News

Date:18/12/2024  Bombers fly into semi finals!

Billingham Chemics 1½-3½ Thornaby Bombers
Andrew Herrity ½-½ Sagar Patil
Bernie Callaghan 1-0 Mike Creaney
Michael Joynes 0-1 Joe McGinnis
Graham Glass 0-1 Phil Wales
Paul Scott 0-1 Aryan Nalawade

The Bombers reached the final of the Under 1700 rating plate competition last season. In our last team match of the calendar year and with our board 5 rated higher than their board 1, they made comfortable progress to the semi-finals of this seasons.

Joe thought he would be the first to finish having a completely won looking position, but was in fact last to finish!

I too thought I would be finished early and so it proved, but not in the way I had anticipated. Failure to do the necessary checks before moving resulted in a bad miscalculation and an early bath. Experience doesn't always count for everything, I must practice what I preach in future and give way to hubris!

Phil's passed pawn proved faster than his opponents, Sagar had to settle for a draw in an ending and I believe Aryan had a comfortable game. Higher boards await for Aryan in January. His 10th standard game was his 8th win and it will give him a first full rating over the 1700 mark when the next list is published!

Mike

Date:17/12/2024  Francis wins Christmas Rapidplay!

Earlier this evening we had our annual Christmas Rapidplay with an impressive 33 entries. On ratings, Francis was the red hot favourite, but with a lot of improving youngsters in the event playing in the format that suits them it was still going to be an interesting competition. Aryan, Avanish and Tashil all had their shot at Francis, but he duly won his 5 games to take the title. Well done to him! Aryan was a pawn up at one stage, but truth be told, Francis was well in control in most of his games. Our young rapidplay superstar Tashil was the only other player on 4 out of 4 going into the last round after a series of ruthless victories. Tashil put up a good fight in the final match, but always looked to be a little bit behind. Both players were getting low on the clock towards the end and played out a series of quick fire moves before Tashil ended up losing on time. Something I'm not sure I've ever seen before! It was lost on the board as well.

The battle for joint 2nd was very keenly contested. Second seed Brian had a forgettable night losing 3 of his 4 games. Tashil of course finished on 4. Jayden is a year younger than Tashil and was one of several players on 3/4 going into the last round. Only a matter of time before he too is a serious contender for these events. In the end, we had 3 other players joining Tashil on 4. Phil has only been in the club for 6 months, but is already our Mr Consistent! The lowest he's finished in any of our internal competitions is 3rd! He had a victory over Maurice on board 2 in the last round. Alex is back from Uni for a month and he also finished on 4 points with a victory over club treasurer Geoff in the last round. Alex is usually a better long game player, so will be pleased with this performance. Avanish has been playing on board 4 for the Cadets team this season, but results suggest he'll be playing higher very soon. He lost in the first round to Francis, but came back strong to win his next 4, including a last round win over our Easter Rapidplay champion Joseph.

It was also good to see 4 of our ladies team taking part and Kaira and Eva were both on 2 out of 3 and playing on the high boards at the halfway stage. Eva had what was probably the surprise win of the night with a victory over Aryan in round 3, an excellent performance in her first ever rated competition! Kaira was the top girl in the end though with 2.5 after she clung on for a draw in the final round against George.

Thank you to everyone who took part, it was another great event! Full results are below.

With the next 2 Tuesdays being Christmas Eve and New Years Eve, this was the last club night of the calendar year. We decided to have a bit of a celebration during the event with party food provided by our venue the Don Bar. A fantastic way to finish the year, there were also 2 club championship games and more than 40 members of the club in attendance as well as several parents who are part of our club family, but not actual members of the club.

Chris

Full results:
1) Francis Batchelor 5
2) Tashil Lankapura 4
Phil Wales 4
Alex Jamieson 4
Avanish Batra 4
6) Geoff Howsden 3
Jayden Wang 3
Toefl Lankapura 3
Stephen Ollis 3
Joseph Machin 3
Maurice Olum 3
Aryan Nalawade 3
Tim Hind 3
Malcolm Goldspink 3
15) Kaira Nalawade 2.5
16) Eva Harris 2
Sachin Saggar 2
Manuel Lopez 2
Alan Stockley 2
Tristan Green 2
James Mann 2
Ollie Walton 2
Andrew Salter 2
George Butterworth 2
25) Freya Hind 1.5
26) Brian Ellis 1
Joseph Hartill 1
Ryan Fox 1
Joe Vera-Sanso 1
Geoff Mann 1
31) Clair Hartill 0
Charles Hind 0
Matthew Hartill 0

Date:16/12/2024  Omi Radio Star!

On Sunday, Omi was interviewed by Kelly Scott on BBC radio Newcastle.

The interview covered a wide range of subjects including:
-Her win in the Under 18 girls section of the Thornaby Chess Open.
-Opportunities for girls in chess.
-Her recent league match for our Thornaby Queens ladies team.
-The benefits in other areas of life from playing chess.
-How to find and join a local club.
-How clubs have multiple teams and internal competitions and there are opportunities for all levels of player to take part.
-Playing with clocks in time pressure.

If you would like to listen, the link is here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0k6tr0t
Omi's bit is from 1:38 to 1:45.

I've known and worked with Omi since she was 10 years old and she has always been a very genuine, bubbly and enthusiastic person. This comes across in the interview and I was very proud to listen. Well done Omi, you represented the club and chess in general so well!

Chris

Date:11/12/2024  Busy Bombers Battle Well!

Thornaby Bombers 2-2 Middlesbrough Rooks
Brian Ellis 0-1 Nic Tavoularis
Joe McGinnis 1-0 Jake Pearson
Sagar Patil 0-1 Nikhil Bhandari
Steve Rodgers 1-0 Ray Pallister

Billingham Synthonia Synners 2.5-1.5 Thornaby Bombers
John Garnett 0.5-0.5 Sam Greig
Steve Cole 1-0 Joe McGinnis
Paul Weightman 1-0 Steve Rodgers
Keith Harrison 0-1 Mike Creaney

2 games for the Bombers this week, both against A teams from other clubs with the rearranged match from bonfire night against Middlesbrough on Tuesday and the away match at Billingham on Wednesday.

My grand plans didn't work at all this week, but we still came out better than expected!

I assumed I was going to lose wherever I played (my form has been dreadful this year), so I thought I'd sacrifice myself on Board 2 and hope Steve and Sagar might manage a point between them on the lower boards. They did indeed - Steve winning on 4, ending it with a nice rook skewer on queen and king, although Sagar went down to Nikhil Bhandari on 3. I had already spoiled the plan though, because I managed a win on 2 against Jake Pearson - only his second league defeat ever, so I am told. After a solid opening I had a slight edge, which slid back to level after I shuffled my bishop around a bit too much. I saw a chance to muck up his pawn structure with a pin and B/N exchange, as long as he didn't play h6. He didn't - he played g6 instead, so Bg5 won the knight, as it was pinned against the queen and otherwise undefended against both B and R (on f1). He played on a bit, but then recaptured too quickly after I exchanged queens on f8. Rxf8 was OK, but Kxf8 walked into Bxc6, forking the rooks on a8 and e8. He promptly resigned.

So to Billingham on Wednesday, where I again came in as reserve (for Brian Ellis this time), and tried the same thing - putting myself on Board 2 expecting to lose, hoping Sam might get something on top board and with reasonable expectation of points on 3 and 4. Sam finished first, a fairly quick draw against John Garnett - good result for Sam considering the rating discrepancy. I went down to Steve Cole as expected; as often happens against good players, I thought I was doing OK, probably with a slight disadvantage but no obvious weakness in my position, then he played the innocuous-looking Qe2 and I realised I was in trouble. I warded off the initial attack at the cost of a pawn, and again thought I was still in the game, till he produced a spectacular winning move. Position attached - see if you can find it.

So it was 0.5-1.5 and the bottom boards would decide the match. Steve (white) had a crazy position against Paul Weightman. Both players had 2 rooks, 2 minor pieces and 7 pawns. Paul was castled behind a fianchettoed bishop, which was useless because the f, g and h-pawns had all advanced and were blocking it in. Steve had a knight on f7 protected by a pawn on e6, which looked formidable but was about as useless as Black's bishop since it couldn't get out - every square it could reach was guarded. If that wasn't weird enough, Steve's king had somehow made its way through the forest of pawns and was sitting on f5! The position looked like a dead draw at that point, so I turned my attention to Mike. He was 3 pawns up with only a queen and rook left on each side. He forced the queens off at the expense of one pawn, at which point I think I'd have resigned, but his opponent kept going, even after the rooks came off, eventually resigning when it became obvious that Mike was not going to let him swindle a stalemate.

Scores level, all down to Board 3 and the blocked position where it looked like nobody could do anything - except Paul had 40 minutes in which to do nothing, and Steve had 9 in which to try to find something. He didn't, eventually blundering with less than 2 minutes left.

If you'd told me on Monday we'd come away with a draw and a defeat that wasn't 0-4, I'd have assumed it would be at best 1-3 against the Rooks and a draw at Billingham, and I'd have been quite satisfied....

Joe

Date:10/12/2024  Comets go 2nd!

Thornaby Cadets 1.5-2.5 Thornaby Comets
Ajay Selvan 0.5-0.5 Phil Wales
Joseph Machin 1-0 Maurice Olum
Avanish Batra 0-1 Geoff Howsden
Rosie Irwin 0-1 Malcolm Goldspink

We have 2 reports of this match! Our emails crossed!

Malcolm (Comets):

We had a tough match last night with a well deserved win. I had another long game and didn’t see enough of the other games to give an accurate report. Phil, Maurice and Geoff feel free to add your comments.

Geoff had a great result on his first game for the Comets. I was sitting next to him and looked over after about 5 minutes to see both players battling for the centre. I looked what seemed 5 minutes later and a lot of pieces were off the board. 5 minutes after that and I heard ‘Good Game’ and Avanish’s King was on its side.

Maurice finished before me and told me he went down a pawn early on and couldn’t recover from it. He was disappointed with his game but I told him you can’t win every game.

I got off to a sticky start playing the accelerated dragon against Rosie’s e4 opening. A number of my pieces got blocked in and I had to sacrifice a pawn to gain some movement. Rosie packed the centre with her pieces and when she brought her Queen into the centre I was in trouble. Then she boxed her Queen in enabling me to set up a Queen swap which she was unable to avoid. I started my counter attack down the right hand side, sniping a couple of pawns and eventually we were each left with 2 Rooks, a Bishop, a Knight and 4 Pawns. Rosie’s Rooks were trapped behind pawns and when I swapped my Knight for her Bishop following up by pinning her Knight to her King, she resigned with 10 minutes on her clock. I still had 28 minutes. It was a tough game.

I was able to watch the very end of Phil’s game. He seemed to be in an impossible position with his Queen and a Rook and a handful of Pawns against Ajay’s Queen, Rook 2 Bishops and an even more pawns – one of them passed. He didn’t panic and played a blinder of moves to force a draw and victory for the Comets. The win puts us second in the C Division!

In case I don’t see you next week, have a great Festive Season.


Chris (Cadets):

A well fought C division game with 3 of the boards lasting longer than all 4 of the boards in last night’s A division match!

The exception was Geoff and Avanish. Avanish was previously on 4 wins from 4 in the league, but got a bit tied up in the opening in this one and Geoff exploited it to get the exchange up. Avanish said to me something like “I didn’t realise I could lose games as well!” At this point Ajay was 1 pawn up, Joseph was 2 pawns up and Rosie was 1 pawn up and I thought the Cadets might still win the match.

Joseph played what I would say is probably his best ever game against Maurice. A brilliant 8th move which initially appeared to be a queen or knight sacrifice gave him the initiative which led to him going 2 pawns up and Maurice’s king looking a little draughty after castling queenside. He kept the pressure on throughout using the 2 pawn advantage to offer queen exchanges to force Maurice back and eventually found a nice combination at the end to get checkmate. Apparently a 2 and a half hour mock GCSE exam on the same day is great preparation for a chess match!

Rosie played a solid game against Malcolm and was ahead 1 pawn for a lot of the game. She was half an hour down on the clock though and she sped up when her time got below 20 minutes and blundered a piece.

That left an exciting finish between the Mr Reliable’s of the 2 teams! Both Phil and Ajay rarely lose for their respective teams. At the point Malcolm won, Ajay was ahead and had 2 bishops and a queen and a passed pawn against a rook and a queen. Malcolm did mouth 2-2 to me, but reckoned without Phil’s fighting qualities. He managed to get his queen and rook onto the back row and forced Ajay to concede a perpetual check.

A good win for the Comets which sees them leap frog over the Cadets into 2nd place.

Date:10/12/2024  Point for Dynasties!

Thornaby Dynasties 2-2 Billingham Synthonia Irons
Tashil Lankapura 1-0 Graham Edwards
Sam Stevenson 1-0 Michael Joynes
Bertie Mellis 0-1 Dermot O Higgins
Charles Hind 0-1 Graham Glass

I didn't see a lot of the games, but I did see Tashil play a nice rook sacrifice that led to checkmate. Graham said something like “you played very well young man” at the end! A good win for Sam on board 2. That's the highest board he's played on in the C division, so good for his confidence that he can get results there. Bertie and Charles both pretty much said it hadn’t gone well! Tough opponents for them, but good to test them at this level!

Plenty of positives. A second point for the Dynasties who have found the C division tough so far. A good win for Sam and Tashil has taken last seasons D division form into the higher division and continues to impress!

Chris

Date:09/12/2024  Aces slump at Boro!

Middlesbrough Rooks 2.5-1.5 Thornaby Aces
Nic Tavoularis 0.5-0.5 Chris Ross
Paul Gregory 0-1 Francis Batchelor
Paul Perrett 1-0 Matt Jackman
Jake Pearson 1-0 Chris Swales

A disappointing night for the Aces with what is supposed to be our best possible team playing.

Chris S finished first on board 4. He struggled to get any counter-play from the opening and Jake's knights both got onto dangerous squares. The game was already heading Jake's way, but came to an abrupt end when Chris made a miscalculation that led to mate in 2.

The top 2 rated players in the CCA (Chris Ross and Nic Tavoularis) played out a tactical draw on board 1. Francis picked up his second win of the season against former Cleveland Individual champion Paul Gregory. Matt did go a piece for a pawn up, but Paul Perrett got the advantage back and had won after getting Matt in all sorts of trouble with pieces trapped at the back.

The result all but ends our title hopes this season. With only 3 games to go until the league split, the Aces currently sit in 4th and are struggling to even finish in the top half of the table!

Date:03/12/2024  First league win for Josh!

Thornaby Juniors 3-1 Thornaby Destroyers
Zhuoyi Lin 1-0 Tim Hind
Jayden Wang 1-0 Sachin Saggar
Josh Fisher 1-0 Nick Tadd
Tristan Green 0-1 Charles Hind

Jayden played out a quick win against Sachin. Good centralised pieces and then a catastrophic blunder from Sachin allowed a check mate after just 11 moves. Jayden played Chris Ross afterwards and Chris said exactly the same as the Billingham player last week “I wish I was that good when I was 8!” Chris played a lot of games against club players last night and he said Jayden and Jonathan were the best 2 he played.

2 players doing well on the lower boards so far this season clashed on board 4. Tristan’s failure to castle earlier in the game proved costly and Charles managed to trap Tristan’s king on f1 and g1 with his rook still on h1. That eventually led to material loss and a back rank mate.

Tim and Zhuoyi had a good level game most of the way through. Tim’s pieces kept marauding into Zhuoyi’s half of the board, but Zhuoyi defended well and in the rook and pawn endgame he managed to connect his rooks better and push a pawn forward fastest.

