Author: pcrocker

Last Sunday was the annual Wrexham Rapid tournament, held at their club venue. Limited to around 30 players it has a more relaxed atmosphere than a typical weekender.

Chester entered 6 players. Newish member Graham Dobson playing his first tournament in Chester colours had the standout result reaching 4.5/5 but didn’t have the chance to play the runaway winner on 5/5.

Mike McDonagh, Colm Buckley and I had more mixed performances, eventually finishing well enough to tie for 3rd place. Jixin and Jack Yang were effectively playing an open tournament and followed closely behind with Jixin coming closest to a podium finish.

A nice touch was that the winners could also choose a second hand book as part of their prizes, so be warned that we are all now armed with books like Trends in the Caro Kann or New Ideas in the French Tarrasch from a few decades ago. These ideas could be dangerous…

All in all an enjoyable tournament well recommended for future years.

As we reported a couple of weeks ago Seren Fletcher won the summer junior tournament, half a point ahead of Ethan Challoner. Here’s a photo of her receiving her trophies. Well done Seren!

The results of our internal summer tournaments are now in.

Firstly in the junior club there was a very close contest. Seren Fletcher finally won with 13 points, closely followed by Ethan Challoner on 12.5.

In the Hallard Cup adult tournament Nethuli Saram scored a very impressive 5/5 to clinch the title.

Finally in the Coleby Cup Mike McDonagh won with 3.5/4 after drawing against me in the final round.

Thanks to all the organisers and participants. We now start with the next round of competitions.

After Phil Skippon’s sponsored half-marathon run and thanks to the generosity of donors (many of them club members) we have now purchased 5 additional digital clocks for the club. And thanks to Dave Robertson’s negotiation we got 5 for the price of 4.

Thanks again to Phil and all those who sponsored him!

Last weekend the qualifiers were held for the UK Blitz Championship. Like last year the Manchester one was held in Bolton. Well-run by the local team, all of the players played 15 rounds in one section.

We were so focused on our performance we didn’t actually find time to take another photo without Mike.

As was the case last year each of us had at least a mini-run at leading the tournament. I began with 2/2 and then managed 0/2 against titled players although I was holding my own for a little while. After that I lost several games with piece blunders, eventually clawing back to 50%. Losing several quick games gave me the opportunity to observe what seemed to be smooth positional play on Colm’s part. He must, however, also have thrown in the odd blunder as he also ended up on 50%.

Steve had a standout performance scoring 8/15 including a loss against tournament winner IM James Adair on top board in the final round. Even more impressively he managed to fork all my pieces in a N v B ending. Steve may well have won a category prize.

But what about the other intra-Chester grudge matches? Colm managed to get the better of Steve. Somewhat boringly Colm and I managed to exchange all our pieces and draw an almost accurately played but rather dull game.

Despite our mixed results it was an enjoyable day out and I would recommend it to other players next year.

Just a reminder that there won’t be a regular club night tonight as we’ll be using the room for planning next year’s teams with all the captains.

Regular club nights will resume on Aug 27th.

Despite being rated one of the lowest in the recent European U14 Championship in Bratislava, Nethuli Saram managed to score an impressive 4.5/9.

After a tough start she showed great resilience to get results against players rated several hundred points higher than her. Here is a fine combination against a player rated 1628 who has just played 13Ng5, seemingly winning a pawn on the e-file. Can you see Black’s riposte? (Answer at the end)

In addition to normal league and club games Nethuli had received coaching from John Carleton at the Friday junior club and played training matches against Ray Williams and John Harvey. Thanks to those players for supporting Nethuli.

At the event she was fortunate to have assistance from Grandmaster Neil McDonald pictured with Nethuli below.

All in all, an impressive result by Nethuli. Well done!

Puzzle answer: Black replied 13..Bxf2+! when 14Kxf2 allows 14..Nxe4+ 15Kg1 Nxg5 with a two pawn advantage.

At the Centenary Congress in April Chester and Crewe were tied for the team prize of a chess clock. Rather than magnanimously giving Crewe the prize or splitting the clock in two we decided to play a rapid match decider. This was spread over 12 boards with teams chosen to roughly match the strength on each board. Each player played 2 games against the same opponent alternating colours.

With home advantage Chester might perhaps have seemed slight favourites. However, we were seen disavowed of that optimism. In cricketing terms we came close to losing by an innings. Crewe won the first round 9-3 and then scored 3.5/4 in the first results of the second round. After having lost the match Chester bravely fought back to clinch the second round 6.5 to 5.5 thanks to James Lee and Steve Lloyd holding their nerve in complex positions. Anh, Steve Lloyd and Ian all managed a plus score, so thanks especially to them for keeping our chances alive.

Now it’s not really feasible that we could simply be outplayed, so here are my top 10 excuses I encountered:

1. It was very hot.
2. I touched the wrong piece.
3. Crewe players have rapid ratings. Have they been practising?
4. Why have we not used the new grades?
5. It’s really hot, too hot to even drink.
6. The king and queen were the wrong way round.
7. I was jetlagged.
8. It was difficult parking.
9. Why don’t the windows open?
10. It’s Mike’s fault – why did he arrange it on such a hot day??

Anyway, congratulations to Crewe on a convincing win and if anyone’s got an old clock (working or otherwise) we could give them please let me know…

Last night the AGM of the Wirral League was held. This included a presentation to the outstanding players of the year. First up was John Carleton who captained the all-conquering Chester 1 knockout team to the title.

Next was Nethuli Saram who was joint winner of the division 4 player of the year, awarded to the player with the best results. Well done to Nethuli and the KO1 team!

Despite the season being over June was still a busy month for the club. Firstly we took on Wallasey in their splendid venue. The match was as usual very close. Right at the end Chester pulled away as the top boards finished with Chris Doran winning the final game with both players down to their final seconds. Thanks to everyone who helped us get such a big turnout.

Last week was the AGM for the Chester and District League. Chester were presented with trophies for winning the 1st division, 2nd division, knock out and U120 knock out. Ray Williams also won player of the year for division 3. I’ll spare you needing to see me collecting all of these prizes on behalf of the winners but here’s a sample one:

Last weekend we held our first Chess in the Park event. The weather held up and everyone seemed to have fun.

Finally, if you subscribe to Chess then look out for the article covering our centenary.