Chester had a particularly successful season in the Chester & District league. Our first and second teams captained by John Carleton and Steve Lloyd  finished first and second in division one,. In division two Piotr Siwy captained us to first place.

In division one John Carleton and Phil Crocker were joint top-scorers whilst Piotr dominated proceedings in division two.

In the Wirral league John Carleton captained our knock-out team to victory with the trophy presented to Phil at the Wirral AGM by the outgoing president.

Dave Hulme was the individual top scorer in division two pictured below receiving his award.

Finally in our internal club tournaments Paul Bluck won the Townsend trophy and was presented this by John Carleton at our AGM.

Chester’s oldest surviving member passed away last week. He first joined the club in the 1960s.

The funeral is to take place at Blacon crematorium on Tuesday, July 30th at 3.20pm.

He’s pictured below in the middle of those seated as part of the team which won the Liverpool League in 1982.

Steve Lloyd was joint winner of the Wrexham Rapid together with Bob Clark, himself a former Chester member. They both scored 4.5/5, drawing against each other.

Your reporter had won the previous year with 5/5 with Colm joint second on 4/5. This year I continued the winning streak to reach 4/4, on the way recovering from a sticky opening against Chester speed demon Graham Dobson. In the final round Steve played an enterprising Greek gift sacrifice against me. Defence prevailed for just a few moves before Steve finished things off with a mating attack.

Once again an enjoyable tournament run by Wrexham which I’d encourage members to enter in future.

Club president Phil Crocker just published a chess book: Better Chess Faster. Aimed at the club player, it offers advice for speeding up your play and improving your move quality in both blitz and classical. It’s available on amazon Better Chess Faster: Strategies for online and live play: Amazon.co.uk: Crocker, Mr Phil: 9798829874704: Books

Alternatively you could get a copy from Phil at the club.

Ethan Challoner won the Wirral league junior of the year prize for the second year running. This year Ethan was promoted to play for Chester A but that didn’t stop him amassing the points! In August he’ll be representing Wales in the Glorney Cup junior international against Scotland.

Paul Bluck was also presented with a trophy for scoring the highest of any league player in division 3 of the Wirral league. He conceded just one draw over the entire season.

Finally Phil Crocker won bronze playing for England’s 2nd 50+ team in the European Senior Team Championships in Poland held in July behind England 1 and Slovakia. He’s pictured also winning the board 4 best score bronze behind England 1’s GM Glenn Flear and a Slovakian IM.

Congratulations to Ian Clayton on winning this year’s Townsend competition, presented by first team captain John Carleton at the club’s AGM.

In the club championship John Harvey won his first title with his six points matched only by Phil Crocker.

Keith sadly passed away in hospital yesterday. He will be sorely missed by Chester members.

An enthusiastic member of the club, he played for and captained Chester teams up to the pandemic. Notwithstanding his age he took part in online matches in the last couple of years, memorably beating IM Peter Large in a match against Epsom. As the picture shows he also represented England Seniors in the World Senior Championships.

For nine days in late October and early November Dresden hosted the European Senior Team Championships. England entered six teams across the 50+ and 65+ categories. Given my youthful looks I was only eligible for the former.

There is as such no chess competency test for playing for your country in such a competition, although I think you’d want to be at least a medium strength club player to have some prospect of winning the odd game. If more English players were interested, then more teams could be entered.

My strength fell somewhat in the middle of a pool of non-professional players allocated to England 2 and England 3. I ended up playing top board for England 3 in what the ratings suggested was not a team expected to do very well at all (seeded around 24th from 35 teams).

There is a change in organisation underway in English seniors’ chess. Increased sponsorship has enabled more competitive first teams to be entered. Perhaps more importantly, if a little less visible, a greater use of spreadsheet technology has enabled the smooth and accurate planning of teams, travel plans and t-shirt sizes across the England team. Such technology is readily scalable should playing interest increase as hopefully it will.

Choosing your t-shirt size is always a bit of a leap of faith. Perhaps naively I had selected small, and it soon became apparent that other more experienced players had made more prudent choices. My pre-tournament preparation therefore needed to focus on physical exercise with the hope of squeezing into the team kit. I also forensically studied “100 Endings you must know” although that didn’t prove in any way useful as it happens.

