News

Date:20/12/2023  Aces smash Champions!

Great Ayton A ½-3½ Thornaby Aces
Virgil Szekely ½-½ Chris Ross
Steve Booth 0-1 Francis Batchelor
Andrew Smith 0-1 Matt Jackman
Martin McLoughlin 0-1 Chris Swales

Shockwaves will hit the morning papers with the triumph of the Aces over last years champions Great Ayton A. We hit top of the table at Christmas!

Making the trip home for Christmas was Chris R, but our Ross instead of Rea. He played out a draw with Virgil which had some tactics going on but otherwise not that eventful a game. The rest of the games lasted a long time, boards 3 and 4 slowly heading in our direction and my one swinging back and forth.

Matt had a closed board and opposite side castling, but managed to squeeze the position in the right way, started picking up pawns safely and was just breaking through with the position all going for him when the resignation came in.

Chris S managed to pick up pawns slowly while keeping his opponent pushed back and restricted, it eventually went to a rook endgame with 3 extra pawns to Chris when the match was secured.

I was on the back foot for most of the game with my former colleague Steve. My overly ambitious breakout of the position probably should've cost me the game, but I got enough activity from it to create some good chances for myself. Unfortunately we didn't have the time of the clock to fully explore the interesting position, and it came down to a time scramble. Steve timed out with me on 1m20 left, only Queens and Pawns left of the board each which might have played out for a draw under other conditions.

Have a good Christmas and see you in the New Year!

Francis

Date:20/12/2023  Cadets finish year on a high!

Great Ayton C 1-3 Thornaby Cadets
Connor Wilson 0-1 Joseph Machin
Tom Brough 1-0 Ajay Selvan
Peter Archer 0-1 Rhys Orton
Alan Jefferson 0-1 Rosie Irwin

A great win for the Cadets last night completed a miserable week for Great Ayton against Thornaby! With a plate victory for the Bombers and an emphatic win for the Aces in the league, this made it a hattrick of wins over the top club in the area last season. Great Ayton will be licking their wounds!

Joseph was first finished. It was a complicated looking board the first time I looked, but the next time Joseph was 2 pawns up and well in control. He converted the win soon afterwards, I didn’t see exactly how it finished.

Rosie had an up and down game going a piece up and then allowing her king to be chased around the board before losing a piece as well. She then got back to being a piece up again before delivering a back rank mate to get the win. A first win for Thornaby for Rosie!

Ajay was next finished. This game looked even for a long time, but Tom managed to force Ajay onto his back 2 rows and the cramped space allowed Tom to eventually go the exchange up. It was plain sailing from there with the queens off the board.

That left Rhys who was a pawn up for most of the game. He eventually got it to the 7th rank, but I thought Peter would be able to capture it and hold on for a draw. Rhys obviously played it well to beat a player of Peter’s experience and Peter himself confirmed to me afterwards that Rhys had played very well.

A good night for the Cadets and a good first half of the season overall. The current absence of Wes has meant everyone is playing 1 board higher than we were expecting. Even so, Ajay has only lost 2 from 9 in all competitions, Rhys is 3 wins from 3 games and Joseph has gone over 1500 rating for the first time and had some good wins on board 1. Lots of positives to take forward into the New Year!

Chris

Date:19/12/2023  Thornaby reach another final!

Thornaby Bombers 3-2 Great Ayton B
Chris Swales ½-½ Ray Honeybourne
Joe McGinnis 0-1 Jim Rodgers
Sagar Patil ½-½ Andrew French
Mike Creaney 1-0 Connor Wilson
James Urwin 1-0 Tom Brough

You wait years for a cup final.....
... and yes, two have come along at once, with the Bombers following the Aces by seeing off Great Ayton B in the Jeremy Burnett Plate semifinal.

I lost the toss, and they chose 3 blacks, meaning they would go through in the event of a 2.5-2.5 draw. My first look at the other games showed James up by 3 pieces against Tom Brough on Board 5, so that one looked safe (but don't count your chickens ...). Mike had a typical solid position, ie all of White's men on the first 4 ranks, all of Black's on the last 3, nothing at all on the 5th and as far as I could see nothing captured either. I was making heavy weather of it against Jim Rogers on Board 2, but Sagar was doing well on 3 against Andrew French. Andrew offered a draw quite early, which Sagar declined.

