News

A surprisingly busy week saw nearly 30 members attending the club on Wednesday at a time when many clubs are closed for a summer break. It is testament to the club’s success that we have had 10 new visitors to the club over the last 3 weeks and we hope to see you (and many others) again soon.

Our Summer knock-out has had its first major shock as No 1 seed Martin Burns has been beaten by No 5 seed Rick Renegade in Round 2. Martin has had the toughest draw with a 1st round clash that went to an Armageddon play-off against Neville Layhe before proceeding to Round 2 where he was held to a draw before falling to Rick’s Blitz prowess in another play-off. New favourite Harry Gardiner took the scalp of chairman Dave Price in Round 1 to move to the last 16.

We still have two outstanding games from Round 1, while Rick is joined by Julian Hawthorne and Simon Layhe in the quarter-finals with a further five 2nd round games to be completed.

The week ahead will be our final games in the Summer League – The South Cheshire Shield. So far we have used 17 players and hope to allow one or two more to play in the final round of matches this week.

The North Staffs League had a preliminary meeting on 11th July, and will be proposing all teams are 4 boards for the new season starting in October. The number of teams in the league will be known after the league’s AGM on 8th August, but we are hoping to run at least 6 teams, with a couple of teams in each of the three divisions suggested. It is hoped there will be a further division to encourage new players and lower graded players to compete against each other.

Our own club AGM will be held on the last Wednesday in August (as the last two years) on 31st August. The agenda and reports will be sent by email in due course.

It’s been a busy 7 days for the club, starting with a promotional display at Nantwich’s town centre last Saturday with several new potential members attending the Mals on Wednesday 6th July.

Tuesday night saw us involved in a Triangular Rapidplay match with Wallasey and Chester, taking part at the Town Crier Hotel in Chester. There were 8 boards per team, with each player having one game against each of the other teams and having one game with white and black. It could not have been closer at the end of the 1st round as all three clubs had scored 4 out of 8. However our Rapidplay experience was probably the deciding factor as we managed to dominate the 2nd round scoring 7 pts out of 8, and emerge as the clear winners with a score of 11/16, with Chester scoring 7pts and Wallasey 6pts. Below is a link to the score for the 3 matches involved.

Match results

Wednesday night saw our two teams go head to head in the Summer League – the South Cheshire Shield (SCS). Both captains generously dropped themselves to allow others to play, and the match ended in a 2-2 draw with wins for Karl Lockett and Nigel Gardner for the “A” team, with Pawel Stanny and Matthew Dean being successful for the “B” team. The B team currently sit top of the SCS, but with only one game to go look likely to be overtaken by favourites Alsager who have a game in hand trailing by just one point.

 

 

Two weekends and two congresses for Oskar.

This Weekend he took part in the Warrington Junior Chess Championships

5-Round Rapid Play ECF rated Swiss tournament 15 mins  plus 10 seconds

His section had a total of 31 entrants and again he never  lost a game with an impressive  scored  of 4.5 points from 5 games.

2nd place Oskar proudly displaying another trophy

Full results

Other News

Members Martin, Karl, Harry, Dave P and Dave H all attended a  Societies spectacular at Nantwich today.

It was a Great success thank you to all the people that stopped to chat and play  chess.

We hope to see you all soon at Crewe Chess Club.

 

Oskar took part in the Mega Finals today at Charlton School Telford it was a 6 round tournament time control 15 minutes plus 10 seconds per move.

Megafinal. A one-day Megafinal is held within most UK counties to determine the strongest player from the county or local area within each gender and year combination. Each such player is titled Supremo (boys) or Suprema (girls). The top player plus all those scoring 3.5/6 or better qualify for the Gigafinal.

Oskar scored an impressive  6 points from 6 games competing in the  U10

Oskar proudly displaying his trophy

Full results 

Last week saw the club start it’s first ever Summer Knockout. 28 members including two more brand new ones decided to enter the competition. Full details of the 1st round draw are shown by following the Internal Competitions tab. The heavyweight contest  of the 1st round draw saw top seed Martin Burns drawn against another of our leading players – Neville Layhe. After a hard fought draw, the players agreed to wait 7 days before playing the Armageddon play-off, which should be played this week in front of a large audience. Three other 1st round games were completed with Doug Barnett, James Marshall and Kobus Nienaber all making it safely through to Round 2 (the last 16).

This week sees the 3rd round of fixtures in the South Cheshire Summer Shield as our B team make the short trip to table-topping Alsager on Tuesday, and the A team welcome Stafford to The Mals for the first time since the Covid outbreak in March 2020.

Both of the Shield teams have a 50% record so far, having won one and lost one each and have a further 3 matches remaining in the campaign.

Things quieten down during the summer months, although the club remains open. Many established clubs have summer breaks and get back together in September for the start of the “traditional” season.

So what is happening at Crewe during this summer.

1. We have two teams playing in the South Cheshire League.
2. The club is open every Wednesday, and members can play some friendly games or choose to have a more serious game (counting towards ECF Grading) if they wish – from a choice of long play or rapid play options.
3. We are starting a new event shortly – a Summer knockout which is open to all members and is run on an FA Cup style basis.
4. We look to see if other clubs wish to play some form of match and we have come up with a new venture – a Triangular Rapidplay Match – between Chester, Crewe and Wallasey to be played on 5th July at Chester.
5. We will be holding our Annual General Meeting (with its prize giving) after the South Cheshire League has finished.