Josh was 2 pawns up against Nick the first time I looked and played a solid game to convert to a win. Afterwards Nick gave me the thumbs up that Josh is a good player! He said he set loads of traps, but Josh saw them all! Josh has played well on the higher boards and got into good positions and has a good win in the club championship, but surprisingly this was his first actual league win! I've no doubt the second won't take long to come.

Heading into Christmas, the juniors are on 5 points from 5 games so far and in mid-table. With all of the squad new to the club this year except Tristan, the team are getting better every match and that represents a great start to the season!

Chris

Date:03/12/2024  Honours even in B52s clash!

Thornaby B52s 2-2 Billingham Synthonia Belasis
Santiago Palencia 0-1 Keith Harrison
Iain Mellis 1-0 Gary Leighton
Aryan Nalawade 1-0 Brian Whitaker
Callum Abbott 0-1 Darren Donnison

As expected, this was a good competitive match. All the players on both teams are between 1490 and 1600 rating except Aryan.

Iain was first finished. He was well ahead and 2 pawns up from early on. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but it sounded pretty comfortable.

Callum’s game was close, but he was outmanoeuvred in the end. Darren is a dangerous player who has gone up about 100 points in the last year or so and was the only one to beat Sam Greig in the B division a couple of seasons a go, so it was a bit unfortunate for Callum to be playing him on board 4.

At this point, both Santiago and Aryan were a pawn up. It was getting late and when opposition captain Paul Weightman left soon after, he said to me “I think you’ve got this one”. Aryan was level all the way through on material, but ruthlessly converted a rook pawn endgame against former Thornaby stalwart Brian Whitaker. After a defeat in his first standard length game, Aryan now has 7 wins and 1 draw from 8 standard matches. An A division call up certainly looks on the cards in the 2nd half of the season.

Santiago got a pawn up, but then mis-played the endgame slightly and allowed his opponent to get a past pawn and then get it too far forward. Keith is 1577 and a good player though, so still a good effort from Santiago to be ahead for most of the game.

A 2-2 draw gives the B52s 5 points from 5 games with one of the 2 losses against our own Challengers team. Considering they’re our 2nd team in the B division, this is very good and beyond my expectations at the start of the season.

Chris

Date:03/12/2024  Great win for Steve!

Thornaby Bombers 1-3 Darlington A
Brian Ellis 0-1 Steve Dauber
Steve Rodgers 1-0 Kevin Wilson
Mike Creaney 0-1 Jonathan Sams
Sagar Patil 0-1 Richard Harris

This was always going to be a tough one. Darlington A won the league 2 years ago with this line up all playing pretty regularly.

Steve got the result of the night. He got a good position from the opening which resulted in his opponent trying to free himself with a pawn move which lost him the pawn and gave Steve a lasting initiative. Then it was a matter of pressing without blundering and in the end his opponent got so tied up he had to give up a rook to avoid mate and immediately resigned.

The others found it harder. Sagar did beat Richard a few weeks ago, but found it harder this time. Brian looked OK for a while, but was several pawns down by the end. Mike was slowly ground down by Jonathan.

A good effort from the Bombers though. All the games lasted well into the night and Darlington A didn't have things all their own way.

Date:03/12/2024  Queens debut ends in defeat!

Thornaby Queens 1-4 Darlington D
Omi Sibanda 0-1 John Halliday
Kaira Nalawade 0-1 Maksymillian Konczynski
Clair Hartill 0-1 Charlie Miller
Freya Hind 1-0 Kian Pattison
Laura Holdforth 0-1 John Sinu

A bit of history for the club with our first ever all ladies team playing in the D division cup. The match was a lot closer than the final scoreline suggests. At the point Freya won, we looked to be winning on 3 of the other 4 boards.

Freya finished first. A disastrous f5 to e4 opening from her opponent allowed Freya to pressure the open diagonal and mate the king in just 10 moves. Her opponents entire queenside didn’t move at all in the game!

Laura played the brother of Chris Sinu on board 5. Not sure how old he is, but it turned out to be a tough match for Laura and it looks like John shares his older brothers talent for the game.

Clair looked to be in a good position, but a mistake lost her a piece and her opponent played well from there to push forward and convert the win.

Kaira played well throughout and was up 2 pawns. She made what looked like a good mate threat, but unfortunately a diagonal move from the queen was missed and it forced a bank rank mate on her instead! Good experience for Kaira, you’re not a proper chess player until you’ve lost to a bank rank mate in a competitive game!

Omi faced the toughest task on board 1. John is the most experienced player in either team. It was a long game, but John’s experience told in the end. It was great to see Omi finally play a match for the team though and fitting that she was on board 1. She’s been the flag bearer for girls at our library sessions for more than 5 years now. She lives too far away now for the club nights, but is still a regular at the library on Saturday mornings.

Despite the final result, it was great to see this team play a match. A bit of a statement of the growth and diversity of the club which had no female members at all when I joined. There were almost none playing in the rest of the league either, the queens gambit TV series along with the library and school work of CSC are beginning to change that. With Eva Harris new to the club and Shanaya also playing in the league now, the Thornaby Queens may well be a full league team next season!

Photos below from first ever Thornaby Queens match. Freya was finished too quickly for the photos, so we staged a realistic reconstruction of her final move with Charles providing some possibly over-dramatic simulated audience reaction! I promise they're better at chess than acting!

Chris

Date:02/12/2024  Friendly draw for Dragoons!

Middlesbrough C 2-2 Thornaby Dragoons
Ged Murphy 0-1 Maurice Olum
Chris Rumsey 0.5-0.5 Neil Sotheby
Andrew Salter 0.5-0.5 George Butterworth
Yasmin Pallister 1-0 Eva Harris

This was my first trip to Middlesbrough Chess Club, and while the venue is charming, with its decorative wooden partition, the lively patrons provided an interesting backdrop. Their spirited chatter offered equal parts amusement, I'm a celebrity commentary and distraction – and perhaps even a handy excuse for any of my suboptimal moves.

After introducing our team to Middlesbrough’s C squad, we took our seats. On Board 4, we had newly signed Eva Harris, making her debut against the almost equally new Yasmin Pallister. Both players started cautiously, and the game remained tight for a long time until Eva, unfortunately, dropped a rook. Despite this setback, she battled on into a pawn endgame. Yasmin ultimately promoted two queens and delivered a textbook ladder mate. A solid effort from both players – Yasmin securing her first league win and Eva showing great potential. I have no doubt Eva’s first win is just around the corner!

George however stole the show for me. As I introduced him to some Middlesbrough players, one opponent visibly tensed, recalling two previous defeats at George’s hands. The tension was briefly lightened when one gentleman mistakenly referred to George and Eva as “the ladies on our team.” I corrected him, clarifying that while George and I both sport beautiful long hair, George is most definitely not female.

George, ever the gentleman (and a Jiu-Jitsu practitioner), opted to let the misunderstanding slide. The real comedy, however, came when George headed off to find the bathroom. From behind the partition, I overheard a spirited debate among the patrons: “Ladies or gents?” After some deliberation, the bar staff decided to play it safe and directed George to the disabled toilet. As George disappeared from view, one particularly vocal patron confidently declared, “Definitely a girl!” I couldn’t compose myself in time to help George, but it was hands-down the highlight of the night for me.

On his return to Board 3, George played at a relatively measured pace (for him), though it still resembled blitz to the rest of us. The game was evenly matched, with both players trading pieces methodically until they reached a relatively symmetrical pawn structure and agreed to a draw. A fair result and another solid performance from George.

I faced Chris Rumsey on Board 2 and felt quietly confident as George's presence had visibly shaken Chris. A small mistake from Chris gave me an early lead, but I returned the favour with a miscalculation just before the endgame. I found myself in a losing position but managed to chip away at Chris’s pieces until he accepted a draw. A bit of a scrappy game on both sides, and I’m looking forward to a rematch.

On Board 1, Maurice delivered as usual, securing our only win of the night against Ged Murphy. After neutralizing Ged’s fianchetto, Maurice capitalized on a tactical opportunity: a check that won him both a rook and a bishop. Ged lost another piece soon after and resigned. Once again, Maurice saved the day.

Though the final score wasn’t in our favour, I’d say comedy was the true winner, thanks to George’s lovely blonde locks and the lively atmosphere. Well played, everyone – and thanks for a memorable night!

Neil

Date:02/12/2024  Knights win Challengers duel!

Middlesbrough Knights 3.5-0.5 Thornaby Challengers
Paul Perrett 1-0 Steve Rodgers
John Pallister 1-0 James Urwin
Nikhil Bhandari 1-0 Joe McGinnis
Ray Pallister ½-½ Jonathan Feasby

I was doing OK against Nikhil, set up an unlikely-looking mating threat which he saw and defended but I won a pawn as a consequence. Blundered a piece a few moves later, to a threat which I had seen earlier and then forgot about. Played on a few more moves, but it was pretty pointless.

Steve's game had finished shortly before after a miscalculation in the endgame when he was a pawn up, so that was 2-0. At that point James looked level and Jonathan looked to be ahead - even if he wasn't a pawn up (I may have miscounted) he had a passed pawn on f3 supported by bishop and rook. James' position suddenly collapsed in the face of an aggressive attack to make it 3-0 at about 9.30.

Jonathan and Ray Pallister then played out a marathon endgame, eventually agreeing a draw as the clocks ticked down. It was a rook and four pawns each, plus opposite-coloured bishops, so was probably a drawn position from a long way back, though it's quite possible that one or both of them might have missed winning chances. Jonathan was certainly keen to analyse the game properly - he said something like it was the most brutal draw he'd ever played - so it will be interesting to see what the engine makes of it.

Joe

Date:01/12/2024  Hurricanes blown away!

Hartlepool D 4-0 Thornaby Hurricanes
Alex Costello 1-0 Sam Stevenson
Charlie “John” Marshall 1-0 Amit Chauhan
Ellis Roebuck 1-0 Richard Stevenson
Harry Henderson 1-0 Shanaya Chauhan

Not such a good result again for the Hurricanes!

Sam said that he thought he had developed enough and was ready to attack but didn't factor in his Queen being pushed around as much as it was which lead to loss of material, says that he needs to develop more before launching into his attack.

Saw that Amit had a tight game, looked to be a minor piece down but pawns up when I was looking but I think his opponent converted this advantage. Amit thought he probably missed chances with his pawn on the 6th rank and might have won with better endgame play.

I was not used to playing someone who is younger than me but that takes the same amount of time to think about each move! I was briefly a pawn up only to go back level several moves later. Was very close until I blundered one of my rooks at which point it was game over.

I didn't see much of Shanayas game, but I did pick up her water bottle when we left!

A tough match, but well done to our opponents. Hartlepool have some good looking new players and top both the C and D division at the moment with some overlap between their 2 teams. Alex Costello has 7 wins from 8 games so far, so Sam especially had a difficult task.

Richard

Date:01/12/2024  3rd place for Thornaby!

Thornaby sent 2 teams to the Durham League's Ron Evers team rapidplay event at Durham University. It is an unusual format where the teams are handicapped based on their overall rating. So for example, in a big mismatch one team starts 3.5 points ahead of the other and only needs 1 draw to win the match.

The Thornaby teams were set to be roughly equal on rating. The "A" team of Mike Creaney, Jonathan Feasby, Pete Townson and Sachin Saggar finished joint 3rd overall with 3 points from the 5 matches. The "B" team unfortunately had a last minute dropout, but the team of Steve Rodgers, Ajay Selvan and Omi Sibanda still finished on 1.5 points from their 5 matches.

Our individual star was Jonathan who got an impressive 3 wins and 2 draws from his games. One of the draws was a bit of a get out of jail free as he was well down, but created enough threats to run the clock down and eventually his opponent missed a perpetual check when he was short on time!

Our players enjoyed the event and our thanks to the Durham League organiser Bryan Bainbridge for organising it.

Date:28/11/2024  Revenge for Tashil!

Redcar A 3-1 Thornaby Dynasties
Matthew Allan 1-0 Iain Mellis
Callum Hodgkiss 0-1 Tashil Lankapura
Eddie Curphey 1-0 Toefl Lankapura
Oliver Williams 1-0 Bertie Mellis

The longest road trip of the season for the Dynasties proved a fruitless one, but there was a notable win for Tashil. The match was also notable for the first time Iain and Bertie have played together on the same team! Iain normally plays higher for us, but is available to the Dynasties. With the team having a cup match on Monday, captain Geoff decided to make use of his full squad this week!

Redcar have some strong junior players and this is arguably their best possible line up at the moment. In form Bertie found he had a tough task on board 4 and was first finished finding Oliver too strong.

Iain played a bishop sacrifice against Matthew on board 1. Matthew managed to defend it though and then Iain blundered his queen to end the game.

Eddie is a new addition to Redcar this season and hasn't wasted any time getting going with 3 wins from 4 so far. This was another notable win for him beating Toefl on board 3.

Last season Tashil scored 11 wins from 12 in the D division and his one defeat was against Callum. It was revenge this time though and Tashil managed to win in the endgame.

Date:28/11/2024  Stockton Health and Wellbeing Festival!

Earlier today Chris S, Pete and Chris R attended the Stockton wellbeing Festival. The club were invited to come along by the organisers because chess has many benefits to mental health and there is of course a positive social side to being a member of an active club like ours.

Our experts (no inverted commas now) had a bit of an upgrade with Malcolm unavailable, Aces board 1 Chris Ross fresh from a victory last night turned out to be free to help out!

We had an excellent day talking to people about the club and our Saturday library sessions. Hopefully we'll see some new faces at the club soon! Members of the public could win a box of chocolates if they could beat one of our "experts", but unsurprisingly all the chocolates came home with us!

We did get one ringer tun up to play us. A familiar face to many, former league president Ernie Lazenby turned up and took on Chris and Pete. The old magic was still there as he managed to force a draw with Chris and he won against Pete, but let us keep the chocolates!

Chris

Date:27/11/2024  Routine win for Aces!

Billingham Synthonia Synners 1-3 Thornaby Aces
Harry Tennant 0-1 Chris Ross
Paul Frank 0-1 Francis Batchelor
Stuart McLaughlin 0-1 Chris Swales
Paul Weightman 1-0 Brian Ellis

With Billingham's regular top 2 players missing, this was a fairly routine win for the Aces. Certainly the top 2 Billingham boards were heavily outgraded.

Chris R was first finished. Reigning Teesside Under 18 champion Harry found the step up to board 1 tough and swapping his dark squared bishop off early proved a costly mistake with Chris exploiting the lack of queen side development and the weak dark squares to win in 21 moves.

Chris S finished next with a relatively straightforward win. He got a pawn up with the queens exchanged off after just 7 moves and despite some good pressure from Stuart, particularly on a backward e3 pawn, Chris was able to defend Stuart's threats. Stuart went all out for an attack (which was probably a better option than the slow death that was coming), but unfortunately allowed his rook to be trapped on h2.

Francis wrapped up the win. It looked close for a while, but by the end he was several pawns ahead.

Brian did have a chance for a draw by repetition, but with the match already sewn up he decided to go for a win. Unfortuantely shortly after that Paul found a combination that ended with a queen fork on king and knight and Brian could not get back into the game a piece down.

Date:27/11/2024  Stockton Health and Wellbeing Festival!

Cadets go 2nd! Billingham Synthonia Irons 2-2 Thornaby Cadets
Dermot O Higgins 0-1 Ajay Selvan
Graham Edwards 0-1 Aryan Nalawade
Martin Curry 1-0 Rhys Orton
Graham Glass 1-0 Jayden Wang

All the games were still going at close to 9pm which must be some sort of Cadets record!