There was also a draw offer on Board 1 between Chris and Ray Honeybourne, which was also declined, but they agreed the draw a few moves later. James had wrapped his game up by this time as well. I was in trouble against Jim, but thought I could hold, and Sagar was 2 pawns up in a rook endgame, when Kevin Wilson suddenly announced "Oh I completely missed that!", signalling advantage Mike, which he duly converted following another mistake shortly afterwards. I thought Sagar couldn't possibly lose, which was just as well as I proceeded to leave a piece en prise against Jim. I resigned - I wasn't playing well, and Jim was probably correct in his opinion that he was winning anyway. Sagar let one pawn slip, and eventually settled for the draw, which was enough for a 3-2 win.

A first ever plate final for Thornaby since the format was changed to be rating based!

Joe

Date:19/12/2023  Jonathan wins again!

Thornaby Comets 1-3 Darlington C
Steve Rodgers 0-1 Nick Webb
Jonathan Feasby 1-0 Mark Turner
Matt Rowett 0-1 Richard Kuby
Andy Austen 0-1 Barry Hopkins

A strong looking Darlington side proved too good for the Comets, but it was another good win for Jonathan on board 2. Steve missed a tactic from Nick on board 1. Matt got closer in his 2nd match with Richard. Maybe next time Matt! Andy was in the game for a long time, but lost in the end. That left Jonathan who beat a strong and experienced player on board 2. A 3rd win in 5 games for Jonathan marking a great start to his league career for Thornaby!

Date:18/12/2023  Challengers keep up the pressure!

Middlesbrough Bishops 0-4 Thornaby Challengers
Robert Brown 0-1 Joe McGinnis
Ray Pallister 0-1 James Urwin
Ammar Alghasra 0-1 Iain Mellis
Andrew Salter 0-1 Jonathan Feasby

Everybody else finished half an hour or more before me, so I get to notify the final score: Bishops 0 Challengers 4!

Jonathan was first finished, and had time to analyse his game while waiting for the rest of us. He got 98% accuracy - we need to see the moves!

James finished next. In his words there was "a lot of horsing around". Meaning it involved a lot of knight moves! James managed to get 1 pawn up, then 2 pawns up and then 3 pawns up. Eventually forcing one of them to queen. A very good performance from James (93.6% accuracy over 63 moves) according to the computer, Ray made no big errors and James just slowly grew his advantage.

Iain played an aggresive line against the sicilian and established a good forward position. The game ended when Iain found a move that threatened mate and the only way his opponent could avoid it was to sacrifice his queen. Iain has a 100% record with 4 out of 4 in the C division this season.

With Mbro Knights playing at Hartlepool tonight, this was by no means the strongest lineup the Bishops have put out this season. I wasn't familiar with my opponent, but Ray Pallister on Board 2 is no pushover, so Robert Brown on 1 can be assumed to come into the same category! In an unusually aggressive game from me, I pushed h3/g4/g5/h5 in pursuit of his light-squared bishop, all without castling. He could have played h6 and escaped to h7, but he played f6 instead, intending to meet h6 with Bf7. Unfortunately for him, he missed Ne6 forking Queen and Rook. He made it as difficult as possible thereafter, and could probably have kept going a bit longer at the end. Ray had asked how he was doing when his game finished, and the reply was "I'm dead", which was a confidence booster for me!

With Hartlepool B drawing with Billingham C, we are now outright leaders by a point going into the Christmas break!

Joe

Date:14/12/2023  Toefl avoids whitewash!

Redcar B 3-1 Thornaby Dynasties
Alastair Dicken 0-1 Toefl Lankapura
Xavier Dixon 1-0 Matthew Rowett
Oliver Williams 1-0 Will Rowett
Callum Hodgkiss 1-0 Tashil Lankapura

Another very competitive D division match saw Redcar B climb off the bottom of the table with a win over the Dynasties.

Will was first finished. He got a rook up, but then unfortunately missed a back rank mate! Will does keep getting into good positions and the wins will come soon!

Matt was next finished. He lost to a very attacking player from Redcar. Matt missed a devastating knight fork that lost him the game.

Tashil then lost his first league game of the season against newcomer Callum Hodgkiss. Callum is the Laurence Jackson school champion, so no disgrace to Tashil, losing to a much older opponent. Callum looks like one to watch for the rest of the season.

