News

Date:30/03/2023  Durham Draw Again!

Thornaby 2-2 Durham City C
Mike Creaney 0-1 Vaughan Davison
Joe McGinnis 1-0 Andy Proudfoot
Sam Greig 1-0 Tony Shires
David Pizzi 0-1 Sebastian Palucha

I'm not sure if we were expected to win this but in the end we were happy to share the points.

I was first to finish early really around 9-0pm the game went similarly to my Tuesday game with James with my opponent making the running and after my move 15 Nh7 instead of 15.Kh7 my opponent played the strong 16.Nf5 i was unable to defend this time being mated six moves later. Maybe a return to the French is in order!

Sam finished next i was standing at the bar with my opponent after my game and as Sam passed i asked how it was going he said it was going to be a long game, but when i went back to the match room there were only Kings and one pawn left in Sam's favour he duly converted.

David played a solid game and had a space advantage, but let things slip somewhere along the line. It was left to Joe to try and salvage something. This he was able to do, but only after his opponent wrongly declined a draw offer when dangerously short of time and the inevitable then occurred.

So just like in the away fixture, the match was drawn!

Mike

Date:30/03/2023  Club Championship 4th Round Draw!

The draw for the 4th Round of the Club Championship has been made. James is the only person on 3 points from 3 games after a win over Ollie and he faces Sagar in the next round. Meanwhile Francis defeated Joseph to move to 2.5 and he plays Brad in the next round. Everyone else is at least a point behind James, but it is certainly still all to play for with 3 rounds remaining.

Round 4 (by 24th April)
James Urwin V Sagar Patil
Brad Werrit V Francis Batchelor
Joe Machin V Joe McGinnis
Sam Greig V Nick Tadd
Pete Townson V Ollie Walton
Wes Park V Mike Creaney
Brian Ellis V Charlie Johnston
Harris Wilson V Geoff Howsden
Iain Mellis V Andy Austen
Bhima Patil V David Pizzi
Finn Whitfield V Vardhan Bunga
Laura Holdforth V Tristan Green

Round 3 Results
Ollie Walton 0-1 James Urwin
Francis Batchelor 1-0 Joseph Machin
Mike Creaney ½-½ Sam Greig
Sagar Patil V Brad Werrit
Joe McGinnis 1-0 Brian Ellis
Nick Tadd 1-0 Iain Mellis
Andy Austen 0-1 Pete Townson
Wes Park V Charlie Johnston
Geoff Howsden V Vardhan Bunga
Bhima Patil V Finn Whitfield
David Pizzi 1-0 Laura Holdforth
Tristan Green 0-1 Harris Wilson

Full details are here.

Date:29/03/2023  Nick leads Thornaby Challenge!

2 of our members ventured to Billingham yesterday for the latest Billingham Rapidplay event. Joseph included a draw with Brian Whitaker in 2nd game to leave him on 1.5 out of 2. He was a bishop up in his last game, but let it slip towards the end. A good first attempt at one of these events for Joseph though.

Nick finished the competition with a respectable 2 out of 3. He lost to Gary Leighton after his Caro Kann was demolished, but won his other 2 games. Billingham's Ben Dodgson was the overall winner with 3 out of 3.

Date:29/03/2023  Delancey UK Chess Challenge - School Stage. Tristan wins again!

Over the last few weeks, Chris has been running the School Stage of the "Delancey UK Chess Challenge" in 2 local schools. Overall 38 children aged from 7-11 took part across the 2 schools.

In the Village School, our very own Tristan emerged as the school champion with 7 wins from 7 games. In the decisive final round he beat the multi-talented overall girls champion Skye Mockett. Skye is also a high level judo and archery competitior as well as being a very good chess player.

This was the first term Chris had been in Mandale Mill and the after school club has been a popular success. A year 6 boy won the overall here with 7 wins out of 7 and he looks a very good prospect for the future. Hopefully we'll see him at the library soon!

The Delancey challenge is a national junior competition. After the school stage, it goes on to the local Megafinal in Yarm on April 30th. The top players from here qualify for a regional gigafinal and then possibly a national terrafinal. Many players from Thornaby will be attending the Megafinal and we wish them all well!

The school stage of the competition was well received. Mr Birtwhistle the head of Village School said, "The children are gaining so much from the club. A lovely competition, super stuff!". Mr Davies the Deputy head added, "The children loved the certificates and prizes!"

It's been a success from our clubs point of view too. Several of the 38 children who took part have started coming to our Saturday morning library sessions. As well as players of the future, we've got 2 new players of the present! Tashil and Toefl have come to our club via Mandale Mill!

Date:29/03/2023  Club Championship B Division 1st Round!

There were some good matches in the first round of the Club Championship B Division. Several players were playing in their first competitive games and they all acquitted themselves well. Experience did tell in the end though and all of the first round winners have been playing regularly in the C or D division in the last couple of months.

Toefl looks like the man to watch at the moment with some eye catching results for the teams as well as his win against Tim in the first round of this. David and Geoff will fancy their chances of stopping him, as will our talented trio of juniors Ollie, Finn and Tristan who all won their first round games. Finn has won several ladder games before, but his win against James was his first full length game win.

The second round will be interesting with all of the games involving first round winners featuring an adult Vs a junior. Will experience or youth prevail?


1st Round Results
Finn Whitfield 1-0 James Mann
Geoff Mann 1-0 Sam Stevenson
Richard Stevenson 0-1 David Pizzi
Toefl Lankapura 1-0 Tim Hind
Tristan Green 1-0 Laura Holdforth
Malcolm Goldspink 0-Bye Will Rowett
Tashil Lankapura 0-1 Ollie Walton

2nd Round Draw
Ollie Walton V Toefl Lankapura
David Pizzi V Finn Whitfield
Geoff Mann V Tristan Green
Tim Hind V Will Rowett
Richard Stevenson V Malcolm Goldspink
Sam Stevenson V Laura Holdforth
James Mann V Tashil Lankapura

Full information is here.

Date:28/03/2023  Aces go 2nd in Team Swiss!

Thornaby Bombers ½-3½ Thornaby Aces
Sam Greig ½-½ Brian Ellis
James Urwin 0-1 Mike Creaney
Iain Mellis 0-1 Joe McGinnis
Geoff Mann 0-1 Toefl Lankapura

Unfamiliar line-ups for the teams tonight, still the slightly higher graded one prevailed. The result moves the Aces up into 2nd place in the Team Swiss Competition!

Toefl continued his excellent recent form in the board 4 game between 2 of our up and coming relative newcomers. When they come out at the start of next month, Toefl's provisional rating will be around 1700!

Mike's report: "James did all the pressing in our game and even though a pawn down missed a winning advantage at move 21 if he had played f6 instead of capturing on g6 according to Stockfish. He would have emerged a piece for two pawns up, however the tables turned after that and i didn't let go being a piece and pawn up at the end".

Iain's report: "Well done to Sam on the draw. I must say thank you to the rest of my team for not winning as well. Nice to know that my blunder didn't cost us the match... Joe was too eagle eyed to miss the obvious stacking up of my rooks on the white diagonal... His bishop skewered them and it was game over pretty much from there. It's great to see that we all had winning (ish) positions at times though. There's not that much between the B and A teams, (when Chris and Francis aren't playing at least)".

Date:23/03/2023  Thornaby hold Lyons leaders!

Thornaby 2-2 Hetton Lyons
Francis Batchelor ½-½ Bryan Harkness
Chris Swales 0-1 Nigel Hall
Mike Creaney ½-½ Stephen Hall
Sam Greig 1-0 Daniel Williams

Another good result against the league leaders, after our win in Hetton a couple of months ago. We fielded a strong team to try to combat the high ratings of our opponents and maanged to get an overall result.

Sam had a strong attack from the start and was a piece up very early on in the game. He didn't let up and it was all over in Sam's favour after just 20 moves.

Mike's opponent exchanged queens after only 6 moves, but then found a tactic to get a pawn up. The end game was hard to win with Mike having a bishop against a knight though and the 2 players eventually decided on a draw.

Francis played out a complex closed sicilian position. Very few pieces had gone from the board when the players decided there was no good way for wither to make any progress and agreed a draw.

Chris was against a player more than 300 points higher than him in the ratings. He looked okay for a while and then he wasn't! Chris said "I lost a tempo or 2 somewhere and my queen side rook was always 1 move away from doing anything useful. Against a 1975 rated player, that's enough to lose you the game."

With 3 matches to go we're in the middle of the pack with teams in the lower half of the table left to play. A good run could get us up to 3rd in the table.