Aryan and Ajay arrived together and their games finished at almost exactly the same time as well. I did wonder if they had some kind of pact! Aryan was level with a rook, a knight and 6 pawns each. He found a nice tactic in an innocuous looking position with his pawn on g4 and his opponent’s king on g2 surrounded by h2,f2 and g3. A knight check on e3 with the f2 pawn pinned forced the king back and then the rook would have been mate if his opponent hadn't resigned. Ajay was very dominant in his game. A pawn up and then a piece up, it always looked well under control.

With a couple of players unavailable, Jayden was selected on merit. He played well, but ultimately Graham’s experience told and he managed to get 1 pawn and then 2 pawns up. Jayden battled on, but it was hopeless by the end. Graham was impressed though and said to me afterwards, "I wish I was that good when I was 8!"

Rhys was 4 points ahead at this point, but in a very complicated middle game. I think time was a factor in the end as Rhys was down to 4 minutes and his opponent still had 25 at the end. Next time I looked Rhys had 2 rooks and 4 pawns against a queen and 4 pawns. Initially I thought it looked OK for at least a draw, but the queen was supporting a pawn on the 5th rank and the combination of where the pieces were made it impossible to stop.

Probably a point dropped in the end, but 2 good wins on the top 2 boards and the Cadets are currently 2nd in the table and going well.

Chris

Date:26/11/2024  First win for Comets!

Thornaby Comets 2½-1½ Darlington D
Jonathan Feasby 0-1 Barry Hopkins
Phil Wales ½-½ Mark Turner
Alan Stockley 1-0 John Halliday
Maurice Olum 1-0 Maks Konczynski

At last, we have a win in the League!

This was Jonathan’s first game on returning home but he faced tough opposition from Barry. He went a piece down fairly early but battled on until he lost his queen for a rook. Jonathan was left vulnerable in the centre of the 8th rank and after an attack with Barry’s queen and bishop, he resigned before an impending checkmate.

Phil’s match was very tight. Both players advanced pawns and protected them so that they reached a stalemate and agreed a draw.

Alan quickly gained a knight advantage and proceeded to grind down John. When Alan got his rooks onto the 2nd rank, supported by a bishop on C6 it was all over bar the shouting. John lost more pieces in a desperate attempt to defend his king and was forced into the open where he was quickly checkmated.

Maurice’s game was a bit of a one sided affair which gave him a checkmate in 16 moves.

This was the first league win of the season, but 1 win 2 draws and 1 loss leaves us 1 point off 2nd place and well in touch.

Malcolm

Date:25/11/2024  Dynasties Snatch Cup Victory from the Jaws of Defeat!

Hartlepool D 2.5–2.5 Thornaby Dynasties
John Marsden 0.5-0.5 Geoff Mann
Ashton Woodward 0-1 James Mann
Hayden Thompson 0-1 Neil Sotheby
Alex Costello 1-0 Tim Hind
John Marshall 1-0 Charles Hind

(Dynasties win on 3 black rules)

Well a strange night ended with victory, but it was far from plain sailing.

First of I lose the toss and to my surprise their captain picks whites. He was on board 1, so must have been confident.

First finished was James in what was a blitz game. Finished in under 40 moves and James showing how much he has improved this year by dominating to a good win.

2nd finished was Tim losing to a higher ranked opponent. I didn’t see the game but Tim said he played his worst game in a while!

Now to my game. I didn’t play well and was down a pawn quite early. I kept fighting on and trying to set traps but he kept getting out of them. Then I played a check to swap queens which he obliged. Only later did I realise I hung my queen but he missed it. I then manage to get into a knight v bishop pawns games which he managed to develop so that he could have promoted a queen with the right moves. Fortunately he missed this and I managed to manoeuvre my knight round the board to take his remaining pawns and managed to draw.

Onto Neil and he was down a rook to a bishop and his pieces looked stuck. He managed to get consecutive checks which forked a rook and looked more promising. Neil looked to still have work to do when his opponent resigned. This meant we had enough for the match win.

I watched Charles and he battled bravely, but again he was quite well outranked.

So into the semi finals and hopefully a less close game!! I might just put the lottery on this weekend!

Geoff

Date:24/11/2024  Stockton Health and Wellbeing Festival!

Thornaby Chess Club will be at the Stockton Health and Wellbeing Festival on Thursday 28th November. The event is on at Thornaby Pavillion from 10am-2pm. Come down to find out about the club and challenge our "experts" and you could win a prize!

Date:24/11/2024  Happy Birthday!

One of our top players has reached a significant birthday milestone today! With the level of his chess, we sometimes forget how young he is, but Tashil has just reached double digits! Happy 10th Birthday Tashil, the club very much approve of your cake!

Date:21/11/2024  Juniors draw again!

Redcar B 2-2 Thornaby Juniors
Eddie Curphey 1-0 Zhuoyi Lin
Stanley Allan 1-0 Josh Fisher
Joseph Dodds 0-1 Jayden Wang
Katherine Myers 0-1 Tristan Green

A 3rd draw in 4 games for the juniors saw them end Redcar B's 100% start to the season.

Josh was fist finished and he established a good attacking start, but some good counter-attacking chess from Stanley saw him take the win.

Tristan continued his 100% start to the season with another win. He went a rook up early in this one and although Katherine battled on well, it always looked to be a decisive lead.

Jayden ensured at least a draw for Thornaby with what is definitely is best ever long game win! His opponent Joseph had won his previous 5 league games, including against our own Rhys Orton and Malcolm Goldspink and has recently got his first full rating of 1451. Joseph did manage to get a pawn up in this one, but an opposite squared bishops ending was looking pretty drawish. However, Jayden found a clever tactic to do a discovered check which won Joseph's bishop and ensured Jayden queened a pawn. It took a few games for Jayden to get his first league win 2 weeks ago, but we knew it would come and we didn't have to wait long for his second!

Last to finish with Zhuoyi in what was his longest match so far. So long that he misjudged how long he'd have to do some homework. His match wasn't finished until half past 9 and when he got home he had to write an essay on MacBeth! He got an A star though apparently, so maybe leaving all his homework until after chess matches is the future! Zhuoyi is still getting used to longer games and he was well ahead in this one before a couple of lapses in concentration towards the end proved costly.

Nevertheless, a good team result against a team that are likely to be near the top come the end of the season.

Date:20/11/2024  Aces go close!

Great Ayton A 2½-1½ Thornaby Aces
Virgil Szekely 1-0 Francis Batchelor
Steve Booth 1-0 Matt Jackman
Andrew Smith 0-1 Brian Ellis
Martin McLoughlin ½-½ Mike Creaney

The top 2 teams from last season met at Great Ayton on Wednesday. The Great Ayton chess blog is essential reading for me and often good for a laugh, but my all time favourite comment on there was after their 4-0 win against us which decided the league title last season (following us winning 3.5-0.5 at their venue earlier in the season):

"To paraphrase the immortal words of Norwegian presenter Bjorge Lillelien 'David Mills (ex-Boro footballer), Richard Griffiths (actor), Ray Mallon (ex Robocop mayor), Holly Hagen (me neither), Mike Creaney and Brian Ellis, you boys took one helluva beating'. Last night saw our A team get revenge for their surprise loss earlier in the campaign by trouncing the Thornaby Aces by a whitewash score of 4-0."

It was therefore fitting that with several Aces unavailable and Steve getting tied up at work at the last minute, the 2 club stalwarts "famous" enough to make it into this quote filled out the Aces team!

There was no "filler" about it though with Brian finishing first and getting an excellent win over Andrew Smith. Brian took a season out last year, but he seems back to his best and ready to reclaim his regular place on the Aces team. Next finished was Mike who managed to hold the Ayton blog writer Martin to a draw.

With the Aces leading 1.5-0.5, Great Ayton's top 2 came through for them though and Steve beat Matt who possibly over-extended himself before Virgil sealed the win for Great Ayton.

Date:20/11/2024  B52s win with Dragoons assist!

Billingham Synthonia Chemics 1.5-2.5 Thornaby B52s
Bernie Callaghan 0-1 Santiago Palencia Ruiz
Andrew Herrity 1-0 Callum Abbott
Graham Edwards 0-1 Maurice Olum
Dave Elsdon ½-½ Neil Sotheby

With only 1 of the original 4 selected playing in the match in the end, this was a good result for us! 2 of our in form Thornaby Dragoons players stepped in to fill the lower boards and helped get us over the line. Dragoons captain Neil also stood in as the on the night captain.

His report after the game "A marathon for me tonight, but hopefully a pleasant surprise for the team! I didn't see any of the other games as I was last to finish. Maurice and Santiago were watching my game for a little, but both left (probably in disgust!) shortly after I did my 'special move' and blundered my queen. I didn't want to let the team down any more than I already had with the blunder though so hung on for dear life and managed to trap Dave's queen and pull out a draw".

Earlier in the night, Callum was confused by his opponent's opening and struggled to get into the game, but he is enjoying playing for the team again after a year out. Santiago and Maurice had better nights and helped us into a 2-1 lead. A good board 1 win for Santiago. That left Neil to somehow salvage a draw from a fairly hopeless looking position to give us the overall match win!

Date:19/11/2024  Dragoons hold Hartlepool!

Thornaby Dragoons 2-2 Hartlepool D
Maurice Olum 1-0 John Marsden
Neil Sotheby 1-0 Dale Clark
George Butterworth 0-1 Alex Costello
Joe Vera-Sanso 0-1 John Marshall

Not a lot of game details this time, as I was too busy holding up the rear – quite literally, finishing last.

Walking into the back room, I had mixed feelings when I spotted John Marsden from Hartlepool. He was my nemesis from two weeks ago, beating me during my visit with the Comets after I made an uncharacteristically silly mistake (well, okay, maybe not that uncharacteristic). I was secretly hoping for a shot at revenge but wasn’t entirely confident I wouldn’t just give him another reason to celebrate. As it turned out, John was on Board 1 for Hartlepool, and since I’d already assured Maurice he’d be playing top board, I thought it best not to disrupt anyone’s prep work – especially after the monumental effort put into preparing for the “correct” colours. Plus, Maurice is the stronger player, and I didn’t fancy the idea of swapping boards just to nurse my ego.

But, of course, I couldn’t get through the night without a classic captaincy blunder. As we were about to sit down, Maurice pointed out I’d given everyone the wrong colours in advance… again. Argh! When will I learn? To make matters worse, I’d initially told everyone it was an away match – thankfully, Phil spotted my mistake in the group chat, saving us all the embarrassment and petrol money of a pointless seaside trip!

The Games
• Board 1: Maurice vs. John Marsden
Maurice went head-to-head with my would-be rival, and it seems he made light work of John. I overheard Maurice calmly explaining his victory afterward, kindly pointing out that even John’s theoretical defence wouldn’t have saved him. A masterclass performance – well done, Maurice!

• Board 2: Me vs. Dale Clark
My game against Dale was the last to finish but still wrapped up in about an hour. I managed to force Dale to surrender his queen with a checkmate threat and soon added his rook to my growing collection. With a comfortable lead, I pushed a pawn to promotion and forced a resignation just before mate.

• Board 3: George vs. Alex Costello
George played what, for him, was a slow and measured game – though it still looked like blitz from my perspective. By the five-minute mark, nearly all his pieces were deep in Alex’s half of the board. While it was a bold and aggressive strategy, it may have been a little too optimistic, as George couldn’t convert the position and ended up losing to Alex.

• Board 4: Joe vs. John Marshall
Joe, as always, played with a smile, clearly enjoying his game against John. However, it wasn’t his night, and after his loss, he gracefully retired to “warm up Board 5” in the bar area. By the time I finished my game, I joined him there to commiserate, where we used the bar’s refreshments to dull the sting of defeat.

Final Thoughts
A 2-2 draw against Hartlepool D, who are currently top of the division, is a solid result for the Dragoons in our first season. Well done to the whole team – and a special thanks to the squad for your patience with my endless captaincy hiccups. I promise I’ll get it right one day... probably.

Neil

Date:19/11/2024  Bertie wins again!

Thornaby Hurricanes 1-3 Billingham Dominators
Sam Stevenson 0-1 Paul Scott
Andrew Salter 0-1 Steven Clark
Bertie Mellis 1-0 Nicola Harrington
Shanaya Chauhan 0-1 Graham Bartram

The match was over quickly (all 4 by 8 o clock) and I didn’t see a lot from the individual games.

I did go through some of Shanaya’s game and she played the opening well. Her big mistake was playing g3 when castled king side and her white bishop was off and Graham’s wasn’t. That always looked to be a bit risky. He forced his way to mate on g2, but a good performance from Shanaya. A bit more queen activity in the early middle game instead of playing g3 and she would still have been level.

Andrew and Sam were up against strong players for this level. Paul is a former D division top scorer and Steven is new, but shows all the signs of heading towards 1500+ fairly quickly.

Bertie got a good win over Nicola who is rated over 1200. 2 out of 3 for Bertie in the D division so far and he should have won the other one as well, he was well ahead and missed a back rank mate! Bertie has been around at our library sessions for a few years now and it's great to see him finally playing in the league! Who knows, a rating above Dad might soon be a target!

Chris

Date:19/11/2024  Challengers crash to Darlington!

Thornaby Challengers 0-4 Darlington C
Steve Rodgers 0-1 Dominic Leigh
Mike Creaney 0-1 Richard Harris
Joe McGinnis 0-1 Stephen Halliday
Tashil Lankapura 0-1 Bob Donner

After 3 straight wins to start the season, the Challengers went down spectacularly, 4-0 to a very strong Darlington C team. Tashil was handed a tough B division debut against Bob Donner, rated 1652, on board 4!

I didn't see Joe's game. Tashil was even for a while and even looked to have an edge in piece development, but blundered and couldn't get back into the game.

Steve had a tight middle game battle which resolved with both players having just 10 mins on the clock when Steve conceded an isolated passed pawn. This pawn looked defendable which would probably have given Steve at least a draw and some chances to counter for a win. In fact, the pawn seemed impossible to stop given an unusual piece co-ordination on both sides which led to Steve's resignation several moves later.

Mike's game also looked close but entered a rook end-game with Mike 1 pawn down. Mike's opponent found a neat trap to force the exchange the rooks which quickly led to Mike's resignation with the threat of an outside passed pawn looming.

Pete.

Date:19/11/2024  Juniors shine in Club Championship!

Juniors run Comets close! Thornaby Comets 3-2 Thornaby Juniors
Phil Wales (1495) 0-1 Aryan Nalawade (1450E)
Pete Townson (1477) 1-0 Zhuoyi Lin (1390)
Bill March (1462) 0-1 Avanish Batra (1300E)
Alan Stockley (1402) 1-0 Josh Fisher (1200E)
Malcolm Goldspink (1307) 1-0 Harris Wilson (1204)

An excellent cup match stuffed full of 1400+ and potential 1400+ level players on both sides. The juniors came close to pulling off what would have been a bit of a shock result. With Rhys (1500 exactly), Ajay (1519) and Joseph (1535) all breaking the 1500 barrier last year, I thought this competition might have come a year too late for us to field a competitive junior team. Aryan, Avanish, Zhuoyi and Josh have all joined the club in the last year though and are very able replacements. Unfortunately, based on these games, they may well all also be ineligible for it next year!

Bill and Avanish finished first. An uncharacteristic blunder from Bill left Avanish a rook up and Bill saw nothing in his position for it to be worth continuing.

When I first looked at the games, Aryan was a pawn up in and endgame, Josh was 2 pieces for 2 pawns up and seemed to have Alan in a lot of trouble. Zhuoyi was 2 pawns down and Harris and Malcolm looked dead level. As is normal, all the juniors were 20 minutes or more ahead on time as well! A shock certainly looked to be on the cards.