After a couple of days of venting freely about the usual rating gripes (especially under-rated juniors) and using loose language (like grades rather than ratings) I realised that the Brian Valentine who was our England 3 captain was also the Brian Valentine who was in charge of ratings for England. November 1st for him brought a raft of ratings emails. I decided not to tell him that my new grade (sorry rating) was wrong.

As a 65+ player he may have been made our 50+ captain to instil some discipline amongst us relative youngsters. He might also have thought he could take on a Mike Brearley role (a cricketer before you start looking up his grade) where captaining would be more important than playing. The rest of the team disavowed him of any such possible notion pretty early on and he was soon able to demonstrate that even ratings officers can threaten a back rank mate or two.

One of the nice features of playing in the England squad was the mixing across teams over breakfast. Ray in our team was able to ask GM John Emms to sign a copy of his book on the Sicilian. I was able to explain to IM Nigel Povah how much I’d enjoyed his first book on the English. He was perhaps less pleased when I pointed out that I’d given it away as a lockdown prize during the pandemic. GM Glenn Flear gave an entertaining account of his barely successful return to France after the March 2020 Prague world senior team tournament ended.

In round 1 our England 3 team was somewhat outclassed by Austria, well at least that was how it felt to me. Our next chance to beat another national team came the very next round when we faced the slightly smaller country of Liechtenstein. I was all set to play their top master, apparently also a Fide bigwig. He was less keen and didn’t actually arrive at the tournament until a few days after the start. Still, I have some devious opening preparation ready for him as and when he’s up for a game. That default win helped propel us to our first victory.

England 3 were never more dangerous than when attacking the king. My most enjoyable if less than completely accurate attempt was against the top Graz FM below.

Our team also demonstrated some tactical alertness which always comes in handy against senior opposition. Next up Peter seems to have tangled up his white pieces but has a way to win the day.

Our team results improved steadily towards the end of the tournament. One of the highlights was beating Ireland. Peter and I managed to hold draws on the top boards before Brian crashed through in his game starting below with establishing an “octopus” on d6.

The final round saw England 1 (already confirmed as tournament winners) play England 2 on table 1. We played on table 3 against second seeds Berlin. With a 1950 or so average rating we faced a GM and three IMs. It started relatively promisingly. My opponent GM Rabiega, the highest rated player in the 50+ section, somehow confused himself in the opening and ended up at best equal as white after 15 or so moves. I decided to simplify to a roughly level ending.

It’s one thing to reach a level ending and an entirely other thing to actually draw it. My opponent created the odd half-threat and eventually I managed to find a way to self-destruct. Such is the way the game goes.

Meanwhile on board 4 it looked like the Berlin IM was being crushed by Ray rated 1791. This seemed to fluster the Berlin team a touch, particularly when he quickly bashed out the following sacrifice. An auto sac for an English club player maybe, but perhaps German chess is a little more positional…

Unfortunately, Ray later failed to find a way to close out the game, but a draw was still a very fine result and helped avoid the team being whitewashed.

Despite losing in the final round England 3 still won the prize for the team performing best against expectations (12th against a seeding of 24th). That earned us each a certificate and a rose each. Oddly, given the violent chess some of us had played, they also threw in some DVDs on attacking the king.

With a single game a day there was time to explore the city a little and to have the odd beer or two. With the advantage of O level German and a few months long ago working in Germany, it largely fell on me to make the beer order for our team. Not a duty to be taken lightly given the keenness to give us pils rather than our preferred wheat beer. At one riverside bar we even had to negotiate whether we wanted to pay a couple of euros for outside heating. This was a small example of the energy crisis with another one being that all public fountains had been switched off.

A nine round tournament is also about physical and mental stamina. Top GMs like England 1 have their own routines to stay match fit. Some of the amateurs went for a morning walk to stay active.

Often what is most memorable about such a trip is the things that don’t quite go to plan. Flying home was one such experience for me and a few other players. My experience (somewhat abridged) went something like this: 1) 2.25 am email from Lufthansa asking me if I’d like to check my hand baggage in the hold because the return flight will be quite full; 2) 10.45 am travel by taxi to the airport along with Mark Hebden and Natasha Regan aiming to be there in good time to avoid mishaps in getting to Frankfurt and then on to our various English destinations of London, Birmingham and Manchester; 3) 11.15 am arrive at Dresden airport and begin a tour of its main attractions; 4) 11.17am complete the tour noting little of interest; 5) 11.24am text message from Lufthansa explaining the flight to Frankfurt is cancelled (no reason given); 6) 11.35am text message with rebooking details. A much later flight to Munich for Natasha and Mark arriving later in the day in the UK. An even later flight to Frankfurt for me with an onward flight to Manchester the next day. 7) 11.55am Fruitless attempts to negotiate a return to the UK on the same day for me with a generous offer to stay at Mark’s house if I could get onto his Birmingham flight. An even more generous offer of a cup of tea if I could persuade my wife to drive to Birmingham around midnight and drop him off at home on the way back to Chester; 8) 12.05pm tot up our collective free meal vouchers for the delay and fantasise on the sort of meals which might be available.