Date:21/03/2023  Wes wins again!

Thornaby B52's 1½-2½ Hartlepool A
James Urwin 0-1 Bernie Price
Iain Mellis ½-½ Bill Wilson
Bill March 0-1 Peter Harker
Wes Park 1-0 Kevin Waterman

The result went the wrong way in what was a particularly stern test for the B52's, but two commendable results from Iain and especially Wes and Bill could even have won it at the end.

James lost a piece for a pawn early on and never really got into the game.

Wes had an early finish compared to his recent games! He said he played his “worst ever opening” and was 2 pawns down after 10 moves. It looked pretty hopeless to me the first time I looked, but Wes found a bishop sacrifice that forced a win.

Iain was a knight and 5 pawns against a bishop and 5 pawns. He did end up a pawn down in the end game with the pieces still on and I thought he might have lost it, but he was able to stop the passed pawn and held on for a draw.

Bill was a rook and 4 pawns against a bishop and 4 pawns, but time pressure was a factor and he ended up losing the end game. Bill's verdict "Just when I think I've exhausted the ways to lose painfully I come up with another one!"

Defeat, but some positives and Iain and Wes keep their good form going!

Date:21/03/2023  Knights Slay Bombers!

Thornaby Bombers 1-3 Middlesbrough Knights
Chris Swales 0-1 Nikhil Bhandari
Sagar Patil ½-½ Sahil Farooq
Mike Creaney ½-½ Ray Pallister
Nick Tadd 0-1 Ged Murphy

The Bombers were without two regulars in Joe and Sam and Nick once again stepped up to the plate.

Playing on his highest board for the Bombers so far, Sagar looked even for most of the game, but then went a pawn down and to my eyes he looked like he was going to lose another one. However what I missed was that Sagar just allowed one of his rooks to be taken by Sahil and that allowed a perpetual check from Sagar's queen!

Chris found Nikhil a tough nut to crack and was under pressure right from the start. He resigned in a hopeless position after only 21 moves.

Even though well outgraded, Nick was 3rd finished. He said he had an enjoyable game until he lost a bishop! He battled on and even threatened mate in 1 at one point, but the piece was too much of a disadvantage to come back from.

On board 3, Mike was a pawn up after only 12 moves. In his own words, Mike made "heavy weather of it", but was a piece and a pawn up after 65 moves. He then managed to swap everything off for a king and queen vs king ending, but before he got the mate his flag fell so the result was a draw.

So a 3-1 defeat for our new experimental board order. It might be the last time we use it!

Date:15/03/2023  Injured Captain helps Cadets win!

Billingham C 1½-2½ Thornaby Cadets
Bernie Callaghan 0-1 Sagar Patil
Matthew Mawson ½-½ Wes Park
Paul Scott 0-1 Joseph Machin
Fraser Craig 1-0 Bhima Patil

The end of this match was dramatic, but the drama started at lunchtime when captain Chris got a call to say that the on the night captain Joseph was in A+E after a fall at school and would probably not be able to play. Tristan was ready to play, but with a couple of hours to go Joseph did the classic football captain's thing of declaring himself fit and playing with crutches!

In the end it was another good result for the Cadets! This was a strong line up for Billingham C with 3 relatively new players who are on the up, but our top juniors were still too strong for them!

Bhima became the 35th person to play for a Thornaby team this year. It didn't go the way he wanted against a tough opponent for board 4, but good experience for next time.

An excellent win for Joseph against the D division leading scorer Paul Scott despite the crutches! Sagar won on board 1 again, this time against the experienced Bernie Callaghan.

With the Cadets leading 2-1, that left Wes with the task of trying to finish off the win. Both players ended up in time trouble and a draw was eventually agreed. Wes felt he could have woin with a bit more time, but the draw sealed the win for the Cadets!

So a dramatic finish means 2 wins on the trot for the Cadets who are getting better with every match and will look to finish strongly over the last few games of the season.

Date:15/03/2023  Progress for Pete!

Darlington B 2½-1½ Thornaby
Bob Donner ½-½ Mike Creaney
Carl Stephens 0-1 Pete Townson
Sam Ball 1-0 Janos Mehes
Ilya Bowman 1-0 Nick Tadd

After a frantic ring around in the morning by Chris, at least we managed to turn up with a full team!

Janos and Nick were well out graded and found the going too tough. Nick had a decent game against Ilya and was planning a king side attack when a check by a Bishop upset his plans. Nick said it was an enjoyable game though!

Carl dropped a piece after 10 moves after a cunning 9th move by Pete and he navigated the rest of the game competently. A great win for Pete, the highest rated player he has beaten so far and it was also against a regular thorn in our side!

The engine reckoned i had a slight edge throughout as white against the Benoni, but i didn't think so during the game, Bob having a passed pawn on the C-file. I finally managed to create something against his King and obtained a passed pawn of my own and Bob offered a draw. The engine says i was better and after long analysis winning, but i couldn't see that far and being very concerned about that passed pawn and with the clock in his favour I agreed. Where is that cluck cluck clucking sound coming from?

Mike

Date:14/03/2023  Aces hold on to 4th place!

Thornaby Aces 2½-2½ Redcar
Francis Batchelor 1-0 David Baillie
Brian Ellis ½-½ Gary Dixon
Mike Creaney 0-1 Royce Parker
Chris Swales 0-1 Jason Gentle
Sam Greig 1-0 Brian Myers

A draw against our bottom-of-the-table rivals means it is still all to play for.

Brian finished first and looked unfortunate to only come away with the draw. An agressive opening saw him win a pawn, and the pieces came off the board quickly after. But is was a very blocked position and with only a bishop major-piece each, there wasn't a way through. Sam said his game was solid and even from both sides, with him being slightly positionally up. But then his opponent fell into a pin for him to win a piece and he converted it from there. I won a pawn very early in the QGD exchange variation. Unlike last game vs David I managed to convert my advantage this time, but it was played right through to the bitter end with pawns getting promoted. (Keeps the pressure on my rivals for league top scorer this year, with 6 points I'm ½ ahead of Luke Owen from Darlington and 1 ahead of my work colleague Steven Booth at Great Ayton!)

Chris was in a King's Indian game, but as white he didnt get his attack going unlike his opponent. A long king walk out of danger couldn't save him from the breakthrough from black and the win for Jason. Mike was in the final game to finish, an entertaining one with opposite way castling. I thought the had the earlier breakthrough, but Royce's slightly later one also posed many threats. A game that it wouldve been nice to see a played-out outcome, but under the time pressure Royce came out on top.

Our next league match is back against Redcar again, avoid defeat and it will likely mean a 4th place in the league for us.

Francis

Date:08/03/2023  In form Mellis wins again!

Great Ayton B 2½-1½ Thornaby B52s
Adam Young 1-0 James Urwin
Mike Pointon 0-1 Iain Mellis
Kegan Harrison ½-½ Bill March
Jim Rogers 1-0 Wes Park

Defeat for the B52s, but a good fight against the joint division leaders.

Iain kept up his good current run by beating Mike Pointon. An unusual win, Mike resigned thinking he'd lost a piece, but later realised that he hadn't and Iain was just exchanging them off!

Bill played out a solid draw with Kegan and then Wes was eventually ground down by his experienced opponent Jim leaving the scores at 1.5-1.5.

That left James on top board playing the unbeaten new Great Ayton player Adam Young. Adam looks like a good new player for Great Ayton and he managed to beat James in the end.

Date:07/03/2023  Joseph Saves Whitewash!

Thornaby Juniors ½-3½ Billingham D
Joseph Machin ½-½ Joseph Foster
Tashil Lankapura 0-1 Harry Tennant
Finn Whitfield 0-1 Liam Laing
Tristan Green 0-1 Paul Scott

Tashil was first finished. A decent performance, but there were a couple of blunders that were hard to come back from. Tashil is still getting used to longer games, but his talent for someone so young is obvious.

Finn lost to Liam. Liam's a pretty solid player and this was not really a surprising result, but Finn acquitted himself well again.

Tristan played very well. It was a tough draw against Paul who is the leading scorer in the division and is now on 3 wins out of 3. Tristan played a pretty solid game and then found a tactic to win a queen for a rook and a knight. He actually had a way to not lose the knight that he missed, but even so continued to dictate the game. Unfortunately at the end he left his king a bit exposed and was mated with 2 rooks. Despite the loss, this was a mature performance and a significant step forward for Tristan. The game lasted nearly 2 hours and it was a good sign that he is getting the hang of long games now.