Soon after, Aryan made it 2-0 to the juniors. Before I saw the position, he’d actually managed to get 4 points ahead and had Phil in all kinds of trouble before missing a pawn was pinned and losing a bishop. The pawn endgame still looked favourable for Aryan though and he converted.

Pete’s game saw Zhuoyi lose a pawn in the first few moves. Pete thought for a while that it be some prepared trap, but couldn’t find it and nothing materialised. Pete managed to get another pawn up and the end game was straightforward from there. Zhuoyi put a very good fight though and Pete was full of praise afterwards.

Josh played very well for most of the game and ended up 2 pieces for 2 pawns ahead. He underestimated the strength of the 2 pawns though and Alan managed to force one of them through.

Malcolm and Harris were last finished and Malcolm put in the captain’s performance to seal the win for the Comets. It was a tough close competitive game most of the way through, but Harris made the decisive mistake and resigned in a lost endgame position.

Good luck to the Comets in the Semi Finals!

Chris

Date:18/11/2024  Freya Prevails in Friendly Friendly!

Middlesbrough C 3-1 Thornaby Destroyers
Ged Murphy 1-0 Ik Madueke
Chris Rumsey 1-0 Nick Tadd
Andrew Salter 1-0 Charles Hind
Yasmin Pallister 0-1 Freya Hind

With an odd number of teams in the D division, Middlesbrough have offered to play a few friendly games against some of the teams with bye weeks.

We lost 3-1, but it was much closer than the final score. All games were tight, IK was winning when Tim left, but blundered towards the end. Nick again was tight, but then missed 2 skewers. Charles went a queen down early, but managed to put up a very good fight. Freya was up against a famous surname in local chess circles when she took on Yasmin Pallister (Ray's granddaughter). Freya was down 6 pieces, had only a queen and a few pawns, but a blunder by Yasmin in her final move allowed Freya to mate with her queen supported by a pawn!

More importantly, the game was played in a very good friendly spirit. Ray Pallister messaged the club today to say "Many thanks for arranging last night's friendly. What a wonderful evening's match. The atmosphere was so friendly regardless of the result. Tim must be so proud of his youngsters, as were John and myself of Yasmin. It was an absolute pleasure to be there."

We echo the sentiments and hope it helps lead to a 3rd Middlesbrough team playing fully in the league again next season!

Date:16/11/2024  Juniors shine in Club Championship!

The 2nd round of the club championship has been drawn. We've used the accelerated draw system for the first time this year and it has led to much more competitive first round games. The first round saw some great matches and big shocks and it was very good for our youngsters. Aryan, George, Tashil, Kaira, Sam and Josh all beat higher rated players! Pick of the results was Aryan's win against Joe McGinnis and Tashil's win against Iain. Newcomer Santiago also started with a strong win. Of the 18 players on 1 point, 11 are under 18, 3 of the 7 adults have joined within the last year and another 2 have joined in the last 2 years. There was some hope for the club veterans though with second seed Brian Ellis beating top Comets player Phil in what was probably the tie of the round.

The pick of the ties in the second round draw sees an interesting junior battle between Aryan and Sagar who have had some great battles in junior events over the last couple of years while Francis faces the unknown against Santiago. A definite youth Vs experience tie sees Mike take on Tashil while Brian will certainly not have an easy match against Ajay.

The full results and draw are here

Date:13/11/2024  Mike prevents whitewash!

Darlington B 3½-½ Thornaby Bombers
Giuseppe Magazzu 1-0 Joe McGinnis
Nick Webb 1-0 Steve Rodgers
Dominic Leigh ½-½ Mike Creaney
Richard Harris 1-0 Santiago Ruiz

The individual games and match were closer than the score would suggest.

Joe 'sacrificed' himself on board one, but as it turned out none of us would have done as well as Joe on top board, succumbing only in mutual time shortage. Joe built up a big lead on time in the opening with play going along a familiar variation to him, Giuseppe threatened his d5 pawn for much of the middle game. There was a chance of a draw in the end if Joe had allowed a series of checks, but a complicated end game ensued and Giuseppe played the time scramble better. Still a good performance from Joe to go toe to toe with a 1900+ player for over 3 hours.

My game was very cagey throughout at least until the very end when Dominic with 1min 46secs to my 20min or so offered a draw. To my eye it was equal, so I accepted not wishing to flag my opponent unless I had an advantage, subsequent analysis by stockfish told me I was losing by -1.96 although material was even. These engines aren't aware that I have my own style!

Santiago appeared to be doing OK, but Richard's experience told in the ending.

Steve had a very close tussle with Nick Webb advantage passing between both players. Steve ended up 2 pawns up, but underestimated a move and Nick chased his king round the board for 6 or 7 moves before Steve resigned with mate imminent.

Mike

Date:12/11/2024  Cadets win junior battle!

Thornaby Cadets 2.5-1.5 Redcar A
Joseph Machin 0-1 Eddie Curphey
Rhys Orton 0.5-0.5 Luke Young
Aryan Nalawade 1-0 Oliver Williams
Avanish Batra 1-0 Katherine Myers

All 8 players in this match were under 18 and it was a great showcase for some of the young talent playing in the CCA now. Despite normal board 1 Ajay playing his Cleveland Individual, the Cadets managed to come out on top.

Avanish made a mis-calculation and was 2 points down at one stage in the game, but with good active pieces in compensation. Soon after going behind, he managed to get a win with a discovered checkmate threat that Katherine missed completely. 3 out of 3 for Avanish who remains up there amongst the top scorers in the division.

Aryan had an excellent win capitalising on his opponent losing tempos in the opening and getting a pawn up. He exchanged off to a promising looking end game, and then a mistake from his opponent let Aryan in on the queenside for checkmate. A relatively routine win in the end.

Rhys didn’t like his position and felt like he was in a bit of trouble and seeing as though we were 2-0 up in the match, he was happy to agree a draw to make sure of the points for the Cadets!

Joseph was frustrated after his game. Eddie is a good player and on board 1 for Redcar for a reason, but Joseph managed to get ahead when the position got complex to go a piece up. He possibly relaxed a bit too much here and unfortunately blundered the piece back into a lost endgame position. Still a good performance from Joseph for 99% of the match!

Meanwhile Sagar, Tashil and Jayden all won in the club championship and Ajay gave Matt Jackman a good game in the Cleveland Individual. A good showcase night for our best junior players!

Chris

Date:11/11/2024  Comets crash to earth!

Hartlepool C 3-1 Thornaby Comets
Alex Kalyviotis 0-1 Phil Wales
Michael Smalley 1-0 Maurice Olum
John Marsden 1-0 Neil Sotheby
Graham Marshall 1-0 Malcolm Goldspink

Hartlepool fielded their strongest team to date and although Phil took it in his stride, they proved too strong for our lower rated players.

Phil was always in control and after an attack by Black with his Queen and Rooks, Phil tied them up with his two Rooks which left him to counter-attack with his Queen and Bishop. He still had over half an hour on his clock when Alex resigned with only seconds on his clock. Another stellar performance from our most dependable player!

A warm welcome to the team for Maurice and a hot seat to initiate him. It was touch and go for Maurice, even though he went down a Rook he still managed to pose lots of threats. When Michael managed a swap of Queens the double attack of the White Rooks proved decisive and Maurice resigned before an imminent Checkmate. Another 3 hour marathon for Maurice. I think I’ll take sandwiches and a flask of tea to his next match.

Neil lost a Knight early in the opening and never really recovered. Although Neil battled on, his loss of a piece so early in the game left a big hole in his defences and John steadily wore him down and the game was finished within the hour.

My game was a cagey and cautious one, most unlike me, and lasted 2 hours. The end game started with each of us having 4 pawns blocked against each other – mine on white and his on black. I had a black Bishop and he a white Bishop. Graham managed to get behind my pawns take out two of them. From then it was a fight to stop his passed pawn – which I lost.

Hopefully, Neil and I have learnt some lessons from our defeats and will start to put some results together.

Malcolm

Date:09/11/2024  Thornaby Junior Chess Open!

Earlier today, a sold out field of 54 children aged between 6 and 17 took part in the first ever Thornaby Junior Chess Open. It was nice to see players from so many different clubs, libraries and schools in the region. It was a fantastic day and all 54 children played sportingly throughout. No tears or tantrums and all 54 finished the full 5 rounds!

The Under 14 and Under 18 sections were combined for pairing purposes. Josh Fisher led the way with 4 out of 4 with a round to go prompting questions about whether or not he is related to Bobby! However, in the last round Sam Stevenson managed to overtake him to win the overall title with 4.5 points. Josh still finished as runner up in the Under 14 with Zhuoyi and Raihan completing a Thornaby clean sweep of the medals. The pairings worked out so that James Mann played Steven Clark in the last round to decide the Under 18 champion. Steven has started playing in the league for Billingham this season and also visited the Scarborough chess congress a couple of weeks ago. This experience obviously helped him and he managed to get the win over James to win his section. Zac Gillott from Durham City club finished in 3rd. The girls Under 14 section was won by Katherine Myers who plays in the league for Redcar and was up with the leaders for a lot of the event, while a famous surname in local chess, Riley Cassidy (Sean's grand daughter) was 2nd. Our own Omi Sibanda had a couple of stalemates in winning positions in the early rounds, but finished strongly to end on 3/5 and be the Under 18 girls winner.

The Under 11 section was smaller than the others, but it was a tough field loaded with high quality players. Tashil beat his main rival Dara in round 2 and went on to be the only player in any of the sections to finish on 5/5. Dara didn't let this disappointment affect him and won his other games to finish on a strong 4/5. 3rd place was shared by Marco Balocco from Durham City club, Shadrach Moukoko from Thornaby library and Thornaby Village school's Sebastian Green. Freya was the strong favourite for the girls title in this section and she didn't disappoint with a comfortable win over her main rival Mehek from Thornaby library in round 4.

The Under 9 section was the biggest in terms of entries and the closest fought in the end. Our own Jayden Wang was the favourite for the section and was the only player on 4 out of 4 going into the last round. However, a surprise quick win for Henry Bishop ("so good they named a chess piece after him" as Sean Marsh said at a recent event!) threw the section wide open. In the end, 5 players all finished on 4 out of 5. The "Score of Beaten" method was the tie break we decided on at the start of the event to find the trophy winners in this circumstance. Even on this method, it was a very tight finish, but Henry just pipped Jayden and Joseph Hartill by 1 point with Yarm school's Agam Vats and Rory McNamee sharing 3rd place. A great result for Rory who we only met recently at our new Middleton St George sessions. Certainly a player to watch for the future. Arya Jafari and Matthew Hartill were also in contention on 3 points going into the last round and we look set to have some great battles between all of these talented youngsters in this age group at our local junior events over the next few years. The girls section was also closely contested. Jazmin Hussain-Zelei from Ingleby Library finished on a very creditable 3/5 in her first ever event to take the title. Oakley Richmond who played on board 1 for the Billingham South girls team that finished in 3rd place in the recent Teesside Team Championships (ahead of a lot of boys teams) was the runner up while Mia Metcalfe from Thornaby library was 3rd.

It was nice to hand out so many medals, but all the children should be proud of their efforts and they all received a certificate and a special magnetic chess board present from CSC for taking part. We hope everyone enjoyed the day and we look forward to welcoming you all again next year.

Finally, a big thank you to Joe, Pete, Toefl, Tim and Steve. It was nice to have so many players willing to give up their time to help make the event run so smoothly.

Chris


OVERALL WINNERS

Girls Under 9
Champion) Jazmin Hussain-Zelei
2nd) Oakley Richmond
3rd) Mia Metcalfe

Boys Under 9
Champion) Henry Bishop
2nd=) Joseph Hartill, Jayden Wang
3rd=) Agam Vats, Rory McNamee

Girls Under 11
Champion) Freya Hind
2nd) Mehek Malik

Boys Under 11
Champion) Tashil Lankapura
2nd) Dara Jafari
3rd=) Marco Balocco, Shadrach Moukoko, Sebastian Green

Girls Under 14
Champion) Katherine Myers
2nd) Riley Cassidy

Boys Under 14
Champion) Sam Stevenson
2nd) Josh Fisher
3rd=) Zhuoyi Lin, Raihan Malik

Girls Under 18
Champion) Omi Sibanda

Boys Under 18
Champion) Steven Clark
2nd) James Mann
3rd) Zac Gillott

FULL RESULTS

Under 9
4 points) Henry Bishop (Ingleby Library), Joseph Hartill (Ingleby Library), Jayden Wang (Thornaby), Agam Vats (Yarm School), Rory McNamee (Middleton St George)
3 points) Matthew Hartill (Ingleby Library), Arya Jafari (Stockton Library), Henry Laverick (Holy Trinity), Jazmin Hussain-Zelei (Ingleby Library)
2.5 points) Nathaniel Mozdyniewicz (Ingleby Library), Yenul Karunathilaka (Thornaby Library), Ted Taylor (Holy Trinity)
2 points) Harrison Lamb (Redcar), Kai Broughton, Oakley Richmond (Billingham South), Mia Metcalfe (Thornaby Library), Jack Elliott (Ingleby Library)
1.5 points) Jack Butterworth (Thornaby Library), Angela Moukoko (Thornaby Library), Alice Elliott (Ingleby Library)
1 point) Tejveer Singh (Thornaby Library)

Under 11
5 points) Tashil Lankapura (Thornaby)
4 points) Dara Jafari (Stockton Library)
3 points) Marco Balocco (Durham City), Shadrach Moukoko (Thornaby Library), Seb Green (Thornaby Village School)
2 points) Freya Hind (Thornaby), Ben Pearson (Thornaby Village School), Keith Barker-Chapman (Skelton)
1 point) Oscar Metcalfe (Thornaby Library), Mehek Malik (Thornaby Library)

Under 14/18 (combined section)
4.5 points) Sam Stevenson (Thornaby)
4 points) Josh Fisher (Thornaby), Zhuoyi Lin (Thornaby), Raihan Malik (Thornaby Library)
3.5 points) Steven Clark (Billingham Synthonia)
3 points) James Mann (Thornaby), Omi Sibanda (Thornaby Library), Zac Gillott (Durham City), Charlie Miller (Darlington), Hubert Hildebrandt (Hartlepool)
2.5 points) Tristan Green (Thornaby), George Butterworth (Thornaby), Charles Hind (Thornaby)
2 points) Ben Armstrong (Ingleby Library), Stanley Allan (Redcar), Katherine Myers (Redcar), Ravleen Singh (Thornaby Library), Michael Leathley (Durham City), Volodymyr Kryzhanovskyi (Ingleby Library)
1.5 points) Dmytro Kryzhanovskyi (Ingleby Library)
1 point) Daniel McNamee (Middleton St George), Riley Cassidy (Stockton Library), Zakariyya Ali Khan

Date:06/11/2024  Ollie and Olum gain a point!

Date:06/11/2024  Ollie and Olum gain a point!

Billingham Synthonia Dominators 2-2 Thornaby Dragoons
Dave Elsdon 0-1 Maurice Olum
Steven Clark 1-0 Neil Sotheby
Nicola Harrington 0-1 Ollie Walton
Sean Cooke 1-0 Joe Vera-Sanso

The Dragoons journeyed to Billingham Synthonia for my debut captaining at an away venue. Until now, our “away” games were against other Thornaby teams, so this was the first on foreign territory.

I spent the last week or two eagerly preparing my white opening, which I was feeling very confident about when a practice game against Phil went much better than I would have expected on Tuesday, he obviously still beat me but I was feeling good. Maurice however was on hand to bring me back down to earth by pointing out I was actually playing black at Billingham. Unfortunately, this wasn't my only mistake...

