News

What a week it’s been for our club with 5 matches taking place.

The first match saw Dave Price’s C team travel to face Meir “A” on Monday night. The team was strengthened by the addition of Amy Lovatt on board 2 as she made a return after a short study break. Julian Bulbeck (bd3) and Dave Price picked up good draws on the bottom boards against the grades before Karl Lockett extended his unbeaten run with another strong performance on bd 1 to win and take his current rating for the season to over 180. With just a draw needed from Amy to secure the match she played confidently to go the distance and pick up the full point to make the final score 3-1, and move the C team top of division 3 with their 3rd win and 100% record.

Tuesday night it was the turn of our Wirral League  team as they travelled to Chester’s Town Crier Hotel to play against Chester F. An early loss on bd 2 was soon equalized by skipper David Hulme on bd 3. Matters progressed smoothly as Chris Rhodes won shortly thereafter and Simon Layhe won comfortably to ensure match victory. This left Bart Fajfer in play on board 1 who used up nearly all of the maximum 3 hours allowed with his opponent, before trapping a piece to give us a final score of 4-1. After 3 matches we trail leaders Wallasey 2 on board scores, as both teams currently have 100% records.

Wednesday night saw the Mals club buzzing with activity again with approx 15 members turning up for the early 6.30 session. With the E team playing away at Newcastle F, there was still another 28 chess players in attendance including the opposition teams as matches commenced. The “A” team hosted Macclesfield in division 2 and the “D” team hosted Newcastle “D” in division 4.

The “A” team had the club’s top 3 players available for the first time this season as Bart (163) and Ola Titiloye (162) allowed Karl Lockett (149) to play on board 3 for the first time since 2015. Captain David Hulme (135) could not play due to the minimum counting grade rule, which allowed Simon Layhe and Chris Rhodes to makeup the team. The match started ominously as we lost on bd 4, before Ola got us on the scoreboard with a draw on bd 2. Bart Fajfer outgunned his opponent to level the scores with a win on top board. The match was to go deep into increment time and was delicately balanced. Chris Rhodes on bd 5 played a beautiful endgame under extreme time pressure, with less than one minute left (against his opponent’s 20 mins)  around the 40 move mark, he forced the win after another 30-odd moves. The bd 3 game was still in play although Karl had engineered pass-pawns on both sides of the board in a difficult endgame of opposite colour bishops. After much perseverance Karl duly completed his win and take the team to 3.5-1.5 win, which shows us as league leaders at this premature stage after two matches.

The “D” team faced an experienced Newcastle “D” team and could not find a path to victory on any of the four boards. Just two draws were all we had to show on the scorecard as Doug Barnett (bd2) and Harry Gardiner (bd3) both drew as the team was defeated 3-1. Captain Les Hall will be hoping for a better performance when they face his former club, Alsager, next week.

The third match for us on the night saw captain Nigel Gardner take his “E” team troops to face Newcastle “F”, without his top player Simon Layhe who was required for “A” team duties. Fortunately Newcastle fielded a weaker than expected team that gave us a big grade advantage on bottom two boards which allowed Adam Fields (bd3) and captain Nigel Gardner to gain two wins before Dave Price enjoyed a win on bd 2. Julian Bulbeck outgraded by approx 20 pts on top board battled long and hard before falling to the Newcastle captain, Alberto Gissi. The final score was 3-1 as the “E” team made it 3 out of 3 in pursuit of the division 5 title defence.

In the club’s Rapid-play Division 2 section, junior Lukasz Michalek added another point from two games to extend his lead at the top of the table with 8/12, as Nigel (6/10) and Kobus Nienaber (5/8) were occupied in matches.

Next week sees another busy schedule, with a preview of the division 3 derby between our C and B teams to follow over the weekend !

With 3 matches to report on this week, we start off with the “Open Cup” match played at Macclesfield on Monday. With 4 of the club’s top 6 players absent it was always going to be tough in the six-board match and made worse as Macclesfield used a stronger line up than their normal division two team and therefore we were massive underdogs. It wasn’t long before the gulf in class showed as we lost quickly on board 5 to trail 1-0. At the 90 minute mark it appeared we were holding our own on all the other boards and even had an advantage on board 6 where Dave Price had gained an exchange in a promising position. As the games moved through their middle phases towards the end-game phase this is where the wheels started to come off our bus as firstly skipper David Hulme lost a promising position on bd 3 and shortly afterwards our bd 4 lost two pawns to face an inevitable defeat to leave us 3-0 down. Our first draw was salvaged on bd 6 before another draw was picked up by Karl Lockett on bd 2. The bd 1 game appeared to be much in our favour before a piece sacrifice from Bart Fajfer was not followed up properly and allowed his opponent to escape from a draw by repetition in looking for a win which left the back door open to a mating attack. The final score being a comprehensive KO , losing 5-1. A special mention should be made of our junior reserve Harry Gardiner who played his highest grade opponent to date and gained a draw, thanks to Macclesfield providing an additional (non-counting) board.