Joseph was a little disappointed not to win at the end. It was even on material every time I looked, but Joseph did seem to be on top towards the end and I thought he had a way to win a piece. Onlookers thought there may have been a mating combination as well. Still a draw saved the whitewash!

Chris

Date:07/03/2023  Toefl wins again!

Thornaby Destroyers 1-3 Darlington D
Pete Townson 0-1 Richard Kuby
Toefl Lankapura 1-0 Xander Gray
Andy Austen 0-1 Jai Shah
James Mann 0-1 Jack Decosemo

The match started well with Toefl getting a checkmate in just 10 moves! Qh5 Nf7 Nxa8 Qf7## were amongst the last few moves. A second win for Toefl just a week after his first!

Darlington's other 2 juniors were more successful. Andy said he got “annihilated” and James said he blundered his queen and then his opponent blundered it back, but it was still not enough for him to get anything out of the game.

Pete said Richard offered him a draw as soon as the other games were finished. Pete played on despite feeling he was in a worse position to try to get a result for the team, but lost it in the end.

Not a good result for us, but good for the future of the league to see first wins for 2 of Darlington's juniors. Andy's opponent was obviously very pleased and announced it to the whole room when he'd won! Well done to Darlington who are fielding mostly junior players in their D team and they sit at the top the table after 3 matches.

Chris

Date:06/03/2023  Bombers Pipped at Hartlepool!

Hartlepool A 2½-1½ Thornaby Bombers
Bernie Price 1-0 Mike Creaney
Bill Wilson 1-0 Chris Swales
Peter Harker ½-½ Sam Greig
Dave Lowcock 0-1 Joe McGinnis

It seems that Hartlepool thought that reinforcements were necessary after drawing the Durham league match on Thursday and they proved too strong for us this time at least on the top two boards.

Chris lost relatively quickly after a strong king side attack from Bill. The other games all lasted at least 2 hours longer, so Chris had plenty of time for a pleasant evening at Hartlepool club! He had a game walthrough with Bill followed by some games against a new Hartlepool club player.

Mike had a reasonable opening against the Dutch defence but dropped the exchange for a pawn in the middlegame, Stockfish still thought he was OK after this but Mike didn't feel like it and used an enormous amount of time trying to create something. Even though Mike had a minute and a half to his 26 mins at the end, Bernie wasn't going to let this be a factor and Mike lost a piece and then resigned with 26 seconds left on his clock.

Sam had a tense battle with Peter both going down to the last seconds where everything came off, Sam did have a winning endgame position in the time scramble, but couldn't find the winning moves in time pressure. Peter found a way to swap off Sam's extra pawn to leave it as king and rook vs king and rook and a dead draw.

Incredibly Joe's game went on even longer than Sam's. In an exciting finish, Joe had 27 seconds left and Dave had 8 at the end of the game when Joe delivered a checkmate! Still doesn't beat Callum's 13 seconds to go one last year though!

Date:03/03/2023  Club Championship B Division Draw

The draw for the first round of the Club Championship B Division has been made. We have an impressive 14 entries into a tournament that is open to anyone not in the main club championship and anyone who was on zero after 2 rounds of the main one.

First Round Draw
Finn Whitfield V James Mann
Geoff Mann V Sam Stevenson
Richard Stevenson V David Pizzi
Toefl Lankapura V Tim Hind
Tristan Green V Laura Holdforth
Malcolm Goldspink V Will Rowett
Tashil Lankapura V Harris Wilson

At the moment James Mann is the highest rated entry. All players in the competition either have no grade or P grades though, so this is likely to fluctuate a lot as the season goes on. The tournament is wide open and should be an interesting one!

Full tournament information is here:
http://www.thornabychessclub.co.uk/ClubChampionshipBDivision.htm

Date:02/03/2023  Durham League Draw Again!

Thornaby 2-2 Hartlepool
Mike Creaney ½-½ Bill Wilson
Joe McGinnis 1-0 Graham Matthews
Sam Greig ½-½ Graham Marshall
Ollie Walton 0-1 Dave Lowcock

Joe drew first blood at 8-0'clock when Graham allowed his Queen to be skewered to his King,

Ollie was next down in material he fought on but ultimately had to succumb 1-1,

Me next in a not much happening position Bill doubled Rooks on the d-file i challenged them he swapped them and the Queens off I exchanged his fianchettoed Bishop and Bill offered a draw because he couldn't see a clear plan and neither could i 1½-1½ at 9-0'clock,

Sam's game was the most interesting i predicted a comfortable win for him but this is rarely the case and Graham got an excellent position missed a chance and although still controlling the position no headway was being made ,Sam then sent his h-pawn forward and this created counter play and a strong attack with Queen & Rook ,but it seemed that Graham found a resourceful defence with his Rook back to the second rank, by this time Sam was down to two minutes and repeated twice with Queen checks then his opponent claimed a threefold repetition,

As is usually the case immediately afterwards with no pressure Sam found a mate....oh well!

Still a good result against a strong team!

Mike

Date:28/02/2023  Table topping Billingham sent crashing by Cadets!

Thornaby Cadets 2½-1½ Billingham B
Sagar Patil ½-½ Darren Donnison
Joseph Machin 0-1 Stephen Roe
Wes Park 1-0 Gary Leighton
Toefl Lankapura 1-0 Ben Dodgson

A great result for our Cadets team earlier tonight beating the league leaders Billingham B! Billingham had previously won 7 out of 8 and have the top 3 individual scorers in the C division (all 3 of whom were playing tonight) including Stephen Roe who is on 6.5 out of 7! The Cadets are our development team and although we've had a few draws and a lot of close 2.5-1.5 games, this was our first win of the season.

Toefl got his first win for our teams by beating Billingham's top junior player Ben Dodgson. Ben was on 5 wins from 6 games going into the match. However it was pretty straightforward for Toefl after he won the queen for a minor piece early in the game with a pin.

Sagar played the in form Darren Donnison and got it to an end game with 2 pawns and a knight against 2 pawns and a bishop. I wasn't totally sure if either had an advantage and it did finish a draw. Good result for Sagar!

Joseph got the short straw against Billingham's form player and now 1756 rated Stephen. It was a fairly closed position and Stephen manoeuvred his pieces better to eventually force a win. Joseph played well though and made it difficult for him.

Wes was last finished. He managed to get 1 pawn up, then another pawn up and then converted to a win. Another great mature performance from Wes to give the team victory!

Chris

Date:27/02/2023  Aces hold Champions!

Darlington A 2½-2½ Thornaby Aces
Steve Dauber ½-½ Chris Ross
Kevin J Wilson 0-1 Francis Batchelor
Luke Owen 1-0 Brian Ellis
Jonathan Sams ½-½ Mike Creaney
Richard Harris ½-½ Chris Swales

The Aces score their 2nd points of the year against the defending champions and always strong Darlington A.

Chris S scored the first points, a game where he says most the pieces came off and it was an even looking game for a reasonable draw. Brian's game went to an endgame scenario quite quickly with his B v N, and a draw looked likely, but the knight got to the perfect square at exactly the right tempo to means pawns were falling somewhere. I then got a win, a close game but one slight mistake with queen positioning allowed me to compromise the pawn structure and then win one pawn. He went for his only chance in pushing a passed pawn, but miscalculating the combination would mean either a swap everything off for 2 pawns up to me or a discovered check-mate, so he resigned.

Then the last 2 games went down to 2 minutes left of the clock each. Chris R finished slightly before, being a pawn up but queens the only major piece on the board, there was no escape from repetitive checks. Mike's game to finish had only been under 30 moves, but due to the complication of his opponent sacrificing a piece for 2 kingside pawns. All of Mike's pieces where tight around the back-rank and sides, but on good squares for making a good defence, and rather than continuing on (in basically a toss a coin scenario in these time controls) they agreed a draw.

Next match for Aces is Tuesday 14th against Redcar at Home.

Francis

Date:27/02/2023  Creditable draws in Challenger defeat!

Middlesbrough Bishops 3-1 Thornaby Challengers
Nikhil Bhandari 1-0 James Urwin
Sahil Farooq ½-½ Iain Mellis
Ray Pallister ½-½ Pete Townson
Andrew Salter 1-0 Nick Tadd

A tough match against a strong Middlesbrough team. Totally out-graded again, and my opponent played very for an estimated 900!

Well done to Iain and Pete though for getting very creditable draws against their higher rated opponents. James couldn't match them on board 1.

Next match is at home to Darlington C on March 14th.

Nick

Date:23/02/2023  Angels Delight for Juniors!