Upon arrival, we were warmly welcomed by Nicky, who politely informed me that I’d seated two players in the wrong order so would be now playing the opposite colour rendering any prep work futile. But they took it in stride and sat down at their corrected boards to face Nicola Harrington and Sean Cooke.

Joe, on his competitive debut for the club played on Board 4 against Sean and he fought valiantly. Though I didn’t get a chance to follow the game, I did see him get momentarily flustered – a rare sight for Joe! Sean later assured me it had been a hard-fought game, so hats off to Joe on a good debut. Even in defeat, he held his ground well.

Ollie took Board 3 against Nicola Harrington and was clearly in command by move 12. He confidently dominated the position, winning in a composed and smooth style with a brilliantly spotted mating combination on move 34. A fantastic win for Ollie, his first of many with the Dragoons!

On Board 2, I faced Steven Clark, but after my earlier fumbles, confidence wasn’t my strongest asset. My Scandinavian Defense held up reasonably well until an ill-timed castle handed Steven the advantage. Despite a late-game effort to promote a pawn, Steven shut down my final hopes, capturing my pawn and sealing my fate. Hats off to Steven for a well-deserved victory.

The final game to finish was Maurice v Dave Elsdon. This game was a full on marathon lasting the full 3.5 hours, minus a minute or two. This did allow me to make an appearance at board 5 which was needed!

Both Maurice and Dave were piece for piece, and almost minute for minute right until the end. It was a methodical game with neither player giving up a piece unless they were able to return the favour which meant it was a real nail biter right to the very end. With less than 4 minutes each remaining things started to proceed at a faster pace where Maurice was able to force a mistake from Dave and capture his queen. I knew Maurice could win from here but my heart was racing as Maurice had only a minute on his clock and was a minute down with Dave playing moves at a blistering pace. Maurice stayed calm while still playing at warp speed and managed to mop up Dave's remaining pieces with his queen until Dave resigned, possibly out of exhaustion! Well done Maurice, I'll make some I bring some energy bars and drinks to the next game.

Final score: a hard-fought 2-2 draw. Not a bad result for our first “real” away game. Here’s to more battles and more wins in the coming matches – onward, Dragoons!

Neil

Date:06/11/2024  Challengers go top!

Billingham Synthonia Chemics 0-4 Thornaby Challengers
Bernie Callaghan 0-1 Steve Rodgers
Michael Joynes 0-1 Mike Creaney
Graham Glass 0-1 James Urwin
Paul Scott 0-1 Joe McGinnis

A third win from the first 3 matches this season for the Challengers, beating Billingham 4-0 tonight and taking us back to the top of the table!

Steve on board 1 had a battle deep into the middle game - holding the initiative throughout but good defence by his opponent kept material level. Eventually Steve's pressure told, initially winning a pawn which undermined his opponents position and quickly lead to gaining more pawns and a neat queen and bishop mate.

Mike's game finished first after winning a queen via a skewer in front of the king. They played on for a while but the game finished quickly.

James won an early exchange but his opponent managed to take the game into a tricky end game with doubled passed pawns as compensation. Ultimately James' accepted a bishop sacrifice when his opponent thought he had enough time to promote a pawn, but James correctly calculated a less obvious defence to stop the pawn and win the game.

Joe found traps fairly early in his game to win two pawns and with this advantage Joe was never in trouble methodically exchanging pieces before converting the win.

Pete

Date:05/11/2024  Debut win for Ik!

Thornaby Destroyers 1-3 Redcar B
Tim Hind 0-1 Matthew Allan
Ik Madueke 1-0 Callum Hodgkiss
Charles Hind 0-1 Oliver Williams
Freya Hind 0-1 Stanley Allan

With Redcar's board 4 higher rated than the Destroyers board 1, this looked like a tough ask on paper! The D division is famous for unpredictable result, but this one also turned out to be a tough ask on the board as well! The match was also a bit of a "clan war" with Thornaby's Hinds taking on Redcar's very own dynasty the Allans!

Freya was first finished. She said it was going well right up until the point that it wasn't! A checkmate threat was missed.

The captains/clan leaders/dads played on board 1. Tim has started the season well, but a disastrous blunder in this one lost his queen and Matthew (who is still unbeaten in the league in over a season now) wasn't going to let a lead like that slip.

Charles unbeaten start to the season also came to an end. Oliver is another impressive new junior player to Redcar who picked up a relatively dominant win to make it 6 from his 8 league games so far since he started playing late last year.

It was left to Ik to salvage something from the match. We were hoping he would be playing at the start of the season, but work reasons have delayed his debut. His opponent Callum is a dangerous player who finished ahead of both Sagar and Joseph at the Teesside Megafinal. So it was a great start to league chess for Ik. He got material up and then a devastating knight and queen attack won the match for him.

A good win for Redcar B who lead the D division. We look forward to welcoming a strong Redcar contingent (including Stanley) to the Thornaby Junior Chess Open on Saturday!

Ik has dodged our photographers so far, so the photo is a library photo of Tim and Freya in pre-season training!

Date:05/11/2024  Rhys gets the points!

Thornaby B52s 2.5-1.5 Great Ayton C
Santiago Palencia 0.5-0.5 Andrew French
Iain Mellis 0.5-0.5 Gordon Dickinson
Ajay Selvan 0.5-0.5 Connor Wilson
Rhys Orton 1-0 Peter Archer

An excellent win for the B52s. Great Ayton teams almost specialise in drawing on all of the boards except 1 and winning the other, so it was nice to do it to them for a change! As always, with any Great Ayton team, it was a very solid and experienced line up. All of this team are gnarled old veterans with years of experience!

Santiago finished first against CCA chair Andrew French. Andrew is always tough to beat and Santiago couldn’t find any advantage during the game.

Soon after, Iain agreed a draw on board 2. He couldn't see any promising lines and he'd also seen Rhys go a piece up!

Rhys got the decisive result on board 4. He managed to get a piece up against Peter Archer and converted from there.

Ajay and Connor spent the game manoeuvring pieces around. After 26 moves, only 1 pawn each had gone from the board! The 2 players agreed a draw with Connor considering a spectacular sacrifice to open up the game, but he ultimately decided it would be futile and accepted the draw.

A great team performance, but especially well done to Rhys for getting the win.

Chris

Date:05/11/2024  Bonfire Night Draw!

Thornaby Juniors 2-2 Thornaby Hurricanes
Zhuoyi Lin 0.5-0.5 James Mann
Josh Fisher 0.5-0.5 Richard Stevenson
Jayden Wang 1-0 Clair Hartill
Isaac Machin 0-1 Bertie Mellis

Bonfire night threw a grenade into this match for both squads who are wholly (in the case of the Juniors) and mostly (in the case of the Hurricanes) made up of junior players. It was touch and go whether the fixture would take place, but we just about managed to get 2 full teams out! Big thanks to Clair and Isaac for stepping in from our reserve list.

Zhuoyi and James played at rocket speed to finish with a draw. They have played each other at the library regularly, but both commented to me that they were surprised by the strength of each others game in a longer match!

There were sparkling first league wins for the club for both Jayden and Bertie who will both remember remember the 5th of November. At 8 years and 7 moths, Jayden is the 2nd youngest player in the club’s history to win a league match. Just 2 months older than Tashil when he won his first match. It was a first visit and club debut for Clair, but a familiar opponent as she regularly plays Jayden at both Ingleby and Thornaby libraries. Like most first visitors, she was impressed with our venue décor!

Josh and Richard were last finished. Josh had to leave unexpectedly early, but Richard showed that he is a sporting guy by agreeing to a draw in an even position.

No fireworks from either team, but a good point for each with both being well below full strength. If only I could fit “Roman Candle” or “Catherine Wheel” in the report somewhere!

Chris

Date:29/10/2024  Aces held at home!

Thornaby Aces 2-2 Darlington B
Francis Batchelor 0-1 Giuseppe Magazzu
Chris Swales 0-1 Dominic Leigh
Sagar Patil 1-0 Richard Harris
Steve Rodgers 1-0 Steve Halliday

The Aces had a bye 2 weeks ago and their second game of the season saw the visit of Darlington B.

On board 4, Steve played a newcomer for Darlington in Steve Halliday. I don't know him, but he's won 2 out of 2 so far this season and Darlington's estimate of 1600 shows he must have some experience. Our Steve continued his good start to the season with a solid win. He always looked to have an edge every time I looked.

Our top junior player Sagar made it 3 wins out of 3 in the A division this season. Richard did offer a draw with the position looking very equal to me, but Sagar declined and played the pawn ending very well to force a win. He joins Billingham's John Garnett as the only player in the A division with 3 wins out of 3. This result means Sagar has climbed 80 rating points in October and on current form he is surely likely to be a regular on the Aces team for the rest of the season.

2-0 to us. However Darlington fought back. Francis came up against an unusual opening line. He thought he was OK, but made a rare miscalculation and realised he had nothing except a collapsed position after he lost a pawn!

I was last finished against my "nemesis" Dominic Leigh! We have been working well together over the Summer as League Organiser and League Grader, calling him my "nemesis" is a bit of a joke really! However, he is the only current player in the league who has beaten me more than once! I tried a different opening this time, but Dominic played it well and was always on top. He managed to manoeuvre things to get his knight onto a dangerous b3 square and I couldn't hold things from there. That made it 3 wins out of 4 for him against me in the league.

On paper it doesn't look like a great result, however Darlington have split their 2 A division teams more evenly this year and "Darlington B" beat "Darlington A" a couple of weeks ago and are currently setting the pace at the top of the A division. In that context and missing Matt, it was a decent result for us!

Chris

Date:29/10/2024  Cadets win junior battle!

Thornaby Dynasties 0.5-3.5 Thornaby Cadets
Tashil Lankapura 0-1 Ajay Selvan
Alex Jamieson 0-1 Joseph Machin
James Mann 0.5-0.5 Aryan Nalawade
Sam Stevenson 0-1 Avanish Batra

The Cadets are supposed to be our elite junior team, so this was an interesting match against the Dynasties who boast plenty of talented juniors of their own. We did talk about moving Tashil to the Cadets team this season, but decided board 1 in the same division was going to be better for his development and it would be good to keep the promoted Dynasties team together. The arrival of Aryan and Avanish over the Summer certainly made that decision a lot easier. In the end, the Cadets did run out comfortable winners in terms of scoreline at least, to preserve their elite status in the club!

James and Aryan played out a quickfire match. The pieces went off quickly as Aryan established a 1 pawn lead, but 3 of them were tripled, so it didn’t look anything like a clearcut advantage. James has shown in the past that he is probably the best endgame player of any of our juniors outside of Sagar and surprised Aryan by fighting back to end up with the last pawn himself. Unfortunately, it was on the edge of the board and Aryan knew the theory to hold for a draw.

Avanish and Sam finished at almost exactly the same time as James and Aryan. I didn’t see what happened in this one, but that's 2/2 for Avanish in the C division and it puts him amongst the leading scorers in the division

The other 2 games took a lot longer. Tashil did beat Ajay in the Summer Series, but Ajay had a really solid league season last year and has been moved to board 1 for the Cadets for a reason. This one was a good competitive match initially, but then Ajay slowly built an advantage and got 1 pawn and then 2 pawns up. At the end, Ajay had a knight and 2 pawns against Tashil's king. It was almost too much of a lead as he took a bit of time and had to manoeuvre round a bit at the end to make sure he avoided the stalemate!

Alex is home from university for a week and made a guest appearance for the Dynasties. He has been playing in the York and District league again (where I also started competitive chess whilst at university) over the last few weeks. His game with Joseph went up and down. First Joseph went a pawn up, but Alex came back into the game and got his pawn back. Next time I looked, it was the sort of very open position that Joseph likes and I thought Alex had walked into a fork. Apparently, it was back rank mate if Joseph took the rook though! It was a different tactic that won the game for Joseph. A rook pin combined with a bishop overload for Alex allowed Joseph to make the decisive breakthrough.

Chris

Date:28/10/2024  B52s crash!

Middlesbrough Knights 4-0 Thornaby B52s
Paul Perrett (1811) 1-0 Iain Mellis (1555)
Brian Myers (1733) 1-0 Joseph Machin (1535)
Nikhil Bhandari (1707) 1-0 Maurice Olum (1300E)
Andrew Salter (1229) 1-0 Josh Fisher (1200E)

A not entirely surprising result looking at the Middlesbrough line up. We were missing 3 of our 4 regulars and the top 3 Middlesbrough boards are very strong.

Josh has made a good start to the club this season and was given his chance in the higher division. Andrew played the opening well though and Josh could not come back into it. On his season debut, Joseph found the experienced Brian Myers too strong. Whilst Iain went a knight down early on in the Grand Prix attack.

Maurice's game lasted by far the longest in terms of time. He put up a really good fight against Nikhil Bhandari. Nikhil is one of the most committed players in the league and often plays regularly for all of Middlesbrough's teams. He played more games than anyone else in the CCA in the 22/23 season. He's an aggressive attacking player and Maurice did well to keep the game level for a long time. At move 40 the evaluation was +2 to Maurice, but he missed a chance and Nikhil's experience finally told in the endgame. A good performance from Maurice nonetheless which bodes well for the future.

2 tough matches for the B52s so far, but there are potentially easier tasks in this division. At least we’ve caught up the fixtures and it was good experience for everyone! Their top 3 players are regulars in both the A and B division and the sort of players you need to practice against if you want to play in the A division!

Chris

Date:22/10/2024  Comets progress in Cup!

Thornaby Comets 4-0 Marsh's Angels
Phil Wales 1-0 Katie Sidgwick
Bill March 1-0 Nicola Harrington
Alan Stockley 1-0 Nicky Britton
Nick Tadd 1-0 Catherine Lloyd

It was a tough task for Marsh's Angels on their return to CCA action against our Comets team. The new CCA D Division Cup is for players under 1500 rating and we have entered 4 teams in it this year. The Comets is probably the strongest of the 4 on paper with 3 players over a 1400 rating and we had about 100 years of league experience in our line up on Tuesday!

The games were close at first, but experience told in the end. Phil maintained his 100% start to the season with a win on board 1 against the top Angel, Katie. Although she is not playing in a club at the moment, Katie has won on board 1 in the league before and has given several good Thornaby players tough games in the past. Nicola and Nicky play regularly at Billingham now and put up a good fight against their more experienced opponents before eventually succumbing.

CSC tutor Catherine does a lot of good work in local schools, including unearthing gems like Freya! It would be fair to say that our Destroyers team on Tuesday would probably not exist without Catherine introducing chess in Freya's primary school. She looked the closest to upsetting the odds in this match. Despite being a piece down, Nick looked to be in a bit of trouble with his king not castled and all Catherine's pieces pointing in dangerous directions with pins and potential pit falls for Nick all over the place! It was the sort of position where a computer could probably have found a winning move somewhere along the line, but Nick managed to weather the storm and hold on for the win.

So the rating differences proved too much in the end, but nevertheless it was good to see the Angels playing again and catch up in the bar afterwards. Our own ladies team, the Thornaby Queens will be playing in the cup later this year! For the Comets, an interesting match awaits in the Quarter Finals against our Juniors team. Like the Comets, they are in it to win it and the likes of Aryan, Avanish and Zhuoyi could certainly provide a potential banana skin for the Comets.

Date:22/10/2024  Challengers set the pace!

