thanks to Andrew Crosby and Saul Marks

Our club has two articles published in the ECF magazine

Crewe Congress 2025

WC Challenge

Full Magazine

CREWE WIN TROPHY BACK IN STYLE

July 22, 2025

The fourth annual “WC Challenge” match between Wallasey and Crewe was played on Monday 21 July, to round out our 2024/25 season. This unique fixture sees the away team provide a teamsheet and the home team select players to match them.

Following Wallasey’s first victory in the series last year, Crewe’s captain Dave Price was determined to win the enormous trophy back and compiled the biggest team yet. Wallasey captain Alan Kelly and vice-captain Saul Marks managed to rustle up an excellent set of opponents and, after several days of players dropping out on both sides and others subbing in, the teams settled at 32 players apiece. Crewe outgraded Wallasey in the top third of the teamsheet, with the middle third very closely matched, while the bottom third saw Wallasey’s players hold the higher ratings. Incredibly, across 32 boards, the difference in ratings between the sides was just 63 ELO points in Crewe’s favour, with each side outgrading the other on 16 boards each.

A coach was hired and Crewe’s (motley?! – sorry, couldn’t resist!) crew made the journey to Wallasey to wrest back the trophy. On a warm night at the Conservative Club, fortified by an excellent supply of sandwiches and biscuits in the kitchen, as many players as there are squares on a chessboard sat down to do battle.

It was almost 9.00pm before the first results started coming in and, as expected, many of the lower boards were the first to finish. The less expected element is that Crewe won the bottom four boards, despite being outgraded, and raced into a 7-0 lead before Chris Clemenson on board 21 finally got Wallasey off the mark by beating Nathan Fourie.

After his game finished, young Seth Marks took charge of the results entry duties, which was somewhat less than straightforward, as the projector resolution issues have still yet to be resolved.

Wallasey staged something of a fightback, with Steve Simm (board 18), Saul Marks (24) and Tom Whitby (10) all winning, to pull the score back to 9-4. Graham Heath (26) and Phil Owen (5) joined the list of Wallasey winners, while Ken Jones (17), Paul Evans (2) and Phil Davies (3) all contributed draws, but the combined might of club champion Mike Coffey (4) and exciting juniors Joe Ledgerton (6), Thomas Moran (8) and Terrence Jiang (13) failed to register anything among them against very strong opponents. Even Chinenye Basil-Nwachuku (12), who joined Wallasey from Crewe shortly after last year’s fixture, couldn’t stop his former team’s juggernaut (I thought they came in a coach?!) from inching ever closer to victory.

Their excellent start and subsequent gradual accumulation of points had brought the score to 15½-7½. A rare defeat for draw specialist Ian Stent on board 23 against Keith Dudeney took Crewe over the line, securing their third win in four years.

But there was plenty more chess to be played and increasing numbers of spectators clustered around the remaining few boards. Additional wins for Alan Jackson (board 16) and Martin Cockerill (25) were balanced by defeat for Steve Pickles (1) who spent a long time analysing the game with his opponent, Richard Lee, as everyone tidied up around them. Paul Greenway’s game on board 27 was the last to finish, as he finally overcame Phil Wright, after spending much of the second half of the game in time trouble, with Katie Lamb notating for him.

The final score was a convincing 20-12 win for Crewe, which was celebrated. In a typically raucous ceremony, Wallasey captain Alan Kelly, who had presented his opposite number with a bottle of red wine and a large glass on a tray mid-evening, now handed over the trophy and, in keeping with the competition’s name, duly received the traditional toilet roll in return!

Thank you to all the organisers who spent weeks putting this fixture together, the supporters who came to enjoy the spectacle and the volunteers who lugged equipment and furniture, set up boards and tidied up afterwards. As always, it was a great occasion with many a laugh and a wonderful way to end the season. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait till we return in September!

Full match card: https://lms.englishchess.org.uk/lms/fixture/94665

Photo album to follow in due course.