Marsh's Angels 1-3 Thornaby Juniors
Katie Sidgwick 0-1 Joseph Machin
Rebecca Horlock 0-1 Ollie Walton
Nicky Britton 1-0 Finn Whitfield
Catherine Lloyd 0-1 Stanley Allan

A good win for our junior team. I got there for about 7:45pm and we were up on all 4 boards at this point.

Ollie finished first. When I arrived he had 2 rooks and 5 pawns against a rook and 2 sets of doubled pawns. Pretty routine from there. He queened a pawn and Rebecca was forced to give up her rook. Ollie finished it off with a 2 rook checkmate.

Joseph was a piece up, but Katie had her queen and rook around his king and it looked a bit dicey at one point. Joseph managed to get his queen back into a good defensive position though and then the next time I looked he'd got Katie's queen for nothing. Obviously a big blunder, but Joseph was probably about to exchange things off and win anyway at this point.

The D division rules allow a player from another club with no team in the division to play. We've offered Stanley (a promising 10 year old from Redcar) a chance to play a couple of games for us. He was a queen up when I arrived after getting a royal fork earlier on in the game. He then found a nice mate in 2 at the end. A very mature performance for a 10 year old on his league debut, he looks like a good prospect for Redcar.

Finn was a piece for a pawn up when I left, but there still looked to be a lot of play. It obviously went wrong which is a shame for Finn as he's playing well and getting into good positions, but not converting them yet. I'm sure the wins will come soon. Well done to Nicky though, the first winner for Marsh's Angels and I'm sure the team will be getting more results as the season goes on.

Chris

Date:23/02/2023  Sam keeps up Blackpool form!

Thornaby 2-2 Durham University C
Mike Creaney 1-0 James Buckley
Sam Greig 1-0 Felix Watts
Nick Tadd 0-1 Jan Berssenbruegge
Wes Park 0-1 Holly Adshead

With the top 2 players both graded over 1700, on the face of it this was a reasonable result for us, however both Wes and Nick had winning positions.

Wes was a Bishop ahead at one point, but left his rook en prise. Nick had three pawns for a knight in the ending against his young German opponent and looked good to promote one of them but mistakenly grabbed another pawn thus letting his opponents king out in to active play.

Sam brought his Blackpool congress form to the table and was always in control. He went a piece up but it probably was more difficult than it needed to be to convert in the end. I felt that my opponent had a slight edge throughout but when it came down to 2 mins each and a Rook ending I was able outplay him (naturally!)

Mike

Date:22/02/2023  Billingham score direct hit on Destroyers!

Billingham D 3-1 Thornaby Destroyers
Harris Tennant 1-0 Geoff Mann
Liam Laing 1-0 Vardham Bunga
Arthur Stead 0-1 Andy Austen
Paul Scott 1-0 James Mann

A good effort from the Thornaby Destroyers against probably the strongest team in the D division.

On the night captain Andy lead by example and got a great win against the youngest member of the opposition. Andy usually plays as a reserve in the C division so doesn't get that many games and this was his first league win since 2019.

Geoff, Vardhan and James had tougher games. Vardhan was last finished and battled on, but he was too far down and resigned in the end.

Date:22/02/2023  Club Championship B Division Announced!

With so many players joining the club in the last few months we've decided to run a "B division Club Championship" competition as a way of giving people some extra practice at competitive games.

It's open to anyone not entered in the main club championship and anyone who was on zero points in the Club Championship after 2 rounds. It will be a 4 round competition starting on 1st March and finishing on 30th June. Players will have a month to arrange their games for a mutually convenient date in each round. The games will be a maximum of 1 hour 30 minutes each. Players taking part will need to be ECF registered.

There are 11 entries already including 3 father and son pairings! New Thornaby Destroyer stars Geoff and James Mann are amongst the entries so far as well as Toefl and Tashil Lankapura. Some of our recent new club night regulars have decided to take the plunge into competitive chess and have registered with the ECF including Malcolm Goldspink. Malcolm has the longest gap in his chess career of any of our players having first played at school and then decided to take it up again after retiring 40 years later!

It should be a nice little competition!

Date:21/02/2023  First B52s win!

Thornaby B52s 3-1 Billingham A
James Urwin 1-0 Brian Whitaker
Iain Mellis 1-0 Paul Frank
Bill March ½-½ Paul Weightman
Wes Park ½-½ Dave Frank

A fine first win for the B52's doing what the Bombers couldn't do 2 weeks ago!

First finished was Bill who ended his recent bad run by playing out a solid draw with Billingham captain Paul Weightman. Hopefully the move to board 3 will see Bill start winning again soon!

James continued his steady rise up the ratings with a good win over former Thornaby stalwart Brian Whitaker. The game was complicated and James had a lot of threats which lead to him being a rook up. Brian went for a perpetual check, but when the checks ran out he resigned.

Iain continued his great recent form with a 4th successive league win. Paul Frank is Billingham's form player and had previously only lost 1 game this season against the mighty Buffs! Iain managed to get a piece for 2 pawns up and converted from there.

Wes was last finished of all of the 8 B division boards in action and once again showed great maturity for a junior player. At the end it was 2 rooks, a knight and 5 pawns each with both knights in dangerous looking positions with plenty of fork potentials if there was any mis-step. Wes had a past pawn, but Dave's were all connected and it wasn't clear who had the advantage. Both players aggreed that with the match result already decided a draw was probably a fair result.

So after 4 draws and a lot of close games, this was a first win for the B52s. All in all a lot of positives from the match and despite being originally intended as a development team they move up to 5th in the table!

Date:21/02/2023  Bombers disposed by Great Ayton!

Thornaby Bombers 1½-2½ Great Ayton B
Mike Creaney ½-½ Ray Honeybourne
Chris Swales ½-½ Jim Rogers
Joe McGinnis ½-½ Andrew French
Vardhan Bunga 0-1 Peter Archer

The result looks closer than the match probably was. Great Ayton are the masters of narrow match wins by winning on 1 board and drawing on all of the others! Honeybourne, Rogers and French have only lost 1 game between them in the B division this season, so it wasn't hard to predict the tactics!

Doing something about it was another matter. Mike broke his recent run of losses with another draw against our former Chair Ray Honeybourne. The game only lasted 17 moves, but Mike felt Ray had the advanatage and needed "something tangible" to play on. Joe had a similar short game followed by a draw offer against CCA chair Andrew French.

With Chris having the white pieces, being the Bombers in form player and having a good idea of the likely other board results he knew before the game the onus was on him to try to win this game. Unfortunately things didn't go his way. Jim played an opening gambit line he wasn't familiar with. Chris used up quite a bit of time in the first 10 moves trying to find how to keep the advantage. He almost missed a smothered mate on move 7 though and in the end came out of the opening having given back the pawn and swapped off 3 of the minor pieces. A few moves later he forced a swap of queens and then castled queenside to get his rooks on the open d file. By the end he had reduced Jim to defending with almost no good moves. His problem was that Jim had a decent bishop on b7 and his own white bishop was pretty much out of the game, blocked by his own pawns. In the end Jim manoeuvred into a position where he could attempt to swap a rook off and Chris decided with Jim having the stronger bishop he would take the draw. He played a repetitive check followed by an attack on the bishop on d7 and d8 to get the draw with Jim moving his rook back and forwards to prevent the 2 threats.

With several players unavailable, Vardhan got the late call up to play on board 4. He was last finished and battled bravely against an opponent with about 100 times more experience! When he went the exchange down it looked bleak. Vardhan did battle on to create some chances, but the writing was on the wall and Peter converted for the overall match victory.

Date:18/02/2023  Library Session Features on Radio!

Earlier this week the BBC Radio Tees Gary Philipson show featured our Ingleby Barwick library session and included an interview with our own Joe McGinnis who runs the sessions!

A reporter visited the session and interviewed some parents and our own junior player Bertie. He also lost to a 6 year old that is receiving coaching from Joe!

A link to the piece is here https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0dzsqrm. The chess section starts at 37 minutes into the programme.

Date:16/02/2023  Thornaby slump to shock defeat!

Thornaby 0-4 Bishop Auckland
Mike Creaney 0-1 Bryan Bainbridge
Joe McGinnis 0-1 Paul McGuigan
Sagar Patil 0-1 Deborah Edmundson
Ollie Walton 0-1 Mark Edmundson

A tough week for Thornaby teams finished with a surprise defeat and whitewash in the Durham league against Bishop Auckland.

Bit of a shock result maybe, certainly in the manner of the defeat. Joe was last to finish as normal, but had to finally give best to a newcomer just over from Ireland. Currently ungraded, but looks a strong player.