9) 12.20pm Realise that the meal vouchers can only be spent beyond the hand baggage security check but that this is shut because the flight is cancelled; 10) 1pm Somehow get the security checks opened up so that we can reach the range of restaurants expected on the other side; 11) 1.01pm Establish that the only thing on the other side is a duty free shop but that the meal vouchers can’t be spent on wine or beer and can only be spent on crisps, a rubbery sandwich or lettered Russian biscuits; 12) 1.15pm Invest our funds in Russian lettered biscuits which enables us to play a version of Scrabble; 13) 2pm – 7pm Free time to explore the tiny airport further. One plane and a racy collection of nude statues noted (photo withheld by censors); 14) 7pm Meet Irish IM Mark Orr (who lives in Scotland) on the next seat on the plane to Frankfurt; 15) 10pm dinner at Frankfurt airport with Mark, no doubt boring him with details of Scottish players I once played; 16) 4am breakfast at Frankfurt airport (sadly no automated butter dispenser there); 17) 8.30am arrive in Manchester etc.

It’s a little-known fact*** that Franz Kafka wrote his famous stories of bureaucratic absurdity after being trapped in Dresden airport for a few days after his flight to Prague was cancelled.

Notwithstanding the travel hiccup returning from Dresden, the trip was very enjoyable. I’d definitely recommend the experience to senior players considering playing. A big thanks to Nigel Povah for the efficient organisation. Also, thanks to my England 3 teammates who showed that ratings are just numbers and that apparent no-hopers like us can sometimes do really quite well.

*52 Bxf6! and the knight is trapped if it captures the rook on h5

**Bxh6!

***Not strictly in the sense of true. More in the sense of fake news.

• 

Chester junior Ethan Challoner was recently awarded the award for the top junior in the Wirral League in 2021-22. He scored a perfect 4/4 in division 2 and conceded just a single draw to reach 2.5/3 in division 3. According to the league table below his overall score of 6.5 was actually 2 points higher than the next players including both adults and juniors.

Ethan’s results will come as no surprise to Chester adults and juniors who were terrorised online by him during the pandemic as his play took a big step forward. He’s already represented Wales several times and next season will take a place in Chester’s first team captained by John Carleton also pictured presenting the trophy.

Combined Player Charts

No.	Name	Team	Pts	Pld
1	Ethan Challoner	Chester	6½	7
2	Ray Williams	Chester	4½	7
3	Steve Kee	Atticus	4½	5
4	Mike Stone	Hoylake/Great Meols	4½	5
5	Mike Coffey	Wallasey	4	6
6	Phil Crocker	Chester	4	4
7	Paul Bluck	Chester	3½	6
8	Stephen Dunning	Buckley/Mold	3½	6
9	Steve Burge	Atticus	3½	5
10	Peter Fisher	Wrexham	3½	5

Well, not literally of course. No hand to hand combat in the Over 50s British Championships; we settle everything over the board. And those of you who think I’m being sexist or am not up to speed with pronoun fashions should first appreciate that there were no old women in Torquay, at least not in my Over 50s section. Perhaps a prize and/or title could be introduced given affirmative action is all the rage for younger women!?

My plans to duff up some old men in Torquay began at the tender age of 49 when in September 2019 I booked my accommodation for August 2020. I would be in my physical prime for a senior and would have my best ever chance of success.

There was then the small matter of a global pandemic. My mind and body were deteriorating but at least I managed to spend 25 days and 48 minutes playing online blitz. Probably more than the average senior, but you can’t be sure. Many months and a few virus strains later there were eventually some chess events appearing. Kudos to the ECF for organizing some of these such as the British Seniors in Milton Keynes in October 2021. History is written by the victors and as I started that one with 0/2 we’ll gloss over that particular tournament. Except to say that I did show more stamina than many participants around half of whom had withdrawn by the time Paul Dargan and I duked out a meaningless rubber in the final round. With the games subject to an unusual negotiated flavour of mask policy it was clear that the environment hadn’t properly recovered yet. It was also clear that the old men were tougher than I had hoped.