For details on any of the above please contact our chairman – Dave Price, or Events officer – David Hulme.

Last week saw the end of the club’s internal winter competitions, where members were allocated to divisions 1,2 and 3 to compete in all-play-all sections. We had started back in September with 14 players in division 1, 10 players in division 2 and an unknown number in division 3 to accommodate new members as they arrived through the season.

Division 1, seen as the “club championship” was extremely competitive with players expected to play twice against everyone else in the section. It became obvious partway through the season it was too much to expect everyone to fulfill an obligation to play 28 games, especially with 5 teams playing in the North Staffs League. Accordingly numbers were reduced to 10 with those remaining facing a maximum of 18 games. The tournament was eventually won by Harry Gardiner with a superb score of 11.5/14 to become club champion. Harry was pushed all the way by Martin Burns, who finished as runner-up with 10/14. Neville Layhe steadily moved up the table to finish 3rd with 8.5/15. It was great to see the level of commitment as 8 players managed to play 11 or more games.

Division 2 did not have the same impact on those involved, and saw the level of competition fade dramatically after christmas. This is reflected in the final scores with Nigel Gardner winning the section on a score of 6/7 having not played a game since January, and Lee Tilton finishing 2nd with a score of 5/7 likewise being unable to play since January.

Division 3 saw some new faces join in the competition with a total of 9 members participating. The stand out performers here were Mike Keenan with 5/5 and Oskar Jarzynski 5/6 sharing the 1st prize.

Congratulations to all the winners:

Div 1- Harry Gardiner; Div 2 – Nigel Gardiner and Div 3’s joint winners – Mike Keenan and Oskar Jarzynski

Last Sunday we held the club’s 3rd Rapidplay Congress at the impressive Ibis Styles Hotel. Thanks to the usual late rush of entries we managed to increase our numbers to 115, up from 91 in 2019 – so many thanks to all the competitors. The number was swelled by the mass ranks from our own club with 20 or so of our own members participating. From the many comments we received it seems the Congress was very popular, with superb management led by Chief Arbiter Matthew Carr and his assistant Lance Leslie-Smith. Prize winners are shown on our Congress Results section, but the highlight for us was seeing everyone having a good time and the return of congress chess back in Crewe after a 3 year break . We had a couple of prize winners from our own club including Martin Burns and Bart Fajfer taking a share of 2nd place in the Major and George Bulbeck taking a share of 3rd place in the Minor. We were delighted with our juniors who excelled as Joe Hignett racked up an impressive 4/7 and Oskar Jarzynki with 3.5/7. The juniors were playing in their first ever congress alongside others Jarek Czyz (Major) and Mark Randell (minor).

Congratulations to Jarek Czyz who managed to clinch our 8-Round Swiss RP on Wednesday night. On another busy night at the Mals Club we had nearly 30 members taking part in Rounds 7 & 8, including several newcomers. Jarek started the final evening of the event in the joint lead on 5/6, and fortune smiled a little as the other joint leader was unable to attend. However with Karl Lockett and Lukasz Michalek in contention on 4.5 pts, nothing could be taken for granted. As Lukasz held Jarek to a draw and Karl winning in Round 7, Jarek and Karl now shared the lead on 5.5/7, with Martin Burns and Harry Gardiner a mere half point behind.

The final round pairings saw Jarek paired with David Hulme, as he had already played the other contenders, Harry with Karl and Martin with Lukasz. Jarek was too good for David and secured the trophy with a win. Harry and Martin had to settle for runners-up spots after successes in the final round left them on 6pts each at the end of the tournament.

This week sees the start of the South Cheshire Summer League with both of our teams playing away from home at Fenton and Kidsgrove respectively. Wednesday night will see some more games in our Winter Events which are moving towards their conclusion.

With the VMS League season over and a short break before the South Cheshire Shield League kicks off, attention turns to our internal tournaments. The internal divisions 1,2 and 3 all started back in September and complete their marathons on 30th June.

In division 1, the top players have just 3 games to go, with Harry Gardiner adding to his lead this week. Harry has moved to 10.5/13 with only one defeat this season, and has already won the 2021 Summer and Time & Point Handicap tournaments. He is the hot favourite to win division 1, and stands one point off the two leaders in the Swiss Rapidplay. His nearest rival in division 1 is Martin Burns who was pegged back this week in a draw with Neville Layhe, to drop behind on 9/13. David Lambton sits in 3rd with 7/11 so has five more game to play if he can squeeze them all in.

Division 2 has seen little activity since the start of 2022, with Nigel Gardner still leading on 6/7, one point ahead of Lee Tilton on 5/7. While Nigel and Lee have other commitments, George Bulbeck is reeling them in and sits in 3rd place on 4.5/8. If George can arrange enough of his remaining games then he has every chance of overtaking the leaders.

Division 3 has become a two horse race with Mike Keenan in the ascendancy. Mike has a 100% record with 5/5, and beat his key rival recently – our 10 year old rising star, Oskar Jarzynski (5/6). Mike is favourite if he can complete the remaining games with the biggest obstacle being availability of other players.

Finally, please note that the final night of our Swiss Rapidplay for Rounds 7 & 8 will take place on Wednesday 18th May, where so far we have had 36 members take part in our largest ever internal event.