Wednesday night saw the Mals Club with another full house as we entertained Cheddleton F and Meir C in division 5, making the total number of players present 28.

Our “E” team had a slight grade advantage over a very experienced Chedd “F” team. First out of the traps was Dave Price on bd 2 with a smooth win following another game in which he gained an exchange. This time he converted it to a win following attacking play with Rooks on the 7th rank. On bd 3 Julian Bulbeck had a disaster on the way to the match with crashing his car, and the theme continued as he gave away his queen from a winning position but managed to hold out for a draw. With Colin Abell converting a big king-side attack for the visitors on bd 1 the score was levelled. Reinhard Haack was left in play with spectators from both sides gathered around the bd 4 game as our man used up his time wisely to make sure he gained the full point to push the “E” team over the winning line by narrow margin of 2.5-1.5.

The “F” team faced an even tougher challenge as they conceded over 130 grading points to a strong Meir C team. With board 4 going the way of the visitors it looked ominous for Nigel Gardiner’s team. Kobus Neinaber, one of our recent recruits played superbly to win his game on bd 3 and keep the match in the balance. 16 year old Lukasz Michalek earned a brilliant draw against his opponent graded 52 points higher to leave the skipper in play on bd 1. Nigel had his back to the wall in a very cramped position on bd 1 but defended robustly to prevent his experienced opponent graded 43 pts higher from making any match winning breaks. The final score ended 2-2 which must rank as one of the best results ever for our newest team under the positive leadership of captain Nigel, who has the duel responsibility of looking after both of our division 5 teams.

Another few games were played in Rapid-play division 1, while our two latest members played a division 2 long-play game which saw Ben Harrision successful. In addition to these competitive games, several members took the opportunity to analyse some recent games as well as a bit of Blitz-chess ! Looking ahead to next week we have five matches including three on Wednesday which is sure to test our resources to the extreme.

The club has had three matches during this past week; Alsager A vs Crewe C, Crewe B vs Cheddleton D both in division 3 and Crewe F vs Stafford B in division 5.

The first match saw our C team up against a much weaker than expected Alsager team who were without all of their top five players and therefore fielded a team that was almost 120 points below the limit allowed. Despite being vastly outgraded they put a spirited fight before we ran out winners by  the score of 3.5 – 0.5 with wins by Karl Lockett, David Hulme and captain Dave Price and a draw from Julian Bulbeck. The win put the C team top of division 3 although it is far too early in the season to make any conclusions from this.

Wednesday night saw the Mals Club busy as usual with the other two matches and a hefty number of members playing a combination of friendlies and Rapid-play competition games. The B team had its first choice squad playing against a slightly lower graded Chedd team. The bookies would have predicted the draws that resulted from the board 1 and 3 games as Neville Layhe and Chris Rhodes held the husband & wife Blackburns. The remaining two games firstly saw captain Rick Renegade chasing a win when he might have settled for a draw with Rook and pawn vs 2 bishops but allowed his opponent (Phil Birks as always with the black pieces) to gain the upper hand and succumb to defeat on board 2. Simon Layhe was left to save the match for the Bees as he defeated his lower grade opponent to continue his fine current run of form which shows him unbeaten for the club throughout the Summer Shield and new season in both North Staffs and Wirral Leagues. The final score being 2-2.

The headline performance came from the F team as they conceded an 80+ grade point deficit to Stafford B. However great performances from skipper Nigel Gardner on bd 1 and Adam Fields on bd 2 held their opponents to unexpected draws. The icing on the cake was provided by Kobus Nienaber and a jubilant Phil Wright on boards 3 and 4 as they both shocked their opponents with stunning knock out blows to give the team a deserved victory by 3-1, to inflict defeat on the then league leaders.

Only a couple of competitive games took place in the Rapid-play division 1 with leader Bart Fajfer suffering his first defeat in the competition to the “in-form” Karl Lockett, as they shared a win a piece. This extends Bart’s lead as he moved on to 15.5 pts from 17 games, which is almost unassailable now.

A quiet week for matches has seen just two teams in action with the Major Cup (U150) team at Alsager on Tuesday and the Perry A team (U110) hosting Fenton on Wednesday.