The other three of us were done for by 9 o clock, Sagar was first to go I didn't see how, it was me next I was crushed by Brian's pawn storm in front of his castled King, and Ollie fell for a back rank mate I believe, who hasn't done that?

Bottom of the league..... you're havin a laugh! Mark Edmondson asked me to say hello to James, seems a big fan after meeting at the Northumberland congress he thinks James is going places I think he should forget about the travel and concentrate on improving his chess!

Mike

Date:15/02/2023  Wes Wins Again!

Great Ayton C 3-1 Thornaby Cadets
Connor Wilson 1-0 Joseph Machin
Peter Archer 1-0 Andy Austen
Stephen Gatenby 1-0 Toefl Lankapura
Alan Jefferson 0-1 Wes Park

It's always a tough match for us against any Great Ayton team and this one proved no exception. The main positive was that Wes picked up another win making it 3 from 4 in the league for Thornaby so far!

Toefl was making his debut and played well probing for an advantage early on. His more experienced opponent was able to defend everything though and on move 25 Toefl made a fatal mistake by getting his queen pinned and it was effectively game over from there.

Joseph and Andy were both well outgraded on the top 2 boards. They put up a good fight, but regular Thornaby nemesis Connor Wilson got another win against us and Captain Archer completed the Great Ayton victory!

Date:15/02/2023  Joseph simul!

Earlier today, Chris invited Joseph to his school chess club where Joseph did a simultaneous display against 16 of the children in the school chess club.

Joseph was definitely in trouble in some of the matches including being a queen down in one of them, but he managed to finish with 15 wins and 1 draw! The draw was against our very own Tristan and was the last game finished with several of the other children cheering Tristan on!

Well done and thank you to Joseph, it was a new experience for most of the children and they enjoyed it!

Date:15/02/2023  Thornaby bring up Half Century!

Yesterday we had 3 new members join the club taking our total membership up to 50! A fantastic achievement for the club given we only had 12 members after reopening from covid in September 2021!

The popularity of chess increased during lockdown and also thanks to the Queen's gambit TV series, but we have also put a lot of effort into marketing the club and bringing on new players at the library. More and more people are enjoying chess at our friendly welcoming club!

Date:14/02/2023  Challengers hold Hartlepool!

Thornaby Challengers 2-2 Hartlepool B
James Urwin 1-0 Graham Matthews
Iain Mellis 1-0 Dave Lowcock
Geoff Howsden 0-1 Graham Marshall
Geoff Mann 0-1 Dave Kelly

Hartlepool brought a strong team down, as expected, but the Challengers held them to a draw!

Pretty straight forward wins on top boards, Iain in just 12 moves after a bishop sacrifice would have won him the queen!! Good win for James too, Graham Matthews is always hard to beat, but this time James won his Queen!

The two Geoffs struggled a bit. Geoff Howsden lost quickly and his own verdict on his performance was "I was an absolute disgrace!"

Geoff Mann was only on move 4 when Iain and Geoff H had finished! The game was even for quite a while and Geoff played right to checkmate to try to get the draw which would have won us the match, but two Rooks on the same file with the Queen behind was too strong to repel. His opponent Dave is a returning player and on this evidence probably stronger than his last rating suggests.

A decent result nonetheless! Well done all - next match is in a fortnight.

Nick

Date:13/02/2023  Aces Debut draw for Joseph!

Middlesbrough Rooks 4-1 Thornaby Aces
Nicholas Tavoularis ½-½ Francis Batchelor
Giuseppe Magazzu 1-0 Brian Ellis
Stephen Cole 1-0 Mike Creaney
Paul Gregory 1-0 Joe McGinnis
Nikhil Bhandari ½-½ Joseph Machin

Middlesbrough Rooks turning out their strongest side they have so far this season to give us the defeat.

A great highlight in a draw for Joseph on his Aces debut! It looked a sharp game and he might have been in a bit of trouble with a king that couldn't castle, but as the game progressed things started to look better and he was well up on time. I was the other ½ point scorer with a position that I had a rook vs knight and pawn, but it was such a well placed knight that I had to set myself up to hold the position. Without either of us being reckless there wasn't a way through. There was great efforts by the rest of the team against the 1900s, Brian was once again in a very sharp game as black throwing lots of questions to his opponent, Joe got into a close endgame with his opponents pawns very weak and Mike had the better of the opening and his opponent on the back foot in the early game.

Next game for us is away to Darlington A on the 27th

Francis

Date:12/02/2023  Sam Takes Blackpool Title!

4 Thornaby players travelled to Blackpool over the weekend to take part in the Blackpool Chess Congress (one of the biggest in the UK).

Sam was our star performer defying his 1547 rating to finish on 4.5/5 in the minor section (which was for players graded up to 1700) and he took joint 1st place and a prize of £175.

Francis performed well in the Open Section and was right in contention on 2.5 after 3 rounds. He was playing up on board 2 in round 4, but lost in the last 2 rounds against high rated players. Still a good overall performance for Francis.

Geoff was also in contention in the Standard section at the end of Saturday on 2.5 after 3 rounds and he finished the competition with a creditable 3pts/5. Brian was in the inter section and finished on 1.5pts.

Well done to Sam, drinks are on you! The astute members of our club will know just how good Sam is and will not be at all surprised at this result. It bodes well for the rest of the season for Sam and the teams he plays for, some further Aces call ups are surely just around the corner!

Thornaby Player Results
Open Section- Francis Batchelor 2.5pts/5
Inter Section- Brian Ellis 1.5pts/5
Minor Section- Sam Greig 4.5pts/5 (1st=)
Standard Section- Geoff Howsden 3pts/5

Date:09/02/2023  Destroyers Go Top!

Marsh's Angels 0-4 Thornaby Destroyers
Katie Sidgwick 0-1 Pete Townson
Nicola Harrington 0-1 Geoff Mann
Nicky Britton 0-1 Vardhan Bunga
Rebecca Horlock 0-1 James Mann

A great start for the new Thornaby Destroyers team. Our inexperienced team are top of the D Division after 1 game by each team!

Everything ran well. Apparently we were part of history, this is the first ever all female chess team in an ECF league.

We won 4-0 - but certainly in my game I got lucky making a knight fork after being in plenty of trouble!

A debut win for James is a great start for him! First win for the teams for Pete and 2nd wins for Geoff and Vardhan.

It was an enjoyable night - Sean Marsh and a few others from Buff chess club were there & everyone very friendly / welcoming.

Pete

Date:08/02/2023  University Challenge too much for Thornaby!

Durham University B 4-0 Thornaby
William Bartram (1879) 1-0 Mike Creaney
Theo Jenkins (1720) 1-0 Chris Swales
Josh Smith (1676) 1-0 Pete Townson
Ben Perryman (1603) 1-0 James Urwin

Our latest road trip in the Durham league was a bit of a hammering, but we can't really complain. It was a fair result!

James blundered a rook quite early on. He fought on, but didn't get back into the game.

Pete was even for quite a while, but eventually lost it in the endgame. Good performance against someone of that level though in his first match that wasn't against another Thornaby player!

I was a pawn up early on, but he had 2 dangerous open files on my king. The position was very complicated and exactly the sort you don't want to be in against an intelligent young mind! He played all the right moves and the right waiting and defensive moves when he needed to. He eventually manged to get his queen onto my back row and 2 moves later it was a choice of catastrophic material loss or checkmate except I resigned! Definitely will be a lot higher than 1720 very soon. Basically he was just better than me and if he hadn't won the way he did, he would have won a different way later on!

Mike was a pawn down and then I think his rooks got forked by a knight. Mike played on though and a lapse in concentration from his opponent allowed him to get his rook for a piece back and a foothold into the game. Unfortunately a pawn down in the endgame proved to be too much to hold on for a draw.

The trip left both me and Pete a little nostalgic for our own youth. Apart from James, we all felt very old on a university campus! I used to play for York University and it brought back good memories. Pete said "I'm a little bit envious of those guys with their whole lives ahead of them and all the possibilities they have!"

So a tough match, but playing against a university team you're almost by definition going to be playing someone who is up and coming, so their ratings will all likely be too low if anything. That certainly seemed the case here! Good luck to our opponents for the rest of the season, they go top of the table and it looks to be between them and Hetton Lyons to decide the title.

Chris

Date:07/02/2023  B52s draw again!

Thornaby B52s 2-2 Darlington B
James Urwin 0-1 Luke Owen
Bill March 0-1 Alex Kalyviotis
Iain Mellis 1-0 Pete Mackay
Geoff Howsden 1-0 Ilya Bowman

A good result overall last night for the B52s, as we got a draw against a pretty strong Darlington team!