In the last game finished, Toefl avoided the whitewash. It was another solid performance from Toefl against a good young player for Redcar.

Redcar were fielding 2 completely new players on board 3 and 4. Despite several close games and 2 draws this season, this was a first win for their young team. Well done to them! Like last season, the D division is providing opportunities for lots of players to experience league chess. Heading into the Christmas break, Redcar have already fielded 9 new players in the league this season (8 of them under 18) and 5 of them have already got their first wins. Thornaby have fielded 30 different players across our 3 D division teams including 15 debutants! Almost all of the other 15 only started playing last season. The league is very close with 7 teams within 4 points of each other. It feels like anyone can beat anyone which is how it should be! Only the runaway leaders Billingham E are bucking the trend! The second half of the season will be exciting and the Dynasties still lie in 3rd place in the table despite this setback.

Date:13/12/2023  Bombers lead B teams!

Darlington B ½-3½ Thornaby Bombers
Nick Webb 0-1 Joe McGinnis
Dominic Leigh ½-½ Mike Creaney
Chris Sinu 0-1 Steve Rodgers
Peter McKay 0-1 Tom Marwood

In view of my crazy run of form recently, I put myself on Board 1 for this one, fully expecting to lose, but hoping that the "unknown quantities" of Steve and Tom on 3 and 4 might catch out their opponents. As I've said before, I love it when a plan comes together!

Steve saw off youngster Chris Sinu fairly quickly. Chris is the 2nd highest rated junior player in the area after Sagar and was previously unbeaten this season, so this was a very good result for Steve!

Tom then delivered a great result by beating Pete in just his second competitive game. This was also over quite quickly; Tom obviously likes to get home early, having done the same thing at Durham last week. He can now retire as the most successful player in the history of Thornaby Chess Club, with a 100% record in 2 different leagues!

I would have been pretty happy if you'd offered me 2-2 at 7pm, but there was more to follow, as Mike's favourite defence proved too stubborn for even Dominic Leigh to break down; Dominic agreed to a draw with 4 minutes left on his clock, feeling he had a better position but not enough time to make it count.

So to me, against Nick Webb on Board 1, going down to the wire having been a pawn down, then a pawn up, thinking I was going to win on time and suddenly realising I had less than 2 minutes to his 1min 10s, thinking I'd blown it when I missed a check, only for him to blunder his rook next move. (Dominic said the position was winning for me even if he hadn't.)

Probably the best Bombers result in my time at the club, and by a mile my best win ever - Nick Webb is rated 1810, so this eclipses last week's effort against Nikhil Bhandari (1717). I don't know what I've done this season, but it's working! The Bombers move to 5th in the table making them the leading B team at the moment with only 4 A teams ahead of them.

Joe

Date:13/12/2023  Solid draw for Destroyers!

Billingham Synthonia D 2-2 Thornaby Destroyers
Harry Tennant 1-0 Jonathan Feasby
Graham Edwards 0-1 Alan Stockley
Graham Bartram 0-1 Malcolm Goldspink
Michael Joynes 1-0 Tim Hind

Tim finished early against a new player for Billingham. A good league debut for his opponent. Alan won shortly afterwards to level the score up. That makes it 4 wins from 5 for Thornaby for Alan. A great new/old addition for us!

Jonathan then lost to Billingham's rising young star Harry Tennant. Harry featured in the Under 18 section of the gigfinal earlier this year and he has 5 wins and a draw from 6 games in the league this season. Definitely a player on the up and a tough game for Jonathan!

Malcolm fought off a sustained attack then swapped Queens and caught his opponent on the counterattack. He resigned with only a couple of pawns and a rook against Malcolm's rook, Bishop, Knight and six pawns! It was a rerun of a game played earlier this year.

All in all it was a solid draw against last year's champions!

Date:12/12/2023  Aces go top!

Thornaby Aces 3½-½ Hartlepool A
Francis Batchelor 1-0 Peter Harker
Matt Jackman 1-0 Graham Matthews
Chris Swales ½-½ Alex Kalyviotis
Sagar Patil 1-0 David Kelly

We managed to secure the win against Hartlepool, heavily outgrading on the top boards but also coming through stronger on 3 and 4.