The U150 team had a big slice of fortune to beat local rivals Alsager by score of 3.5-1.5. The match started well for us as Chris Rhodes picked up an early win on bd 5, and captain David Hulme gained a draw on bd 3. However the outcome looked gloomy shortly afterwards as we were trailing by a pawn on bd 2 and a piece for two pawns on bd 4. If both these boards succumbed to defeat we were certain to be eliminated on tie break rules. The match was levelled as Alsager’s bd 2 Steve Brown put our man to the sword after gaining more pawns, and we now needed at least 1.5 pts from the two remaining games in play. Lucky for us, Simon Layhe on bd4 managed to increase his pawns and sole piece activity to complicate matters and leave his opponent very short of time, so much so that the game was lost on time despite having material advantage. Meanwhile on bd 1 Karl Lockett and his opponent were down to a few seconds each as Karl engineered a decisive passed pawn. Eventually Karl confirmed victory at around 10.40pm in a game where we could not keep up with recording the moves, to leave a flattering result for us.

On Wednesday another packed house filled the Mals Club, with over 20 members in attendance plus our visitors from Fenton. First off the mark was Kobus Nienaber on bd 4 with a win from being a minor piece down. Fortune favoured his attacking play as his opponent missed a key move allowing Kobus to assault the King and gain a major piece and force the win. On bd 2 a level game ended suddenly when our man had to resign after feeling ill and going home. On bd 1 Harry Gardiner appeared to be held as his opponents Bishop deprived Harry’s knight of any activity despite Harry’s pawn advantage. However after some time Harry’s knight had broken through to pick up two more pawns and lead to a comfortable win making it 2-1 for us. The final game saw the two captains battle it out, with Les Hall for us and Robert West for the visitors. A strange position had developed to leave Fenton with Q, 2Rs, and 6P vs 2Rs, 2Bs and 6P but with major pawn chains favouring our man. The Fenton player could not free up his Queen or Rooks despite valiant attempts with his time sliding away and sportingly agreed a draw which allowed our Perry “A” team to progress to the semi-finals alongside our Perry “B” team.

There was another two new faces appear at the club who were entertained with some friendly games, amongst the other 18 members in attendance. There were a few more games played in the club’s Rapid-play events which resulted in Bart Fajfer claiming two more scalps to extend his lead in division 1 as he heads certainly towards the trophy and Nigel Gardner gained two more points to join the race for the division 2 RP title which has become a 3-horse race between Lukasz Michalek, Nigel and Kobus.

This weekend has seen the 3rd Crewe Congress take place in style at the Crewe Ibis Hotel with a 28% increase in entries from last year, making a total of 141 as the organisers went shopping for more tables on Friday. Equipment supplier, Chess Essentials was evicted from his intended room and moved to the Hotel Foyer in order to accomodate the flood of last minute applications to play, and unfortunately we even had to decline some latecomers.

The Congress has been another roaring success thanks to the hard work put in by the Congress Committee especially organiser Neville Layhe, with Les Hall and David Price from the club, together with the Arbiter Matthew Carr.

Many thanks go to all the players who travelled the length and breadth of the country to join us, from places a far as the Isle of Man, Scotland and London to name but three.

From our own club’s point of view we had great interest with nearly 50% of our members competing and taking up 13 places. The stand out performances came from the two section winners, both scoring a perfect 5/5 as Karl Lockett graded only 149 romped away with the Major Section (U165), and 15 year old Harry Gardiner justified his number 1 seeding in the Minor Section (U105).

There were other notable scores as organiser Neville Layhe finished joint second in the Major with an unbeaten 3.5/5; junior Lukasz Michalek picked up the grading prize in the Minor with the same score as Neville. Other players scoring over 50% were Adam Fields and Philip Wright scoring 3/5 in the Minor, while Dave Price’s 3.5 in the Intermediate section (U135) left him just outside the prizes in joint4th.

Full results can be seen from the Congress Results section of the website.

It is a very exciting week for the club as we embark on our 3rd (Longplay) Congress this weekend. The club is expected to provide approx 10% of the overall entries which appear to be heading towards 140 or more.

We have played four matches this week with a pleasing record of 3 wins and just 1 loss. The stand out result has to be our Perry Cup B team, our 2nd string of Under 110s going to face favourites Alsager on Tuesday night. Captain Nigel Gardner sent the following report to our Newscaster:

“Great result considering how infinitely worse our team looked on paper against a much stronger Alsager team with just about everyone expecting a fairly one sided match and so it turned out. However, contrary to the prophecies of all it was Crewe who emerged victorious and now march on to the semi-final. Crewe were massively outgraded (21 pts a board on average) but after the first 30 minutes it was evident that all was not going according to the script. All four games were even after the opening exchanges and on board 1 a virtual mirror position had been arrived at and after another half an hour of exchanging off a draw was agreed. The plan (hope) had been to scrape half a point off the top two boards and then win on 3 & 4 so we had already achieved the first objective! 20 minutes later and Lukasz on board 2 agreed another draw against his opponent graded nearly 40 points higher. What was really pleasing to observe was the time Lucasz took in the opening exchanges to provide a firm base for a competitive game. We were now ahead of schedule but Phil & Reinhard still had a long way to go.