Roll on the clock to August 2022 and with my hotel reservation almost three years old much of the British chess world descended on Torquay. At least those that could dodge the train strikes.

I understand that Chennai put on a grand welcome for visiting chess players. Torquay was no exception. Barely outside the train station there was a banner welcoming us seniors. Too many muddled move-orders and it seemed there was a specialist care home for chess players which had been arranged. Very thoughtful.

Talking of care homes, a new one has just opened near our Chester club. It boasts an intergenerational nursery. Apparently such mixing creates benefits for all concerned. Be that as it may, an intergenerational experience was also the environment for us 50+ seniors for the first few days. As befits our chess experience we were allocated a quite spacious area of the main playing hall. All was fine except for the pitter patter of feet as the very youngest players raced to the toilets and back. Still it wasn’t much of a distraction and within a couple of days we were even given electronic display boards for our top games with seating for spectators. That said, the policy of expelling non-players from the playing hall at the start of each round meant that spectators weren’t especially numerous.

Talking of toilets, one of the advantages of being a senior is that no one is going to think it unusual if you totter off to the bathroom every now and again to check your move on your mobile phone. Only kidding of course arbiters, most of us can barely switch a phone on or off let alone install the latest version of Stockfish. That said, given the undoubted quality of our senior moves, you might have expected more scanning checks – trust by verification as they say.

With 8 masters (6 candidate, 1 FM and one grandmaster) at least one of whom had drawn a game against Bobby Fischer in a field of 44 it didn’t look that there was much hope of any random other player winning. But still if you run the maths (Monte Carlo simulations recommended if you really feel the need) then against such a field I don’t think that even a grandmaster can be a big favourite. John Nunn had entered and won in Llandudno a few years back but had reported that he found it tougher than expected and noticed an increased resilience in player skills over the years. To save you doing all the calculations the basic conclusion is that if you have enough 2100-rated players and enough typewriters then one of them will write the complete works of Shakespeare. Another one might even string together enough wins to challenge a grandmaster.

Our grandmaster was Paul Motwani, well known for his polished play and excellent books when I was learning the game. Despite playing hardly any games over the last couple of decades he shot to an early 3/3 although Paul Dargan had him under pressure for a while. Chester alumnus Paul Townsend was first to slow him down, managing to hold off some slight pressure in the middlegame to secure a draw. Next up was Rob Willmoth who successfully defused some early pressure to get the half point. Even when held to draws GM Motwani behaved in an impeccable and respectful manner, always offering post mortems.

I was the next of his challengers, thankfully with the benefit of the white pieces. My 1d4 was met by 1..d6, not something I’d covered in preparation. Maybe he was bluffing and wouldn’t know the Pirc? 2 e4 instantly to push for that psychological edge was followed by the deflation over the next few moves of realising that he really did know all about Pirc manoeuvres, and more to the point wasn’t going to castle into some kind of h-pawn hack attack. Desperate situations call for desperate measures. What would you play here?

Now, I must confess to being a big fan of GM Sadler’s online commentary. The depth of insight you can get from a Leko or Svidler but he has a knack of seeing the positive intent behind the most ridiculous moves he is called to comment on. However, when he saw my next two moves he really could find nothing at all encouraging to say. It was clearly a crime against Caissa. Bh6 was the way to go rather than my Bxc5 followed by Qe3. And yet for any fans of the Silicon Road to Chess Improvement the computer doesn’t mind my approach so much. Nor did GM Motwani mind it. No doubt mindful of what befell Sorokin against Botvinnik in 1931 he didn’t rush to double my pawns. Long story short the game fizzled out to a draw on move 31.

If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

My preparation for the event had included some work on pattern recognition, well sitting in the sun whilst skim-reading the excellent books by that bloke with the odd (for us English) Dutch name van de something or other.

I’d also focused on physical fitness. During the event I started each day with the full English breakfast and then walked along the incredibly scenic and incredibly undulating Coast path to Babbacombe beach and back. Taking a leaf from Magnus’ Indian world championship preparations I did a practice trip to Torquay in May 2021 where I verified that the human body could endure for eight consecutive days a full English, a long walk along the coast, a fish and chip supper, a couple of pints of pale ale and a game of chess. Well OTB chess was more or less illegal at the time so I substituted a couple of hours of online blitz. A week was do-able but I’m not sure an old-style 11 round British would be within my capabilities.