Sagar went for a typically aggressive game, being down 2 pawns at one point but his opponents king stranded in the centre, and who's defence relied on it not castling away to safety. This was always going to be a long term issue and so it must have paid off for Sagar to bring the first win.

Matt then finished with a crushing attack of everything piling up down the kingside, the right sacrifice was found to blow the whole defence open.

Chris then secured the match win with a draw agreed. While Chris was a pawn up in an endgame, his opponent had a good bishop and active rook.

My match then lasted the full distance, down to under 4 mins each left at the end. The position was complex for a long time, only about 17 moves made by the time we were 30mins left each. I managed to grab a pawn in the transition to the endgame, but it was doubled. A few combinations allowed me to undouble it with a strong rook and could take my time to move the king into the square it needed to be on to push through the advantage.

The result puts us joint top of the table with the same points and board difference as Darlington A!

Francis

Date:12/12/2023  Hartlepool a step too far for Juniors!

Thornaby Juniors 0-4 Hartlepool C
Ollie Walton 0-1 Michael Smalley
Tristan Green 0-1 John Marsden
Charles Hind 0-1 Ed Lightfoot
Freya Hind 0-1 Ashton Woodward

Not an entirely unexpected result. Ultimately this team is there to help develop our youngsters and this was the youngest team we’ve ever put out for a match!

Freya was first finished. She did manage to get a rook, but then succumbed to an early checkmate with queen and bishop.

John is a new player for Hartlepool and he played well and was always on top against Tristan.

Ollie had a tough test on board 1 based on Michael's results. He put up a good fight and had some threats, but ended up 2 pawns down. I didn’t see exactly how it finished, but Michael got a checkmate.

Charles put up a good fight, but he was material down for most of the game. He did have some threats with his Queen on h3 for quite a while, but his opponent found his way through.

Chris

Date:06/12/2023  First wins for 2 players!

Durham University D 1½-2½ Thornaby
Louie Easton ½-½ Joe McGinnis
Ralph Taylor 1-0 Pete Townson
Elliott Maitland-Davies 0-1 Jonathan Feasby
Jonas Bucevicny 0-1 Tom Marwood

A happier outcome than our last trip to Durham.

Having been asked to arrive early, we managed to find (a) the building and (b) the room, not without difficulty; this building had room 252 on the ground floor and 281 on the first floor, so it was far from obvious that 263 was on the second floor. There was nobody there when we arrived, but we were soon joined by the Bishop Auckland team. Durham players began arriving, but without chess sets, boards, or much idea about which team they were playing in. Eventually their president and non-playing captain arrived with a big suitcase of equipment; their normal room in the Students' Union was unavailable, so they had been shunted off to this backwater for the evening. He didn’t seem too sure about who should be playing where either - the selection criterion seemed to be ECF rated = C team, unrated = D team.

Tom Marwood must have set some sort of record by coming to the club for the first time on Tuesday and making his competitive debut on Wednesday! So new, he doesn't even have his official photo yet! He travelled independently of the other three, which was just as well as he won inside an hour and didn't have to wait for my game (which went down to the last 10 minutes) to finish. Welcome to the club, Tom! It won't always be this straightforward, but I'm sure this won't be your last successful outing for the teams!

As ever, I was too focused on my own game to pay close attention to the others, but when I did look Jonathan was a rook down but attacking, and Pete was a few pawns down and had both his opponent's rooks camped on his 2nd rank. I was struggling; I had blundered the exchange in the opening, but fortunately he decided to recapture my knight before going for the rook, and I found a move that let me win the exchange back immediately. I was still down a pawn and under pressure, but when he offered a draw I declined, thinking I needed the win. However, although Pete lost, Jonathan went on to win (I'd like to see how you managed that Jono!), and I had winning chances which I couldn't make the most of. I then offered a draw which he declined, and it was getting a bit worrying in the last 3 minutes before I found the move which guaranteed the draw - the best he could have done would have left him with king and rook's pawn against my king in front of the pawn.

Just to make his night complete, my opponent, as the only Durham player still in the room at the end, was left with the large suitcase and no clear idea of exactly where he was supposed to take it....
This Durham team were no mugs; they were all unrated, but had online rapid ratings in the 1700s, so this was a good result!

Joe

Date:06/12/2023  First win for Steve!