Somehow Phil arrived at a position with 50+ minutes left and his opponent with less than 6! A couple of errors transpired on both sides but Phil always seemed to have the upper hand eventually mating his opponent who only had seconds left.

However Reinhard’s game seemed poised on a knife edge but again his opponent was under a bit of time pressure in a very close game. A loss would have meant a loss for the team on board count and we all left the room so Reinhard didn’t feel our support/pressure. 10 minutes later he threw open the doors to announce what was an unexpected but an extremely welcome victory for him and therefore a 3-1 win for the team which we all felt justly proud of.”

This result followed on from the success of our League B team playing its first match of the season against Meir A on Monday night. A superb team performance culminated in a 3.5-0.5 win as Neville Layhe (bd 1), Rick Renegade (bd 2), Simon Layhe (bd 4) all won together with a draw from Chris Rhodes. This was Rick’s first match as B team captain as he tries to follow the success of previous captain Martin Gill, who has led the Bees to the NSDCA Div 3 title twice in three years as reigning champions.

Wednesday night saw the club suffer its first loss of the new season. After 8 successive club victories in all competitions, our D team fell to Fenton C in division 4 of the NSDCA. Only Doug Barnett salvaged a draw from the match as we finished distinctly second best by score of 3.5-0.5 to Fenton. At least the D team had started well last week to hopefully stay in the title race.

The C team captained by Dave Price had decided to take on the challenge of playing in a higher division this year and so joined our B team in division 3. The first match (on Wednesday) was against a strong Newcastle C team. All of the team contributed to the score board with Julian Bulbeck leading the way with a win on bd 3, before captain Dave P won his game to push the team over the winning line following draws from Karl Lockett and David Hulme, to give the team a positive start to the season with a 3-1 win.

In the club’s Rapid-play division 1, Bart Fajfer earned another point to extend his lead, with the super score of 12.5/13.

A busy week has seen four matches take place: Wrexham vs Crewe in Wirral League div 2, Crewe “A” vs Holmes Chapel Rooks in NSDCA Div 2, Crewe F vs Crewe E in Div 5 and Cheddleton E vs Crewe D in div 4.

The Wirral team travelled to Wrexham on Tuesday as underdogs against the “new boys” in Wirral Div 2 and faced a team with grading advantage on the top four boards and dead level on bd 5. First off the mark was skipper David Hulme (bd 3)  playing with white for the first time in the Wirral League for two seasons with an early win as his opponent missed a trick in an otherwise level game. Bart Fajfer on bd 1 outplayed his Polish counter-part trapping a queen for a Knight. Despite having this decisive advantage his 177 grade opponent played on for a long time in a hopeless cause before eventually giving in. Karl Lockett on bd 2, took a draw for the team, in what he thought was a better position than his captain could assess, ensuring the team was almost home and dry. Simon Layhe outplayed his grade 147 opponent on bd 4 to achieve a superb win after a brilliant tactical finish to conclude the match with a 3.5-1.5 win, as we lost the bd 5 encounter. A brilliant start to the Wirral League season has seen us beat two promotion contenders to leave us well placed in the hunt, as well as progress through to the quarter-final of the Knockout.

Wednesday night saw another cracking night at The Mals with the club buzzing as some 22 members were in attendance plus 5 visitors from Holmes Chapel. The “A” team made a positive start to the North Staffs season with a 4-1 win as we comfortably outgraded our opponents on 3 of the 5 boards. Full points were gained on bd 1 by Bart Fajfer, bd 2 by Karl Lockett and bd 5 by Neville Layhe, with draws from the remaining games by Rick Renegade and David Hulme.

The centre of the playing room was taken up by the division 5 derby between our F & E teams. The higher graded E team were victors by 4-0 with wins by Les Hall, Reinhard Haack, Lukasz Michalek and Josh Cross as captain Nigel Gardner stood down to ensure as many players as possible get selected for these two teams. Meanwhile Harry Gardiner and Dave Price took the opportunity  to win two games a piece in Rapid-play Division 1 as they both climbed the table to 3rd and 4th place respectively. (Full details of Rapid-play on right hand side of site)

To round off the week our “D” team travelled to Cheddleton tonight to play the host’s E team in NS division 4. Another superb result saw the team grab all the points with a 4-0 scoreline thanks to wins from Neville Layhe, Doug Barnett, junior Harry Gardiner and captain Les Hall.