Thornaby B52s 0.5-3.5 Thornaby Challengers
Santiago Palencia 0.5-0.5 Steve Rodgers
Iain Mellis 0-1 Mike Creaney
Stephen Ollis 0-1 James Urwin
Callum Abbott 0-1 Pete Townson

The B52s were a late entry for us in the B division this season. We've decided we had too many B division standard players for 1 team and agreed with the league to even up the B division and fill in the spare bye week slots. Their first game of the season was a tough local derby against our own Challengers team!

Iain made a miscalculation early in the game and went a rook down. He fought on, but there is no coming back from there against a legendary player of Mike's experience!

James had what sounded like a fairly routine win on board 3. Stephen said it was a bit of a nothing game, but James seemed to be a little bit happier with it!

It was great to see Callum playing for the club again! Unfortunately he went a piece down quite early in this one. He did say to me that he thought he was still OK and still well in the game, but by the end the piece apparently did matter!

Santiago avoided the whitewash for the B52s. Steve was a little frustrated as he did miss a winning combination towards the end, but overall a good performance from Santiago on board 1.

The Challengers have set the pace in the B division with 2 wins from 2 and so far they are looking like one of the favourites to win the division this season.

Date:22/10/2024  Flying start for Tristan!

Thornaby Dragoons 2-2 Thornaby Juniors
Maurice Olum 1-0 Zhuoyi Lin
Neil Sotheby 1-0 Jayden Wang
Ollie Walton 0-1 Tristan Green
George Butterworth 0-1 Kaira Nalawade

A good competitive local derby match saw the points shared between our 2 teams.

Tristan is our most experienced player on the junior team this season. He missed the first match to give the newer players a chance to get going, but he's put together some good results in friendlies at the club in recent weeks including almost beating me! He was first finished after Ollie walked into an opening trap and the game was over relatively quickly. A good start to the season for Tristan!

Kaira and George had a very open and complex position before George missed a discovered attack which lost his queen for a rook. He did manage to put some pressure on an open g-file and even thought he had a forced mate at one point, but Kaira took her time and found the right moves to escape. The game ended when George missed a mate in 2. A great first win for the club for Kaira!

2-0 to the juniors, but the older Dragoons pulled the match back. Maurice gradually got on top of Zhuoyi and built up a commanding lead in material before Zhuoyi eventually resigned. Despite playing on board 1, Maurice is the joint leading scorer in the division with 2/2. Neil has lost to Jayden in internal matches before and was certainly not taking him lightly this time. A knight fork put him a rook up and he didn't let go of his advantage from there.

A good competitive match and something to build on for both teams!

Chris

Date:22/10/2024  3 of a Hind!

Thornaby Hurricanes 1-3 Thornaby Destroyers
Sam Stevenson 0-1 Tim Hind
Andrew Salter 1-0 Sachin Saggar
Richard Stevenson 0-1 Charles Hind
Bertie Mellis 0-1 Freya Hind

A great comeback win for the Destroyers and another bit of history! This was the first time all 3 Hinds have played in the same team and the family connection obviously worked with all 3 managing to win!

Tim has lost to Sam in several quickplay competitions at the club and friendlies to the point where he calls Sam his nemesis! This game was close early on, but Tim managed to break through on the king side and force a checkmate.

On his debut for Thornaby, Andrew played a characteristically strong opening and put Sachin in trouble. He managed to gain a piece, but Sachin fought on for 76 moves before Andrew eventually converted.

Bertie played well on his Hurricanes debut and was 2 pawns and a queen for a rook up. Freya is well known for her battling qualities at the library though and she managed to keep the game complicated enough for Bertie to miss a mating combination.

In the last game, Richard was a rook up and looked to be well in command to force an overall draw in the match. Charles had some pressure on the h file with his rook and queen though and managed to force a mistake to complete the family hattrick!

The Hurricanes were well ahead on 3 of the 4 boards at one stage, but the battling qualities of the Hinds made it a great family night for them. I'm pretty sure this is the first time 3 people from the same family have played in the same team for Thornaby and obviously also the first time 3 have won!

Chris

Date:22/10/2024  Record night at the club!

Details of the matches will follow, but it was a record night at the club earlier! There were 4 matches going on and new league guidance means matches between teams from the same club are attempted to be fitted in early in the season fixture lists. That meant we had 3 Thornaby Vs Thornaby league matches going on and a Cup match between Thornaby Comets and Marsh's Angels. So 7 teams in total and 28 players representing the club on the same night in the same venue! This is definitely a Thornaby record and I'd be surprised if it isn't also a league record!

There were also 2 club Championship matches with Francis winning against Rhys and Aryan beating Joe McGinnis in a topsy turvy game.

Chris

Date:21/10/2024  Middleton St George Chess Club!

Earlier today Pete started up a new chess session in Middleton St George. Over the next few weeks, Pete will be in the new Scout hut every Monday from 6pm-8pm. Pete is a trained CSC (Chess in Schools and Communities) volunteer and has worked at Thornaby library for several months.

There were a total of 12 players at the first session including a mix of adults and juniors as well as several parent spectators. Pete was assisted by Joe and Chris for the first session. All 3 Thornaby players were impressed with the standard of play. We were expecting a few beginners, but all of the Middleton St George players knew the rules of the game and one of the youngsters managed to give Chris a good match.

The feedback from the players and parents was very good. Ros Micklethwaite is our main contact at the Scout hut and she messaged us today to say, "Just a quick message to say thank you for last night. Everyone seems to have had a good time and are keen to come back. All very positive feedback".

As a club, we are keen to take chess into other venues in our community and the surrounding area. If anyone is interested in an expert from our club running some sessions in another venue, please get in touch.

Date:15/10/2024  Bombers hold Hartlepool!

Thornaby Bombers 2-2 Hartlepool A
Brian Ellis 0-1 Bill Wilson
Steve Rodgers 1-0 Peter Harker
Sagar Patil 1-0 Stephen Roe
Joe McGinnis 0-1 Graham Matthews

A first point of the season for the Bombers and a good result against Hartlepool's A team.

Steve always looked to have an edge and came through to beat Hartlepool captain Peter Harker.

Sagar lost a pawn early in the opening and then went 2 pawns down, but had good compensation and according to his opponent Stephen that was when thing started to go wrong for him. Another good win from Sagar who has started the season well.

Joe has played Graham regularly in recent years and was Graham's turn this time to even up their head to head. It is now 1 win 2 draws and 1 loss for Joe in this match up.

Brian was a pawn down, but apparently missed a chance for a draw. A slight mistake in the endgame allowed Bill to push through for a win to equalise the match.

Date:15/10/2024  Irons press Comets to draw!

Thornaby Comets 2-2 Bilingham Synthonia Irons
Stephen Ollis 1-0 Martin Curry
Phil Wales 1-0 Graham Glass
Alan Stockley 0-1 Paul Scott
Nick Tadd 0-1 Steven Clark

A solid draw for the Comets against Billingham Irons (Billingham have decided to join us in giving their teams names for this season!). Stephen and Phil are a good top 2 for the C division and they proved too strong for their opponents.

Nick was playing a new junior player for Billingham in Steven Clark (16). It was even most of the way, but Nick miscalculated a pawn push and lost. A good league debut for Steven!

Alan was last to finish. The game was even on material, but Alan looked to have a much better pawn structure heading into the endgame. He wasn't able to convert though and Paul got the win.

Date:14/10/2024  James returns with win!

Darlington D 2-2 Thornaby Dynasties
Mark Turner 1-0 Geoff Mann
Dave Martin 0-1 James Mann
John Halliday 0-1 Tim Hind
Maksymilian Konczynski 1-0 Charles Hind

Missing star player Tashil, it was a good draw for the Dynasties at Darlington.

In the battle of the captain's on board 1, Geoff came up short against Mark Turner who has started the season well.

James broke his leg in 2 places (he doesn't do things by halves was Geoff's comment!) last month which disrupted his early season preparation and meant he missed the first dynasties game. He's able to travel again now and it was good to see him getting off to a winning start in the C division, especially as he was on board 2 in this game.

The Hinds are the club's only 3 player "Dynasty" and Tim and Charles were making their debuts for the team! Charles couldn't pick up a win on his C division debut, but Tim played one of his best league games (at least in his opinion!) to win on board 3 and ensure the overall match was a draw!

Date:13/10/2024  New Junior Chess Event!

We are running a new junior chess event (the Thornaby Junior Chess Open) on Saturday 9th November from 10:30am-3pm in the "Village Green Venue" in Thornaby.

There are 4 age categories and trophies and medals for the best boys and girls in each category. There is a maximum of 50 places, so please try to get in quickly if you want your child to play. For details on how to enter, please contact us on mail@ThornabyChessClub.co.uk.

This is the first time we've tried anything like this, so please support it if you can. We are hoping this will become an annual event and if it goes well, it may also lead to a full adult version early next year.

Chris

Date:10/10/2024  Hurricanes blown away!

Redcar B 3.5-0.5 Thornaby Hurricanes
Eddie Curphey 0.5-0.5 Manuel Lopez
Callum Hodgkiss 1-0 Amit Chauhan
Oliver Williams 1-0 Richard Stevenson
Joseph Dodds 1-0 Shanaya Chauhan

A tough start for the newly formed hurricanes team. Redcar B fielded 3 of the same players who played for Redcar A and drew 2-2 with our Comets team last week!

The lower boards went with rating. Richard blundered a minor piece early and his opponent's queen dominated the game from there. Amit and Shanaya were making their debuts for the club, but had tough matches against 2 of Redcar's star players from last season. Outrated and outexperienced, it was still a good experience for both of them. Amit got off to a bad start and never really got back into the game. Shanaya missed a chance to capture the queen, but played well for someone so young. Just shy of her 8th birthday, she is the 2nd youngest player ever for Thornaby and did set a club record as the youngest girl!

Manuel avoided the whitewash for the team by getting an excellent result on board 1. He drew with Eddie Curphey who was the vanquisher of Vardhan last week.

On this evidence, Redcar B will be amongst the title contenders. The Hurricanes will certainly have easier matches this season!

Date:08/10/2024  Santiago in debut win!

Thornaby Challengers 3-1 Hartlepool B
Steve Rodgers 1-0 Graham Matthews
Mike Creaney ½-½ Steve Roe
Joe McGinnis ½-½ Dave Kelly
Santiago Palencia 1-0 Mike Smalley

A good start for the Challengers beating last season's C division champions. All 4 games went on well into the night and it was a good competitive match.

First finished was Mike who played a solid game against new Hartlepool signing Stephen Roe. The board ended up looking fairly blocked and a draw was agreed.

Soon after Santiago claimed his first win for the club on his debut. Santiago only joined the club last month, but has impressed in local quick events and convinced us to put him straight into the B division. He managed to repel an early attack and then go a pawn up which he converted to a winning endgame. Well done Santiago!

Steve wrapped up the points by defeating Hartlepool captain Graham on board 1. Steve went a pawn up early in a French exchange game and managed to hold this advantage all the way through before converting the win with just 3 minutes left on his clock.

Last finished was Joe. He had 2 pawns for a minor piece and managed to cause enough problems for his opponent to agree a draw.

A good start to the season for the Challengers who we hope will be challenging the top teams in the B division this season.

Date:08/10/2024  Dragoons Destroy on debut!

Final result:
Thornaby Destroyers 1 v 3 Thornaby Dragoons
Allan Stockley 0-1 Maurice Olum
Sachin Saggar 0-1 Malcolm Goldspink
Charles Hind 1-0 Ollie Walton
Freya Hind 0-1 George Butterworth

Despite not playing in this fixture, I was quite nervous as it was my first-ever league game as captain. I chose to sit out to avoid the pressure while I figured out my responsibilities. After a quick chat with George about his time control (bribing him with Pringles to slow down), I realized my role mainly involved drinking beer in the bar and staying out of the way. I think I did rather well at this, and from now on, this vital role will be known as "playing board 5"—mostly to ensure my other half doesn't catch on to what I'm really up to. Away from "board 5"...

On board 4, George's game against Freya lasted precisely 30 minutes—miraculously timed so he could win the Pringles I'd bribed him with! The game started evenly, but after George managed to trap Freya's bishop in the corner, he kept up the pressure and secured the win and the crisps.

On board 3, Ollie played Charles, and both approached the game very defensively. Unfortunately, Ollie was a bit too cautious. After developing his queen to connect the rooks—a natural developing move—the evaluation shifted from +1.7 in Ollie's favor to +1.4 for Charles. Charles then maintained this advantage and eventually checkmated Ollie on move 25. Well played, Charles. Next time, Ollie won't be holding back and will hopefully return to his more aggressive style.

On board 2, Sachin faced Malcolm, playing a version of the Sicilian Defense. Sachin started aggressively, developing his knight and bishop early to check Malcolm with his bishop on f7 on move 7. However, Sachin found himself overstretched, and Malcolm moved his king and fought back. Malcolm secured a checkmate on move 26.

Finally, on board 1, Maurice competed in his first league game for the newly formed Thornaby Dragoons against the vastly experienced Allan Stockley. We knew it would be a close and well-thought-out match. It was indeed a tight game, with little separating them until the final moves. On move 35, Maurice managed to trap Allan's rook and king, winning the rook, after which Allan resigned. Well done, Maurice! Maurice is already hungry for the division trophy!

Neil

Date:08/10/2024  Debut draw for Kaira!

Thornaby Juniors 1.5-2.5 Hartlepool D
Aryan Nalawade 1-0 Mark Priest
Josh Fisher 0-1 John Marsden
Jayden Wang 0-1 Ashton Woodward
Kaira Nalawade 0.5-0.5 John Marshall

In terms of league chess at least, our most experienced player in this match was 8 year old Jayden with his 2 league games towards the end of last season! So it was a good effort from our team to run our more experienced adult opponents close. We were missing the intended regular top 2 for the team, so Aryan got the call for a quick 2nd match for the club.

Josh was making his league debut and he was even for almost the whole game against Hartlepool captain John. Then he threatened his opponents queen with a pawn and missed that the queen's retreat square also threatened a mate in one. A decent start for Josh though showing that he can be competitive on board 2 even against a 1400 rated player.

Captain of last weekend's Teesside team Under 9 champions Jayden played an uncharacteristically passive opening and got into trouble early on with his pieces trapped at the back. Ashton is turning into a good player for Hartlepool and at close to a 1400 rating there won't be many tougher games on board 3 in the D division this season. A nice attack from him on Jayden's king side allowed him to play a piece sacrifice which forced checkmate.

On her debut for the club, reigning Teesside Under 11 girls champion Kaira looked to be under pressure early on, but she came right back into the game leaving John's king looking a little exposed. There was sufficient threat that John decided to play a perpetual check to force the draw. A great debut for Kaira!

Aryan picked up his first win for the club against the experienced Mark Priest. Mark has been playing in the local leagues for 20 years now and at a 1477 rating he is one of the toughest opponents possible in the D division. None of this bothered Aryan and he managed to get a piece up relatively early in the middle game. It was comfortable from there and great to see Aryan getting off the mark!

Before this match, our whole team had 3 league games of experience between them, so a good effort against a team which looks like it will be there or there abouts to win the division!

Chris

Date:05/10/2024  Captain Jayden lifts Team Championship!

At the Primary School Team Championships at Yarm School yesterday, Jayden captained the Yarm A side in the Under 9 section. It was a real captain's performance with Yarm A winning all 5 matches 4-0! Jayden played on board 1 defeating the top players from all of the other schools they played. Another regular library visitor, Agam Vats played on board 2 and also won all his games. Well done Jayden, a fantastic performance or should that be Wangtastic?