Geoff was to finish first & secured a good win over Ilya Bowman! I didn't see much, but it seemed Geoff was up a pawn and was able to force the win from there.

My game was against the future star, Luke Owen. He played the Queen's Gambit which led to me playing the semi-Slav, hoping to get a Cambridge Springs position. However the game turned into the Catalan! The game was a struggle from there, I had a hemmed in light-square bishop, and I gave my opponent tempo by playing out my rook to b8 which allowed him to develop his dark square bishop onto it, forcing it back to a8 immediately. The game carried on and I found myself down the exchange, but up a pawn and my opponent having doubled pawns and an exposed king. Unfortunately, I could never force a draw as Luke found a way for his rook to get into my back ranks. Combined with his loitering queen, mate or catastrophic material loss was inevitable. I was reassured to hear that Luke had actually played and drawn against a GM! Seems like a shoe-in to be 2000+ soon.

Iain finished next with a really good win over Pete McKay. I did not see much on this game either but I noted Iain had snagged a full bishop in the endgame. Pete could never hope to push his pawns thanks to Iain's and this allowed for Iain's king to slowly reach his pawns. It looked like the end position was Iain guaranteeing to capture Pete's pawn and making sure there was no way to stop an inevitable promotion!

Bill's game was last to finish and was a long one. It took a while for any material to come off the board, and whilst most of us were finished they were still in the middle game! Unfortunately it seemed Bill's position started to fall apart and the end position was Alex with an overwhelming pawn advantage & a piece up! Not much could be hoped for and Bill resigned.

A good continuation of the B52s debut season!

James

Date:07/02/2023  Bombers slump to defeat!

Thornaby Bombers 1½-2½ Billingham A
Mike Creaney 0-1 Paul Frank
Chris Swales 1-0 Stephen Roe
Sam Greig 0-1 Darren Donnison
Joe McGinnis ½-½ Brian Whitaker

A disappopinting defeat for the Bombers against a Billingham side who have consistently performed above their individual ratings this season.

Sam was first finished. Before this game, Sam was unbeaten in any long game since July last year. He lost that record in spectacular style by blundering his queen in the opening 10 moves. He did fight back a bit, but it was always going to be difficult from there against a player of Darren's quality!

Chris finished next. His opponent Stephen is rated 1750 based on 10 games, but this may be a little high. Chris said that Stephen "played a lot of the best moves and it was only because he overstretched himself on a couple of occasions when he was coming in for the kill that I managed to turn it round." Chris won a rook for a pieve by trapping Stephen's rook at his end of the board. It was plain sailing from here although Stephen did continue to make it difficult, in the end the queens were swapped off and the endgame was all but won. With Stephen down to just 3 minutes he started moving his knight back and forwards and lost control of key squares that made Chris' final advance easy.

Mike was a pawn down, but was running out of time and couldn't hold on for a draw.

Joe was a pawn up, but couldn't convert it into a winning endgame and a draw was agreed.

At the halfway stage we're in joint 6th with 4 points, hopefully the second half of the season will yield more than the first!

Date:07/02/2023  Tristan breaks record!

Thornaby Juniors 1½-2½ Billingham E
Joseph Machin ½-½ Matthew Mawson
Finn Whitfield 0-1 Fraser Craig
Tashil Lankapura 0-1 Graham Bartram
Tristan Green 1-0 Sean Cooke

The CCA D division started today and it was a good performance from our juniors despite the final result. All the games lasted longer than an hour and none of them looked at all out of place playing in the league. Finn and Tashil were both ahead at one point in their games.

Tristan got a great win over Sean. He slowly built an advantage and got both rooks on the dangerous f file. He ended up winning a rook and a pawn and continued to turn the screw before Sean resigned. Tristan was surprised that anyone would resign in a game!

Joseph was a pawn down on top board against one of Billingham's rising stars, but in a good sign of his improving end game play, Joseph held the position for a draw.

Tashil was a piece for a pawn up at one stage, but the position was always complicated with pieces and pawns spread all over the board! I didn't see how he got behind, but he was material behind at the point a double check tactic from his opponent lost him a rook and it was effectively over at that point. Good experience though and an impressive performance for someone one so young.

Finn had a marathon game and looked to be well on top the first few times I looked. He managed to lose a rook for a pawn though and although it gave him a dangerous passed pawn it wasn't quite enough to get a result. Finn did eventually lose on time which I'm pretty sure must be a first for one of our junior players! They don't usually even get to less than an hour remaining! The wins will come soon for Finn, he's playing well and with more experience he'll start closing out winning positions better. It's a good sign that he's using his full time!

2 club records to report! At 8 years old, Tashil is the youngest ever to play for Thornaby and at 10, Tristan is the youngest ever to win!

Date:31/01/2023  Aces go close against table toppers!

Thornaby Aces 2-3 Great Ayton A
Francis Batchelor ½-½ Richard VM Hall
Brian Ellis 0-1 Steve Booth
Chris Swales ½-½ Martin McLoughlin
Sagar Patil ½-½ Kegan Harrison
Sam Greig ½-½ Ray Honeybourne

Getting something from top of the table Great Ayton was within our grasp, but if anything, I think this result was about as good as the games could've got for us.

Sagar finished first with all the pieces coming off the board and equal pawns into a clear draw quite quickly. Chris was playing on baord 3 for the first time and looked to have a bad weakness on the dark squares leading into the endgame, it looked like the transition was going to end badly for him, so good to get a draw from that.

For myself, the queens were the first pieces off the board, and I was a little bit behind. I had a pin that my opponent missed which crucially stopped my position falling apart and committing to trying that manoeuvre allowed me the time to get back in. I did go down a pawn for a few moves but there was always a way to claim a different one back in compensation. An opposite-coloured bishops ending and we agreed a draw.

Brian looked to sacrifice a pawn to gain an out of place king and a lot of tied up pieces for black, but seemed to be short of that extra piece to make the position critical and once his opponent stabilised it always looked like he was going to get the victory. For Sam, I didn't see the end but was he was down a pawn for a long time, but with active pieces to make up for it. They must have held onto the position for him.

Well done to Sagar and Sam for picking up points on your Aces debut! Next match for us is away to Middlesbrough on Monday 13th February.

Francis

Date:31/01/2023  Challengers pip Cadets in close match!

Thornaby Challengers 2½-1½ Thornaby Cadets
Iain Melliis 1-0 Andy Austen
Pete Townson ½-½ David Pizzi
Geoff Mann 1-0 Harris Wilson
Janos Mehes 0-1 Wes Park

A second Thornaby Vs Thornaby match in 3 weeks saw a great win for the Challengers against our own Cadets. Group Captain Tadd was spotted dancing in the corridors of the Don Bar afterwards!

First finished was Iain who got out of jail! Andy was ahead on material in this game, but missed a bank rank mate.

Next to finish was Geoff who managed to chase Harris' king all the way to the opposite side of the board before getting a mate. Congratulations to Geoff, a first win for the team!

Wes was on top for most of the game against Janos and things slowly got better and better. Another mature performance and another win for Wes. A great start to his Thornaby career!

The overall match looked like it might be heading for a draw with David a pawn up and looking on top. However, Pete on his team debut fought on and managed to bring it back to a draw. This one finished a lot later than the other games and was a good test for both players that bodes well for both of them for the rest of the season.

So a good result for the Challengers including 2 very new players. They leapfrog the Cadets to go 6th in the table.

Date:31/01/2023  Brad joins the leaders!

An excellent result for Brad in the Club Championship last night beating perennial title contender Mike in an epic match. With time getting short for both players, Brad won the king and pawn ending with an extra pawn. The result sees Brad go to 2/2 in a 4 way tie for the lead. Full results and standings are here....
http://www.thornabychessclub.co.uk/ClubChampionship.htm

Date:29/01/2023  Club Championship 3rd Round Draw

The 3rd round of the Club Championship has been drawn. Surprise package Ollie is playing James and the only other player currently on 2 points (Joseph) takes on defending champion Francis. Now we're at the 3rd stage, all of the games should be very competitive and the results will be very interesting!

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

Date:29/01/2023  Club Championship 2nd Round Results

The 2nd round of the club championship is almost complete. The tie of the round was between Sam and Francis. Sam is proving very hard to beat by anyone this season and he took this form into the game and managed to hold Francis to a draw. James took a great victory over Brian to go on 2 points. However it is 2 juniors stealing the show at the moment with Joseph and Ollie also winning to be on 2 points. Those 3 head the standings at the moment, but a couple of postponed games may see others join them on 2 points soon.