On Monday the club’s Wirral KO team faced it’s first ever match against Frodsham, over 7 boards and giving a 1.5pts handicap to our opponents as they are a 3rd division team compared to our 2nd division status. The match was likely to be a close run thing as we were missing 5 of our top 7 graded players.

Captain David Hulme sent the following report to our Walsall based  member Rich Wiltshir the day after the match.

Last Wednesday (19th) saw the last game of the South Cheshire Shield competition as Newcastle (the leaders) hosted our “A” team (in 2nd place) in the knowledge they needed to avoid defeat to win the Shield from our “A”s (the 2017 champions). The match was as exciting as any neutral would want and I’ve taken the liberty of hijacking the match report from Newcastle’s captain (Alberto Gissi) as follows:

Tonight’s match was a bit like a final for the South Cheshire Shield, as Newcastle and Crewe A were separated by just one point. The showdown didn’t disappoint and all the games were really hard fought!
The first one to finish was the game on board 1, where Myron managed to get a strong position and went on to win thanks also to his opponent being in time trouble. Myron had won all his previous 3 games and, considering also the impressive improvements shown since he joined the club a couple of months ago, I decided to put him on the top board with Crewe’s rising star Amy.
Meanwhile David ended up in an endgame with 3 minor pieces each, but Harry’s pawns advantage proved decisive and he managed to get a nice checkmate with his knight supported by his bishop pair.
On board 2 John offered a draw to Chris, who refused, but after the balance on board 3 shifted from a winning position for Joe to a losing one, Chris went back on his steps and offered a draw. Unluckily for him and for Crewe it was too late, as John had managed to secure a winning position, so it was his turn to refuse the offer. After that the game ended quite quickly and gave Newcastle the point that sealed the draw and the victory in the Shield.
Thanks to Crewe for a very enjoyable night and congratulations to all those who took part in this competition!

Dave Price, the non-playing Crewe “A” captain was there as a spectator and congratulated Newcastle on winning the Shield, as both teams completed the campaign unbeaten.

In other action at The Mals Club last week, Bart Fajfer took a deserved lead in division 1 of the Rapid-play with two more wins to take his score to 11.5/12 to overhaul previous leader David Hulme who remains on 11/21. In division 2 youngster Lukasz Michalek continued his leading role by taking his score to 5/8, sitting just ahead of Nigel Gardner on 4/8 and three players of 3pts (Les Hall, Kobus Nienaber and Reinhard Haack).

This report is an abbreviated version of original report dated 21st September, which disappeared due to a technical fault.

Tuesday night saw our Wirral League team start it’s division 2 campaign against last season’s runners-up Buckley/Mold 1 at The Hoole Community Centre in Chester. First to finish was David Hulme in the battle of the captains on bd 3 putting Crewe in a 1-0 lead. An exciting game on bd 1 turned decisively as debutant Bart Fajfer just made initial time control of 35 moves in 75 mins before emerging with unstoppable threats after a complicated middle game, to extend our lead to 2-0. Buckley pulled one back as Andy Barber won on bd 2 to leave the match in suspense. However superb efforts on bd 4 and 5 by Simon Layhe and Dave Price with both outgraded by 20+ pts to gain solid draws ensured the team scraped home 3-2 to leave skipper David Hulme excited about the team prospects for the season.

Wednesday night saw another 17 members at the club house. Only a hand full of rapid-play games took place but these saw major progress at the top of both divisions. In division 1, Bart Fajfer added a further 1.5 pts from 2 games against leader David Hulme to take his tally to an impressive 9.5/10, in pursuit of David’s score of 11/21.

In division 2 a new leader emerged as 16 y/o Lukasz Michalek scored 1/2 against Nigel Gardner to put Lukasz in front on 4/5. Just behind Lukasz are several players on 3 pts but have all played more games than him (with Nigel on 3/6; Kobus Nienaber on 3/6 and Reinhard Haack on 3/8).

Next Wednesday sees the final match in the South Cheshire Shield with our “A” team travelling to league leaders Newcastle. Both teams are unbeaten so far and Newcastle have the upper hand with 13pts (Pld 7 W6 D1) while our “A” team have 12pts (Pld 7 W5 D2). Newcastle just need to draw the match to win the Shield while our “A” team need a victory to retain the trophy they won in 2017. All in all it looks too close to call.