There was some small success for me as well! Yarm School won all 3 medals in the Under 11 section and were also 1st and 2nd in the Under 9 section. However, the girls team from the Billingham South school that I do the chess in finished in joint 3rd place (along with 2 more Yarm teams). Going into round 3, they were in 2nd place and actually played against Jayden's team on table 1. Jayden's opponent was worrying about her earrings at the start of the match, probably something new for Jayden, but he didn't let it put him off!

Full results and photo gallery are here:
https://cscteesside.blogspot.com/2024/10/29th-yarm-team-chess-championships.html
Jayden holding the trophy is photo 63 and the Billingham South girls with their medals are photo 71. Yarm A Vs Billingham Girls is Photo 18.

Chris

Date:04/10/2024  Record entry for Club Championship!

A club record 42 players have entered this season's Club Championship. The contenders are once again lead by defending champion and Aces captain Francis Batchelor, but there are many others who could capitalise if Francis slips up.

Of the more established players, former Aces board 2 Brian Ellis has returned to the club from a season long rest and is the 2nd seed. Steve Rodgers has broken into the Aces team in the last few months and won our Summer Rapidplay. Former winner and perennial runner up Mike Creaney is back in form and is sure to be there or there abouts. Bombers captain Joe McGinnis has twice been runner up and always dangerous in this event. Iain Mellis and Stephen Ollis are both coming off the back of good seasons and a similar improvement this year will put them right amongst the favourites.

We have several adults making their debuts. They are led by new members Phil Wales and Santiago Palencia. Phil has been in the top 4 in every internal quick event he has entered over the last few months while Santiago has made an instant impression since joining the club a few weeks ago and nobody will want to face him in the first round.

The junior challenge is stronger than ever. Joseph was joint runner up last year and always performs well in this event. Sagar is coming in on the back of a win over Francis in the league earlier this week which probably makes him 2nd favourite overall. Tashil and Ajay had really good seasons in the league and have blossomed into serious contenders for our internal quick events. Following his showing in the Summer blitz, Aryan could be a dark horse as well.

For all 42 players, this is a great chance to make a bit of a name for themselves. There are lots of exciting and dangerous new and old players I haven't mentioned above including Maurice, Zhuoyi, Josh, Sam, James, Toefl, Manuel and a lot more! Anyone could be a potential banana skin for anyone else. One thing we can say for certain is that the eventual winner will have to get through some tough games!

Full details are here:
http://www.thornabychessclub.co.uk/ClubChampionship.htm

Chris

Date:03/10/2024  Debut win for Phil!

Redcar A 2-2 Thornaby Comets
Callum Hodgkiss 0-1 Phil Wales
Eddie Curphey 1-0 Vardhan Bunga
Luke Young 0-1 Bill March
Joseph Dodds 1-0 Malcolm Goldspink

The Comets travelled to Redcar to take on their A team. Captain Malcolm lost to Joseph Dodds who continues to progress after a good season for Redcar in the D division. Meanwhile, Vardhan lost out to Redcar debutant Eddie Curphey.

Bill is one of our longest serving members and in the end his experience told against another Redcar debutant Luke Young.

The top board match saw 2 high quality players battling it out. Redcar's Callum recently finished ahead of Joseph and Sagar in the Under 18 section at the Teesside Megafinal and is certainly a bright prospect for the future. Phil has had some great results in our internal quick events since joining the club in May. This was his league debut and he eventually came out on top when his opponent started to get into time pressure. The win for Phil meant the overall match was drawn.

A good 2-2 draw to start the season for the Comets, the C division looks like it should be very competitive this year! It's good to see Redcar continuing to grow and back up to 2 teams again this season. Credit to them for being able to field such a young and competitive C division team.

Date:01/10/2024  Tashil off the mark!

Thornaby Dynasties 1-3 Hartlepool C
Toefl Lankapura 0-1 Michael Smalley
Tashil Lankapura 1-0 Ashton Woodward
Geoff Mann 0-1 Graham Marshall
Bertie Mellis 0-1 John Marsden

Thornaby Dynasties started their season with a defeat to Hartlepool C, but last season's superstar Tashil got off to a good start with a win on board 2.

Bertie made his debut for the club on board 4 and found his opponent too strong. Geoff went a minor piece down and couldn't get back into it in the endgame.

Tashil went a minor piece up and it was all over a few moves later when his opponent blundered a rook.

Toefl had a good even game against Michael Smalley on board 1, but then late in the middlegame he blundered a bishop and 2 moves later resigned after leaving his queen hanging.

A defeat, but a good effort from the Dynasties in a good competitive match.

Date:01/10/2024  Sagar comes of age!

Thornaby Aces 3-1 Thornaby Bombers
Francis Batchelor 0-1 Sagar Patil
Matt Jackman 1-0 Mike Creaney
Chris Swales 1-0 Joe McGinnis
Steve Rodgers 1-0 Iain Mellis

The first week of the season for both teams and the fixture computer put our 2 A Division teams together! As expected, the Aces came out on top, but the Bombers put up a good fight on every board and in the last game finished, the world of Thornaby chess was rocked to its foundations!

Steve was first finished. An even start, but Steve capitalised on a blunder from Iain and came out on top.

Me and Joe had a very even looking game most of the way through, but then Joe missed a tactic which left me a piece up. 2 moves later a check on the king allowed the queens to be swapped off and a few moves later the end game was looking pretty comfortable for me when Joe resigned.

Matt and Mike had all the pieces and only 2 pawns off well into the game. Matt manoeuvred his pieces around probing for mistakes and eventually when Mike was getting short on time he forced his way in.

On board 1, part way through the game, Sagar managed to trap one of Francis' pieces to end up a piece for 2 pawns up. Having seen Francis play a lot, when I looked over I assumed it was a deliberate sacrifice as the 2 pawns were looking good advancing up the board. However, Sagar held onto his advantage and a couple of sub-optimal moves from Francis in time pressure gave Sagar the win.

It is only 1 game, but difficult not to attach some significance to this result. Francis is a real icon of the club, he has won our club championship the last 5 times and was the top scorer in the whole A division the last 2 seasons. Personally, my record against Francis in quick games, long games and friendly games is something like Played 100 Won 0 Drawn 1 Lost 99! Over the past 2 seasons, Sagar has reached a rating of over 1650 without usually using more than about 20 minutes in most of his games! It bodes well for the season that this game was the last finished. We've always known what a talent Sagar is, but this performance showed real patience and maturity as well. He's going to be a handful for anyone this season!

Chris

Date:01/10/2024  Chess Art!

Today we had a special visitor to the club when local artist Nat Moss visited us. Nat came to donate one of her paintings called "I resign", she wanted it to go to someone who would fully appreciate it. Nat does not play chess herself, but she was inspired to paint it after watching the "Queen's Gambit" TV series. She enjoyed her visit and was impressed with our iconic venue and the age range at the club.

One of Nat's quotes is, "There is beauty in everything, anything can be Art. You just have to take the time to see and notice it. Once you start to notice it you'll never unsee it." It's nice to see that this can be true of chess as well!

The painting has provoked a lot of talk in the club. Someone asked why did black resign when there are only kings on the board! Of course we can't see all the squares! Another player said that it captures the feeling of not being able to fully see everything that is happening on the board during a game.

If you would like to learn more about Nat, you can find more information here:
natmoss1986.wixsite.com/website
https://www.facebook.com/natmossart

A big thank you to Nat, it is an amazing painting. It has provoked a lot of debate and we have a number of different ideas of what to do with it. Watch this space!

Chris

Date:01/10/2024  Debut win for Avanish!

Thornaby Cadets 1-3 Darlington D
Ajay Selvan (1519) 0-1 Bob Donner (1652)
Rhys Orton (1500) 0-1 Barry Hopkins (1508)
Aryan Nalawade (E1450) 0-1 Mark Turner (1437)
Avanish Batra (E1300) 1-0 John Halliday (1253P)

A tough start to the season for the Cadets. Darlington have recruited a couple of strong players higher up over the Summer with the result that others have been pushed down to lower division teams. I actually played Bob Donner in the A division last season!

Aryan was first finished. He fell to a well prepared opening from his opponent in the Vienna Gambit. Your first league game is always tough for anyone, I'm sure Aryan will bounce back soon enough.

Avanish was next. He was always on top and got to a rook up in the endgame. 2 of the times I looked, the only thing I was worried about was back rank mate! I just wanted Avanish to push a pawn to g3 or h3 to make me feel safe! I don't know his opponent well, but he finished on 3 wins, 1 draw and 3 losses in his first season last year, so must be a reasonable player. A great debut win for Avanish!

Rhys looked even for a while, but then failure to castle let his opponent pile on some pressure down the e file and get 2 pawns up. I didn't see how it finished, but the writing was on the wall with his opponent's queen on the 7th rank.

Ajay had a tough task against probably the highest rated player who will play in the C division this season. For most clubs in the league, Bob would be nominated higher up. The first time I looked, it was a classic Ajay type position with the queens off and an even looking endgame. Bob had managed to get 2 pawns up the next time I looked and Ajay was fighting a losing battle with his king stuck preventing a pawn advance. He battled on to try to even the match score, but fell in the end.

Chris

Date:23/09/2024  Francis and Tashil shine in Darlington Blitz Championship!

In Darlington's Gary Hewitt memorial blitz championship, 4 Thornaby players took part. It was a loaded field with the start list reading a bit like a who's who of local chess! Half the players who took part are rated over 1700 in standard play.

Francis was in contention all the way through and was the only player to beat the eventual winner Giuseppe Magazzu. Francis finished the event in joint 2nd on 7 points out of 9.

Our quick play specialist Tashil was once again easily the youngest player in the field and impressed again spending most of the event on the top few boards. He ended up playing Francis on board 3 in the last round and despite losing finished the event on 5.5 in joint 7th. Only 1900+ players Giuseppe Magazzu, Matthew Holton and Francis beat Tashil. He drew with last year's winner Liam Bellwood and had 5 impressive wins including some top CCA names: Peter Harker, Dominic Leigh, Jonathan Sams and Bernie Price. All 1700+ rated in standard play. Well done Tashil!

Joseph and Rhys also both gave a good account of themselves with Joseph finishing on 3.5 and Rhys finishing on 3 points.

Date:17/09/2024  3 way tie for Quickplay!

The final week of our September Quickplay saw a close exciting finish with several players in contention throughout. A fabulous total of 38 players took part across the 2 weeks. A number that shows we do have the players for the 10 teams we are entering in the league this season!

Mike lost his 100% record to Steve in round 5. That left Steve in the lead on 4.5 with several players just behind on 4. Steve was paired against our dangerous newcomer Santiago in the last round. Santiago needed to win and was the exchange up, but Steve had a lot of compensation and the game finished a draw. That meant the other players on 4 could get a share of the victory. Mike beat Joe and Phil beat Alex to both also finish on 5.

As well as our 3 joint winners, 3 other prizes were awarded. The grading Under 1400 prize went to Alex. The top junior was Ajay who finished just off the top in joint 4th on 4.5. The top Primary School age player was Tashil who beat his Dad in the last round! The fantastic age range of our club was highlighted by Alan (age 91) sharing joint 6th with Tashil (age 9) on 4 points.

Some of our other juniors also performed well. Josh returned to the club a couple of week ago and finished on a solid 2.5. Avanish scored a respectable 3 and Jayden got a good draw against Malcolm. Zhuoyi was in contention on board 3 going into round 5, but lost to Joe and then had to go home before the last round.

Our teams and fixtures are all sorted out for the new season now. This was a great warm up for the upcoming games!


Full results:
Steve Rodgers 5
Mike Creaney 5
Phil Wales 5
Santiago Palencia 4.5
Ajay Selvan 4.5
Tashil Lankapura 4
Joe McGinnis 4
Alan Stockley 4
Iain Mellis 3.5
Alex Jamieson 3.5
Toefl Lankapura 3
Zhuoyi Lin 3
Maurice Olum 3
Avanish Batra 3
Vardhan Bunga 3
Aryan Nalawade* 2.5
Janos Mehes 2.5
Manuel Lopez 2.5
Josh Fisher 2.5
Andrew Salter 2.5
Joseph Machin 2.5
Malcolm Goldspink 2.5
George Butterworth 2
Tim Hind 2
Tristan Green 2
Neil Sotheby 2
Paul Connaghan 2
Joe Vera-Sanso 2
Kaira Nalawade* 1.5
Jayden Wang 1.5
Rhys Orton* 1
Bertie Mellis* 1
Chris Swales* 1
Freya Hind 1
Ollie Walton* 0.5
Anika Sunkavalli* 0.5
Laura Holdforth 0
Daniel Ayre* 0
(*=first week only)

Date:10/09/2024  Mike leads Quickplay at halfway!

After the first night of our September Quickplay, Mike leads and is the only player on 3 points out of 3. A record 34 players entered the event and there were a lot of tough competitive matches even on the lower boards.

It was great to see so many of our new players who have joined over the Summer having a go (Alex said he already feels like a veteran!), but also good to see Manuel and Tristan back from long breaks over the school Summer holidays! Both seem to have lost nothing, Manuel was causing problems for Mike on board 1 in the second round while Tristan impressed to finish the night with a group of potential winners on 2/3.

The youngsters did particularly well and many are maturing and starting to take their time a bit more. 6 of the leading 14 players are Under 18. This week, parents had the option to take a half point bye for the 3rd round. Aryan won both his games including against Joe McGinnis. On his first night at the club, our newest member Santiago joined the competition late, but won 2 games to also finish with a 100% record. Otherwise, top seed Mike was the only one to finish on 3/3. Pre-tournament favourites Steve and Joseph drew in the last round. Iain and Ajay drew in the first round. This game was amongst some interesting early round pairings caused by some of our top juniors having very low rapid ratings from past youth events they've entered. Tashil and Avanish played a brilliant game against each other in the first round. For me watching, it felt like the closing stages of an A division match.

The event concludes next week. It looks very open, I wouldn't like to try to pick a winner! Certainly anyone on 2 or above is well in the hunt. Current standings:


Mike Creaney 3
Iain Mellis 2.5
Steve Rodgers 2.5
Joseph Machin 2.5
Aryan Nalawade* 2.5
Ajay Selvan 2.5
Phil Wales 2
Joe McGinnis 2
Toefl Lankapura 2
Tashil Lankapura 2
Alan Stockley 2
Tristan Green 2
Zhuoyi Lin* 2
Santiago Palencia 2
Janos Mehes 1.5
Manuel Lopez* 1.5
Alex Jamieson 1.5
Kaira Nalawade* 1.5
Chris Swales 1
Maurice Olum 1
Rhys Orton 1
Malcolm Goldspink 1
Tim Hind 1
Avanish Batra 1
George Butterworth 1
Bertie Mellis 1
Jayden Wang* 1
Freya Hind 1
Josh Fisher* 0.5
Ollie Walton* 0.5
Anika Sunkavalli* 0.5
Joe Vera-Sanso 0
Laura Holdforth 0
Neil Sotheby 0
*=half point bye

(Disclaimer. I did only play 1 round when there was an odd number of people!)

Chris

Date:27/08/2024  AGM and Awards Ceremony!

With the best Tuesday for our committee being the one after the bank holiday weekend and items on the agenda like "Member Communication Strategy", my expectation was that we'd be lucky to get out of single digits for the number of attendees at this year's AGM. It was therefore a very pleasant surprise to see 34 members show up!

The mood of the AGM was very positive with our chair Nick giving a summary of the year and praising the many new exciting young (and not so young!) players who have joined the club over the last 12 months. In Nick's words our membership growth has reached "heights he would never have imagined" when he thought we were doing well to have 12 members!

The awards part of the meeting saw trophies or medals awarded to several players. The winners of our internal events this season received an award. Everyone who played in at least half the games for one of our 4 teams that finished 2nd in their respective divisions received a silver medal. Our individual top scorer in each of the 4 divisions also receive an award. Francis and Tashil were actually top scorers for the whole league in the A and D divisions respectively.