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

Date:26/01/2023  Juniors save the day!

The Buffs 2-2 Thornaby B52s
Matthew Jackman 1-0 James Urwin
John Garnett 1-0 Iain Mellis
Derek Simpson 0-1 Joseph Machin
Stephen Ollis 0-1 Wes Park

I want to start off this report with huge praise for both Wes & young Joe who got us a draw against this strong table topping team. They both played fabulously and compensated for me & Iain.

My game against Matthew Jackman, I felt, was a match I was always going to lose. However, I walked away feeling very proud. I went with the London System with the Nc3 variant. Jackman had commented afterwards that I was better in the opening. Ultimately, it was a knight tactic that was my undoing that led to me losing my B2 pawn. I played the rest of the game a pawn down and Jackman had different ideas and tactics to get my 1 rook in a tight isolated space but, by his own words, missed my way out of it. Thankfully I was able to secure an endgame position that, to most other players, could be considered draw-ish. But Jackman proved that was not the case and an adventurous pawn push by me allowed his Bishop to come alive. The game came to an end when it was obvious he would promote before I could. A fun game and one where I was not completely annihilated!

I did not see Iain's game much, but he told me he had an advantage but allowed it to slip away once his opponent was able to get his king to safety. At which point it became gradually difficult to survive. I believe the last position on the board was either checkmate or Iain loses a full rook.

Joe seemed to be up the entire game. He ended up in the end game with 2 more pawns than his opponent. Eventually, he was able to march his pawn towards his opponents back rank and force him to give up a full rook for a pawn. At which point the game became fairly straight forward to win with a rook & bishop against a bishop. His opponent resigned once he realised he had lost his bishop too.

Wes' game looked tight & complex, there was always a lot going. Whilst everyone else had finished their matches Wes & his opponent looked to be in the late stages of the middle game. I believe Wes was also up the exchange. Wes found a nice back rank attack that attacked his opponent's bishop and threatened major harassment of his king. His opponent resigned, a bit prematurely but it was clear Wes had found a big advantage.

So not for the first time our juniors saved the day! A great result overall!

James

Date:25/01/2023  Bombers crash at Darlington!

Darlington B 3½-½ Thornaby Bonbers
Luke Owen 1-0 Creaney
Robert Donner 1-0 Sagar Patil
Alex Kalyviotis ½-½ Joe McGinnis
Peter McKay Bye Sam Greig

A forgettable night for the Bombers started with Sam getting his dates mixed up and missing the game completely and it was pretty much downhill from there!

In a room as cool as ours my game lasted all of 14 moves which was when i realised i was actually a piece down without knowing why. Obviously a miscalculation, no point in prolonging the inevitable!

With his recent rating jump and Chris unavailable, Sagar was on board 2 for the first time. He was two pawns down for most of the game. Not sure how, but against an experienced competitor his step up the boards was going only one way.

Joe's game had a long way still to go but as the match was already won & lost, a draw and an early night was thought best.

Mike

Date:24/01/2023  Debut win for Vardhan!

Thornaby Challengers 1-3 Great Ayton C
Brad Werritt 0-1 Gordon Dickinson
Geoff Mann 0-1 Connor Wilson
Nick Tadd 0-1 Stephen Gatenby
Vardhan Bunga 1-0 Alan Jefferson

Great Ayton C were the Challengers visitors and we gave debuts to Geoff M and Vardhan.

Vardhan was first to finish. His game was even for a while, but his opponent completely missed a checkmate in one. Great start to team chess for Vardhan!

Connor Wilson has been a regular nemesis for Thornaby this season and now has 3 wins out of 3 against our teams. It was a tough debut for Geoff, but he aquitted himself well and will only get better from the experience. Maybe we should ask our venue to bar Connor from entering next time!

Nick soon followed falling at the hands of Stephen Gatenby. That left Brad battling away on board 1. Brad was the exchange down, but the position was complicated and he had enough threats that his opponent offered a draw at one point. Brad refused, but then in his words "blundered on 3 of the next 4 moves" and it was game over!

So a defeat in the match, but well done to Vardhan and Geoff for representing the club so well on their debuts!

Date:22/01/2023  Joseph appointed Junior Captain!

The club committee have decided to appoint Joseph as our first ever junior captain. As part of the role, Joseph will have some responsiblity for encouraging and helping our junior members and helping any new junior members settle into the club. He will also be helping out with the younger children in the library.

Our library regular Chris said "Joseph has come on a lot over the last 2 years as both a player and a person. He always represents our club well and the other junior players look up to him. He has already captained the Cadets team in some away matches and he is also taking on some responsibility for encouraging and helping our many talented juniors. As a club we're very proud of Joseph, we wanted to recognise his growing contribution to our success and this seemed like the perfect way".

The photo shows Joseph receiving our club young player of the year award from our chair Nick Tadd earlier in the season.

Date:19/01/2023  Thornaby silence Lyons roar!

Hetton Lyons 1½-2½ Thornaby
Nathan Ekenem (2047) 0-1 Francis Batchelor (2059)
Nigel Hall (1973) ½-½ Chris Swales (1604)
Stephen J Hall (1847) ½-½ Sam Greig (1547)
Barry Edgar (1628) ½-½ James Urwin (1550)

Our latest Durham league outing saw a fantastic result for Thornaby inflicting defeat on the previously unbeaten league leaders. We were well outgraded on the middle 2 boards, but Sam manged to play out a relatively comfortable draw against his more illustrious opponent who was rated exactly 300 points higher. It got to the point where all the pieces were going to be swapped off for an even pawn endgame and the 2 players agreed a draw after just 23 moves.

Chris managed to swap off both bishops and a knight to leave himself with a good knight on a dangerous square and his opponents looking a bit out of the game. Chris probed for something more and forced his opponents knight all the way back to c1 by the end of the game, but it got to the point where there was no obvious way forward and he was happy with a draw against a player of that strength! Both players had a queen, a knight and 6 pawns each at the end. His opponent had an option to take a risk by moving his queen forward and he thought for about 10 minutes before accepting the draw. He said afterwards that he thought the best he would get was perpetual check which Chris thought as well when he played his previous move.

James probably had a small advantage at one point and he had a few tactics going on, but his opponent always found enough to keep the game looking fairly level. When his opponent pushed his pawn to c5, James felt the position was slipping away from him and took a draw when it was offered.

That left our Durham League guest star Francis taking on their top player. Francis seemed to have a reasonably forward position from the opening. Then he managed to win a rook for a knight and a pawn. Francis then got a dangerous looking rook on a7. The game actually finished with a checkmate which unusual at the 2000+ level of play! Francis had got his queen onto the 7th row as well by this time and had forced his opponents king into the middle of the back row on an open file on e8. Re1+ Be4 Rxe4 dxe4 Qf7++ were the final few moves with Francis having a bishop covering d8 making it mate.

It was another good away trip for the team the Durham League. We had a friendly welcome in a nice venue again. Hetton have played in the same place for 22 years!

With only bottom the table Bishop Auckland to play, this great result leaves us with only 1 loss in 7 games in the Durham League so far as we approach the halfway stage in the season.

Date:18/01/2023  Ollie prevents whitewash!

Billingham Synthonia B 3½-½ Thornaby Cadets
Darren Donnison (1501) 1-0 Nick Tadd (1153)
Gary Leighton (1534) 1-0 Finn Whitfield (1000)
Martin Curry (1290) ½-½ Ollie Walton (1000)
Ben Dodgson (1150) 1-0 Yves Scott (800)

Even though we lost the match everybody put up a great show considering how out-graded we were.

Finn and Yves both gave their opponents plenty to think about before eventually falling.

Congratulations to Ollie for gaining his first result for the team and preventing a whitewash!

My game was a close encounter only to be outdone at very the end when I only had 5 Pawns and a Rook against 7 Pawns and Rook. Unfortunately, try as I might I couldn't prevent the promotion of a pawn, even though I was threatening a back door mate.

Nick

Date:17/01/2023  Cadets hold Darlington to draw!

Thornaby Cadets 2-2 Darlington C
Sagar Patil 1-0 Richard Kuby
Charlie Johnston 0-1 Ilya Bowman
David Pizzi 1-0 Bye
Wes Park 0-1 Chris Sinu

A good match result, but Darlington did only have 3 players. The captains agreed that the 3rd Darlington player would go on board 4 so that Wes could get his debut.