So going into the last round there were five of us tied for first. I’d been the lucky monkey with the typewriter so far but could I stretch that for one more game? With the five players spread over the top 3 boards it was clear that each player should play for a win regardless of colour. I faced Paul Dargan, a specialist 1e4 player. What to play? Well, I first met Paul on the train from Exeter to Plymouth for the 1989 British. He spotted me as a wannabe chess player by my perusal of John L Watson’s Play the French. He had probably forgotten that moment and in any event I had given away the book when I paused my chess career for a couple of decades. Over the years I have played a number of other disreputable openings against 1 e4: 1..Nc6, my favourite 1..Nf6, the Caro and a couple of passes with the Pirc.

My motivational coach, Rajko Vujatovic, then the current and four-times chess diving world champion and multiple London pro-biz winner, had remained safely within the M25. He texted support for the three-results potential of the Pirc. Less motivationally he did mention that Korchnoi had come a cropper playing the Pirc in some last round game in a match against Karpov a few years back.

A few months earlier in Milton Keynes Paul and I had played out a fairly insipid Bogo-Indian game. That made me forget that he is a pretty fearsome openings expert. Thirteen or so moves into a sharp line of the Byrne variation of the Pirc I was regretting having stopped my previous night’s preparation with the thought that no one would know enough to play this line. The fact that the computer was saying +1 made me less keen to memorise any more moves; why learn the best moves in a poor position? Fifteen minutes into the final round I was regretting that attitude. Around moves 20-21 Paul stopped banging out the moves and sank into thought. That was a bit of a relief as maybe I would now have a chance. It later transpired that he was just selecting from several options which he already knew were all strong!

At times like these my philosophy (no doubt unoriginal) is to try and make the most of the pieces and pawns I do have remaining. It does look like the white pawns will roll black off the board but still I had two pieces for the rook and maybe there was a way to activate them. The usual convention is to explain all our wins with skill and all our losses as bad luck. However, I would have to admit to getting a little lucky here as Paul lost his way in the many tempting options and eventually my pieces sprang devastatingly into life.

With Chris Duncan edging Paul Townsend and GM Motwani grinding out the two bishop advantage in an ending we ended up with three players tied for first. There was no tie breaker or playoff required so the title, £700 financial spoils and £200 of Chessable vouchers were to be shared. Prize-giving ceremonies seem to have gone out of fashion these days. Add in the perhaps slightly less photogenic status of your typical oldie and it was clear that there was no plan to have any formal awards. I couldn’t help thinking that an opportunity had been missed to recognise the players and promote the sponsors a bit (Hint: A picture of GM Motwani holding a cardboard Chessable voucher might be of interest to Chessable!?) and raised that thought with the nearest ECF non-exec Director WIM Natasha Regan (who visited Chester for a talk and simul a few years ago). She took the following photo of Paul and I, although by then Chris had sadly already had to start his return home.

Tournaments you win (a rare experience for me!) are normally pleasurable ones. That said I think the Torquay set up was excellent even for the less successful players. For once we had a mayoress open the event with some in depth knowledge of the game and it might well be worth revisiting the venue yet again in the future.

Sadly I didn’t make any of the social events which were arranged. I’m particularly gutted about missing the walking tour, often a highlight of any competition. However, I arranged my own trip with the first stop being Paignton, home of the legendary GM Keith Arkell.

I had expected to see some of those brown tourist signs pointing out where to find his residence or one of those blue plaques but sadly I failed to find any.

Next stop on the walking tour was Torre Abbey, presumably named after the earlier Carlos Torre famous for beating Lasker with a windmill attack in 1925.

Once again my chess tour was thwarted. It actually seems that there were non-chess reasons for the abbey existing. After the Spanish Armada was thrashed the abbey was used to keep 397 Spanish sailors prisoner.

To keep the reader actively learning we’ll finish with a couple of simple tactics from my games. (Hint: You may want to “sacrifice” your queen for a rook).

Very finally a picture of my only real blunder in the tournament. I’d upgraded from take-out to eating the daily fish supper on a plate with cutlery. Popping inside for some vinegar a lurking seagull spotted an opportunity…