Following in the footsteps of Joseph and Sagar, our prestigious young player of the year award went to Ajay. Ajay had a fantastic debut season for the club only losing 2 games in the C division and only losing one game (to me!) in the Club Championship. It has been some week for Ajay who received his GCSE results on Thursday. An amazing 11 grade 9's (the maximum possible) from 11 exams. Ajay is an excellent role model for other young players in our club. He has managed to balance a full season playing for his team and being an active member of the club with putting in the work for these important exams. His Dad even commented to me that chess has helped with his overall development including his problem solving and concentration skills. Well done to Ajay, but of course, I still think the "Thornaby Chess Club Young Player of the Year" award is the more impressive of Ajay's achievements this week!

Our Clubman of the year was Malcolm Goldspink who captained the Comets team and is rapidly becoming a club stalwart! Tashil was really the only contender for the most improved player with his 11 wins from 12 games in the D division. Meanwhile Tom Marwood's impressive first season which saw him break into our top 10 players on rating and also play for the Aces in the last game of the season saw him win our Newcomer of the year award.

A lot to look forward to next season!


AWARD CEREMONY
Trophies were awarded to:
Club Champion : Francis
D Division Top Scorer : Tashil
Young Player of the Year : Ajay
Most Improved Player : Tashil
Best Newcomer : Tom Marwood
Clubman of the Year : Malcolm Goldspink
Easter Rapidplay Winner : Joseph Machin
Easter Blitz Winner : Chris
Summer Rapidplay Winner: Steve Rodgers

Medals were awarded to:
A Division Top Scorer : Francis
Thornaby B Division Top Scorer : Joe McGinnis
Thornaby C Division Top Scorer : James Urwin
Club Championship A2 Division : Matt Jackman
Club Championship B Division : Jayden, Zhuoyi, Matt Rowett and Will Rowett
A Division Runners Up : Francis, Matt Jackman, Chris
B Division Runners Up : Steve Rodgers, Mike, Joe McGinnis, Sagar
C Division Runners Up : James Urwin, Iain Mellis, Stephen Ollis, Bill March
D Division Runners Up : Toefl, Tashil, Geoff M, James M, Sam, Richard, Matt Rowett, Will Rowett

Chris

Date:20/08/2024  Francis blitzes to victory!

Yesterday's Summer blitz championship attracted an excellent entry of 24. A host of young and old, experienced and new players took part in the event. There were the usual fast finishes, exciting games, blunders and counter blunders that are always associated with this event! It was great to see so many youngsters playing and they all acquitted themselves well, there were no easy games for anyone. I can confirm that as Shanaya (the youngest in the tournament at just 7) had me in all kinds of trouble! The event was structured into 2 round robin groups of 12 with the top 4 going into the knockout quarter finals.

Group A epitomised the range of players in the event and was dominated by our experienced club legend Mike, Phil (who only joined 2 months ago) and one of our newest members Aryan. The 3 of them won all of their games against the others in the group. Mike drew with both Phil and Aryan, but Aryan won his game against Phil to top the group. Aryan only joined the club a couple of weeks ago, but he is a school friend of Ajay's and has been playing and winning junior events for a long time. We certainly knew he could play having finished ahead of some of our own top junior players at the recent Teesside Megafinal. The final spot in the Quarter finals was very close and it went down to a 3 way tie between Ajay, Avanish and Harris. The results between the players came into effect and because Avanish beat the other 2 in the round robin, he went through. Avanish literally joined the club yesterday, but like Aryan, he has a lot of experience in junior events and it was not a complete surprise to see him progress from the group.

On paper, Group B was the harder one. Francis was the 24th of the 24 entries, but there was no slow start and he won 10 of his 11 games to top the group. Only young Joseph managed a draw against him. Quick play specialist Iain had a successful group stage and finished on 10/11, only losing to Francis. Steve had a slow start on only 2/4 at the first break, but came through strongly to take 3rd and finish on 8.5. The last space in the Quarter finals was close with Andrew, Charlie, Joseph, Sam and Easter blitz winner Chris all in contention and getting results off each other. Joseph and Chris finished on 7 with Joseph getting the last knockout place on countback.

Any suggestion that Group A was the weaker one was turned round in the Quarter Finals with 2 winners coming from each group. Francis had a comfortable win over Avanish. Aryan beat Joseph. Phil is turning into Iain's nemesis and followed up his win in the Quarter Finals of the Summer Rapidplay with a win at the same stage here. Arch enemies (or friendly rivals) Mike and Steve faced off again and Steve again had the edge.

The semi finals saw the 2 group winners show why they won their groups. Aryan "destroyed" Phil in Phil's own words! Francis managed to get 2 pawns up against Steve and then an unusual king fork of 2 pieces in the end game forced a resignation from Steve.

The final was played at break neck speed and saw a solid opening from both players Aryan blundered a pawn early in the middle game and Francis quickly converted this advantage to 2 connected passed pawns against Aryan's 1 in a 1 rook each endgame. Aryan took his king forward and queened first, but Francis was able to swap his rook off and then his 2 pawns were already on row 6 and 7, so couldn't be stopped by just a rook. Well done to Francis, but also to Aryan as well! An interesting first season in the league awaits for him!


Results:

Group A
1) Aryan 10.5
2) Mike 10
3) Phil 9.5
4) Avanish 6
5) Ajay 6
6) Harris 6
7) George 4
= Maurice 4
= Amit 4
10) Richard 3
11) Kaira 2
12) Neil 1

Group B
1) Francis 10.5
2) Iain 10
3) Steve 8.5
4) Joseph 7
5) Chris 7
6) Sam 6
7) Andrew 5
8) Charlie 5
9) Isaac 3
10) Shanaya 2
11) Ollie 1
12) Joe 1

QF
Aryan 1-0 Joseph
Iain 0-1 Phil
Francis 1-0 Avanish
Mike 0-1 Steve

SF
Aryan 1-0 Phil
Francis 1-0 Steve

F
Aryan 0-1 Francis

(Group ties were decided by the result between the players)

Date:17/08/2024  Library Hive!

With the Summer holidays in full swing and many of our regular players away, we took the opportunity at the library yesterday to apply our chess skills to another game.

Hive is a game which is popular in both Chris and Tim's households and has white pieces and black pieces which move in different ways (sound familiar). The object is to fully surround your opponents queen bee using your ants, grasshoppers, beetles, ladybirds, pillbugs (me neither), mosquitos and spiders.

Chris had an ulterior motive in that his own children always beat him at the game and he'd heard that Tim's daughter Freya had won a Hive tournament! So it was a case of Freya being the teacher this time. Freya did win every game she played at the library including 2 against Chris. Her verdict was that Chris is "not terrible", but needed to work on his opening play! Very similar to his chess funnily enough!.

The children enjoyed playing the game side by side with chess and it made a nice change to use our thinking ahead skills on a different game. As always, the library sessions are running throughout the holidays and it will be back to full chess again next week!

Date:16/08/2024  Joseph Medals at Gosforth Junior Event!

A few weeks ago, Joseph travelled to the Gosforth junior chess event and played well to finish as Runner Up in his age category. Gosforth are well known for having some very good junior players and dominated the recent Darlington Junior event. Gosforth also won the ECF club of the year award in 2022, so this was a very good result for Joseph!

Date:12/07/2024  Fletcher wins school competition!

Over the last few weeks, Chris has been running afternoon chess sessions in the Thornaby Village School Y6 class since their SATs finished. This culminated with a class competition last week. Regular library attendee Fletcher was the overall champion with 5/5.

Chris said "The Village school always has a special place in my heart as it is where my own children went and it is where I first started teaching chess as part of a "golden time" club. Chess has been going strong in the school for a few years now and more than half the class have either been in my after school club or taken part in my school tournaments before. These children knew what to expect, but it was also great to see how much the children in the class who were completely new to it enjoyed playing. Fletcher is a brilliant player and a deserving winner who I'll miss in school next year. We are hoping to see him at the club more and playing for our teams next season. I was also very pleased for the girls champion as she often lacks confidence in herself in many things and it is usually with no justification as she's very talented at most of them, chess being no exception! Mainly though, it was just nice to see them all have a fun afternoon!"

The best girl title is always keenly contested in the school and it was no different this time with 5 girls within 1 point of each other. A measure of how close it tends to be is that 4 of these 5 have been girls champion at one time or another in the last 2 years! This time, it was the overall class runner up who finished on 4 points out of 5 (only losing to Fletcher in the last round) who took the title. There were also special prizes for the best boy and the best girl who were completely new to chess in the school.

Date:10/07/2024  ECF Arbiter Toefl!

Normally Tashil is the family's club headline maker, but this time it is Toefl! Many will have noticed that he's not been at the club much over the last 6 weeks. That's because he has been doing an ECF National Arbiter course on Tuesday's. We're pleased to report that he has just got the results and he passed his exam!

That makes Toefl the first person in our club to do that. He is now able to arbiter at ECF and FIDE rated events. Well done to him!

Date:09/07/2024  Junior win for Tashil!

The day after the Gigafinal, Tashil travelled to the South Shields blitz competition. A very impressive performance saw him finish in joint 10th overall with 5/9. Going into the last round, Tashil was on board 3 taking on Fide Master David Walker. He lost, but 5 points was still enough to give him the prize as the best junior player in the event. Well done to Tashil!

Toefl finished a point behind with a respectable score 4/9. The event was won by the well known North East player Charlie Storey (pictured taking on Tashil below) who has been winning open events in the area since I started playing (so at least the last 30 years!)

Date:08/07/2024  Sagar and Tashil go close at Gigafinal!

The Manchester Gigafinal took place at the weekend and both Tashil and Sagar were one match from qualifying for the Challenger stage. Both were on 4/6 going into the last round, but lost their last round games. This matches Jayden who was busy this weekend, so did the Scottish Gigafinal a couple of weeks ago instead. Both Sagar and Tashil are at the younger end of their age groups and will be in the same section next year.

All of our 9 children who took part were competitive in the event. Joseph scored 2 in the Under 18's, James 2 in the under 14's, Sam and George both scored 2 in the Under 12's. Isaac 2 in the Under 10's. Lucas and Shanaya both score 3 in the Under 8's.

The Gigafinal is essentially a national level competition. James and Sagar's section was won by Candidate Master Stanley Badacsonyi who is rated 2392. While Joseph's was won by International Master Artem Lutsko rated 2268. Tashil's section was won by Candidate Master Supratit Banerjee rated 2169. Sam and George's section was won by George Zhao rated 2140. It is great credit to our youngsters (and their parents) that they are prepared to travel to these events and have a go and show that they can be competitive at this level. Well done to all 9!

Full Results

Under 18 Boys
Joseph Machin 2

Under 14 Boys
Sagar Patil 4
James Mann 2

Under 12 Boys
Sam Stevenson 2
George Butterworth 2

Under 10 Boys
Tashil Lankapura 4
Isaac Machin 2

Under 8 Boys
Lucas Liu 3

Under 8 Girls
Shanaya Chauhan 3

Date:07/07/2024  Pre-Season Training?

I told Tim he should try to be more aggressive in his chess games, but he may have got the wrong end of the stick!

His big fight was yesterday! Around 35 seconds is Tim's best bit:
https://www.facebook.com/tim.hind1/videos/2263420010663587

Seriously, well done to Tim. I don't think many of the rest of us would take part in a boxing match for charity or any other reason! If you'd like to support Tim, the link to donate to the charity is…..
https://www.justgiving.com/page/tim-hind-1713135827266?utm_medium=fundraising&utm_content=page%2Ftim-hind-1713135827266&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=pfp-share

Date:05/07/2024  5 in a row for Francis!

On Tuesday Francis won our Club Championship for the 5h season in a row! A win over Stephen Ollis means he is now uncatchable by anyone else. Francis finishes the event with 5.5/6 with only James Urwin managing to get a draw against him. As well as Stephen: Chris, Joe, Iain and Malcolm have all found Francis too strong.

There are a few matches to go before the final overall positions below are decided, but Francis is the champion! The win extends his own record of titles (Mike Closs and Mike Creaney are next with 2), but Matt Jackman will be amongst several players who could make it harder for Francis to extend his run next season!

Good news for the club that it was a record season in terms of participation with a total of 33 players taking part. A further 13 took part in our A2 and B division club championships for new players that started mid-season making 46 players in total.

Useful links:
http://www.thornabychessclub.co.uk/ClubChampionshipHistory.htm
http://www.thornabychessclub.co.uk/ClubChampionship.htm

Date:03/07/2024  First title for Steve!

Unlike the tedious football tournament going on in Germany at the moment, our Summer Rapidplay played on almost the same format was completed in one exciting evening! That was despite having 4 more entries (a record for one of these events) with 28 players in 7 groups of 4 taking part!

Steve Rodgers has been honing his Rapidplay skills at the library in recent weeks and with Chris sitting out to organise the event, he was the favourite. He didn't make it easy for himself with 3 of his games finishing when he had 10 or less seconds on the clock, but in the end he came out on top beating Jonathan in the final. Jonathan had a very good run, he has been away for work over the last few weeks and has been practicing his game in South America! The final came down to an endgame and Jonathan ran out of time in a losing position with Steve just having 10 seconds left on the clock. A first win in one of our internal events for Steve!

New member Phil had a great run to the semi-finals whilst our top junior Sagar also reached this stage. Sachin had a very good run to the quarter finals while Steve beat his great rival Mike at this stage. Iain topped the group of death, so was the number one seed for the knockout stages, but he had a surprise defeat against Phil. Meanwhile Rhys lost out to Sagar to be the best junior.

Tashil missed a mate in 2 in the group stages against Geoff Mann and then had to win a blitz playoff against the same player to even finish 2nd in his group. That meant the 2 favourites for the event played each other at the last 16 stage. Steve played a calculated defensive game initially and then found a brilliant combination to force the win. The other games went as expected with he notable exception of Sachin who defeated Janos at this stage.

The group stages saw 5 juniors qualify for the knockout stages with George and Sam S joining Tashil, Sagar and Rhys. Sam S played extremely well to get out of the group of death (group B) finishing 2nd behind Iain, but ahead of Alex our new York university member and Richard Kuby who was visiting from Darlington club. The 2nd most difficult group (group E) saw Zhuoyi and Nick take on 2 eventual semi-finalists Jonathan and Phil. This group was the last finished and several of the games went to tight endgames. Zhuoyi certainly played well in his first attempt at one of these events.

All in all, another busy and fun night at the club!

FULL RESULTS

Final
Steve 1-0 Jonathan

Semi-Final
Phil 0-1 Steve
Jonathan 1-0 Sagar

Quarter-Final
Iain 0-1 Phil
Steve 1-0 Mike
Jonathan 1-0 Sachin
Sagar 1-0 Rhys

Last 16
Phil 1-0 Vardhan
Steve 1-0 Tashil
Mike 1-0 Alan
Janos 0-1 Sachin
Sagar 1-0 Sam S
Rhys 1-0 George

Groups
Group A
1) Janos
2) Tashil
3) Geoff
4) Shanaya

Group B
1) Iain
2) Sam S
3) Richard K
4) Alex

Group C
1) Mike
2) Sachin
3) Malcolm
4) Ollie

Group D
1) Steve R
2) George
3) James M
4) Jayden

Group E
1) Jonathan
2) Phil
3) Zhuoyi
4) Nick

Group F
1) Rhys
2) Alan
3) Richard S
4) Sanjay

Group G
1) Sagar
2) Vardhan
3) Joe V
4) Neil