Sagar put in a mature performance against Richard Kuby. His advantage seemed to slowly grow and grow as the game went on. Towards the end Sagar had a pawn on a3 and bishop on b2 with Richard's rook trapped on a2! He was only a pawn up at this point, but it looked very much game over! Richard resigned soon after and was quick to praise Sagar after the game.

On his team debut, Wes gave Darlington's top junior Chris Sinu a good game, but eventually ended up material down.

Charlie came up against an up and comer from the other team again. Ilya has won 4 out of 4 in CCA and has 2 wins and 2 draws from 4 in the Durham league. Unfortunately Charlie got his bishop trapped after 6 moves in a slightly unusual Caro Kann opening. Charlie played well from there and got some counter play going including a dangerous looking passed pawn, but the piece was always likely to be decisive.

All in all a good result and 3 good performances from our players.

Date:17/01/2023  Narrow Cup Exit for Aces!

Thornaby Aces 2½-2½ Middlesbrough Rooks
Francis Batchelor ½-½ Nicholas Tavoularis
Brian Ellis 0-1 Stephen Cole
Mike Creaney 1-0 Nikhil Bhandari
Chris Swales 1-0 Sahil Farooq
Bill March 0-1 Ray Pallister

At the semi final stage of the cup, the Aces fell to the same tie-breaker method as the Bombers did in the plate. Middlesbrough won the toss and put us in to bat, the 3 whites asking us to get the definitive result.

Mike and Chris continue to have their Middlesbrough opponents number this season, with a matching 2W 1D against this Nik and Sahil this season. They were finished first to give us a lead. The decisive moment in Chris' game was a knight fork on 2 rooks after a mistaken pawn push by Sahil.

I thought Bill looked in a good spot at one point, but didn't see the ending. A blunder from Bill had lost a piece.

Brian played a sharp response to Ruy Lopez, and ending up with 3 pawns vs a bishop. As the pieces came off this looked improving for him with a long pawn chain, but on my next look this had all been broken up in the wrong way for him for an easy to convert endgame.

For me it was a tight game, the computer rates the whole game between +1/-1. I had the worse out of the opening, and felt in a bad spot, but one slight inaccuracy from Nick allowed me to relive my position and the rest of the game was generally heading towards a draw. Needed the very last pawn to come off the board to confirm it though!

We will be back to the League in 2 weeks at home against top of the division Great Ayton.

Francis

Date:10/01/2023  Bombers victory in Thornaby dogfight!

Thornaby Bombers 3-1 Thornaby B52s
Mike Creaney 0-1 James Urwin
Chris Swales 1-0 Iain Mellis
Joe McGinnis 1-0 Bill March
Sam Greig 1-0 Joseph Machin

An epic dogfight for B division supremacy (at least for the 2 teams from our club!) took place on Tuesday. This was the first time 2 Thornaby teams have ever played against each other in the league (we did have a Thornaby Vs Thornaby meeting in the plate a few years ago) and there were some good games that showcased the depth our squad now has.

Joseph seems to be taking more time now and he played a very good game against Sam which underlined his recent improvement. Sam said he was in a lot of trouble and Joseph did have a potentially winning move at one point, but it was a hard combination to spot. Sam came back in the end and finished up with the victory.

James managed to tie up 2 of Mikes pieces on the queen side of the board and then produced a very good attack on the king side which would have either forced mate or catastrophic material loss if Mike hadn't resigned!

Bill had the edge early on after totally messing up Joe's queen side pawn structure after only 6 moves and then he did get a pawn up. Joe hadn't castled and this ended up helping him back into the game when an attack involving a combination of the open h file and his queen on the h1-a8 diagonal put Bill in trouble. Bill did manage to come out with a level position, but unfortunately a few moves later blundered his queen for a rook and it was easy for Joe from there. In reference to the Karpov Korchnoi world championships, Joe said he was behind and needed to come back "swinging his crutches" to get back into the game!

Chris had the edge in the opening in his game against Iain. He didn't manage to make anything of it though and an over eager pawn push lost control of a key square and allowed Iain into the game. With most of the minor pieces swapped off, Iain's bishop looked better than Chris' knight. A couple of moves later Iain went for a rook for a knight sacrifice to open up the king. Chris managed to defend against the attack and from here the endgame was relatively straightforward. Chris eventually forced the pieces off to have 3 pawns against 1 and Iain resigned.

So as they were supposed to, the Bombers reign supreme over the skies of Thornaby at least for now. The B52s are proving to be the good development team that we hoped for though. Another good win for James leaves him with the best record of any of our B division players.

We don't have to wait long for the next Thornaby Vs Thornaby match. The Cadets and Challengers play against each other later in the month.

Date:05/01/2023  Debut Draw for James!

Redcar 3-2 Thornaby Aces
Gary Dixon 0-1 Francis Batchelor
Royce Parker ½-½ Brian Ellis
Brian Myers 1-0 Mike Creaney
Jason Gentle ½-½ James Urwin
Alice Sturman 1-0 Nick Tadd

A close match against a very consistently graded Redcar team.

Last minute substitute Nick was finished first, against Redcar's young star Alice Sturman, after a combination that collapsed his position quite rapidly. The other games all finished within about 5 minutes of each other. Brian was down a pawn for most of his game that I saw but had a little more activity in compensation, it must have been enough to make it difficult to convert any advantage. James was in a quite closed position with a lot of manoeuvring required, but I thought he was having the better time of it in the game and drawing seemed fair. Well done to James for a draw on his first Aces outing! Mike was facing a Benko gambit, and I he thought looked alright for his pawn, but the build of a and b-file pressure with his pieces getting into awkward spots was too much. With the match secured my opponent then resigned as it was only going downhill for him at that point. I had made a big push with my cental pawns, while he had opted for a manoeuvring of pieces into better positions idea. I could counteract his ideas more efficiently however, and c+d pawns were just about to storm into the 6th rank when he resigned.

Next up for Aces is the rescheduled Tom Wise Cup match vs Middlesbrough Rooks on the 17th at home.


Francis

Date:04/01/2023  Durham League Draw Again!

Peterlee 2-2 Thornaby
Daniel Turnbull 1-0 Mike Creaney
Kenny Boxall 0-1 Chris Swales
Paul Freeman 1-0 Joe McGinnis
Ian Hunter 0-1 Sam Greig

Another draw in the Durham league, this time on our travels at Peterlee. Unusually all of the players with the black pieces won! Time pressure was a factor for Joe, the Durham league time control is 15 minutes less each.

Sam won quite quickly. He said his opponent made some unusual moves like playing Nb1 and then going back again which allowed Sam to get on top. It took a while to gain a decisive advantage though, but in the end Sam was too strong.

Chris was out of his opening book after 1 move. 1) Nf3 d5 2) c4 was the start. He ended up taking the c4 pawn on move 8 and although he felt his opponent had some initiative it didn't feel worth a pawn to Chris. Chris said he was a tricky player though and there were lots of threats and traps to avoid and he found clever ways of stopping the pieces swapping pieces off whilst still causing trouble! In the end Chris won another pawn and when eventually the queens were forced off it was effectively over.

Mike was a pawn up early on, but ended up a pawn down with a rook and 2 pawns against a rook and 3 pawns in the end game. He said he should still have had a draw, but blundered into an instantly lost position!

Peterlee's top player Collin Smith (rated 1957) was there, but not playing. He was keeping an eye on things and said Joe's game was the best of the night! It was a very complicated position and Joe had his opponent pinned well back. His opponent actually said “At one point I thought I was setting my pieces back up again to start a new game!” Time pressure was a factor and Joe couldn't find a way to break through. He lost a few pawns in the last couple of minutes and resigned with 30 seconds left on his clock when he was 4 pawns down and his opponent had prevented the last of his several potential mate threats.

We're nicely placed in mid-table and seem to be having very good competitive matches in this league. We've only lost 1 game from 6 so far, but only won 1 as well!

Date:02/01/2023  First wins for 2 Cadets!

Middlesbrough Bishops 2-2 Thornaby Cadets
Alfie McMonagle 1-0 Sagar Patil
Ged Murphy 1-0 Joseph Machin
Aiden Darlow 0-1 Charlie Johnston
Andrew Salter 0-1 David Pizzi

A good result for the Cadets. Middlesbrough had 2 strong players on the top 2 boards and our youngsters put up a good fight.

The highlight of the match though was first wins for the team for both Charlie and David! Charlie lost his first 3 games and David previously had 1 draw from 4 games for the team. We knew Charlie would start winning soon, he's tended to come up against the up and comers on the other team so far! Beating Aiden is a very good result for his first win.

David did make a mistake at one point, but his opponent missed it and David went on to get his first win as well to claim an overall draw in the match!