Billingham C 3-1 Thornaby Comets
Keith Harrison 0-1 Steve Rodgers
Fraser Craig 1-0 Mike Creaney
Bernie Callaghan 1-0 Malcolm Goldspink
Paul Scott 1-0 Nick Tadd

For once we had the advantage in ratings, but still lost the match! We just about managed to make a team with Steve Rodgers stepping in on board 1. He took no time at all to finish off his opponent, a good first league win for Thornaby for Steve! The rest of us had long games and weren’t so fortunate!

Nick finished next. The game came down to his King v King and Rook. His opponent didn’t know how to checkmate with the Rook and Nick had some fun making life difficult for him. My game took nearly 3 Hours and at the start of the endgame I was down knight and rook to his two rooks. I managed to force a swap of knight for rook but then rushed my moves and ended up losing.

Mike was last to finish. With nearly 3 hours gone both players had only lost two pieces and a pawn! Shortly after, there was a quick exchange of pieces which left Mike in a tricky position and he resigned with only 2 minutes on his clock.

With the recent additions of Steve and Jonathan Feasby to our squad together with Mike and David, we are capable of fielding a competitive team. Hopefully, results will start to go our way soon.

Malcolm

Date:05/12/2023  Bombers get airborne!

Thornaby Bombers 2½-1½ Middlesbrough Knights
Sam Greig ½-½ Stephen Cole
Joe McGinnis 1-0 Nikhil Bhandari
Sagar Patil 1-0 Sahil Farooq
Steve Rodgers 0-1 Jake Pearson

A first win of the season for the Bombers! Hard to count any chickens on this one; looking at previous matches, the Knights strongest line-up would most likely prove too good, but they'd sent out a weaker side from time to time as well. When I realised it was Stephen Cole on Board 1, I felt we'd be up against it - certainly nearer their strongest side than their weakest. I felt we might be relying on the lower boards to get a draw; I was wrong!

Sagar was first to finish. As at Billingham a couple of weeks ago, he came, he saw, he conquered, he went home before I'd got fully into the middle game. This was after I'd told him to prepare for a long game, because Sahil doesn't resign. I didn't see how it finished - I heard a few resigned chuckles from behind me which suggested Sahil had recognised he was beaten, but whether he actually resigned or Sagar got checkmate I don't know.

Steve seemed to be doing OK against Jake Pearson, an unknown quantity to me but in Steve's estimation a very good player. Next time I looked, I saw a Black queen and rook loitering with intent around Steve's king, and he went down to defeat shortly thereafter.

Sam was making his very welcome season debut for Thornaby. He was also holding his own against a much higher rated opponent, and had a significant time advantage; eventually he won the exchange, but in his own words "messed up the endgame" and had to settle for the draw, with both clocks under 5 mins (I think).

So it came down to me against Nikhil, the first time I've ever played him. For the third time in recent weeks, I found myself facing an opponent who seemed uncomfortable in the opening, taking a very long time over what were relatively straightforward choices even if you're not familiar with the English. As a result, I was about 20 minutes up on the clock after 10 moves, and for a change I maintained the time advantage more or less all through. The other advantages I had were his doubled c-pawns and bishop on a7. In what was the most "positional" game I've ever played, and maybe also the best game I've ever played, I focused entirely on trying to establish a pawn on c5, fixing the doubled pawns and totally imprisoning the bishop. I started aiming for it on move 14 and eventually achieved it on move 22, at which point I thought I probably had a winning position. There was a lot more chess to go after that (30 moves), but I was effectively a piece up, and combined with the clock situation (when he got down to 5 minutes I still had 15), I was able to convert pretty comfortably in the end. Just from a personal perspective I was really pleased with how I played!

Joe

Date:05/12/2023  Challengers keep up the pressure!

Thornaby Cadets ½-3½ Thornaby Challengers
Joseph Machin 0-1 James Urwin
Ajay Selvan ½-½ Pete Townson
Mehmet Isci 0-1 Iain Mellis
Sam Stevenson 0-1 Stephen Ollis

Thornaby Challengers kept up the pressure on Hartlepool B at the top of the C division with another convincing win!

Mehmet is still getting used to longer games and he played a bit too fast allowing Iain to win quite easily.

Joseph was a piece for a pawn up in a complex position, but James played a sacrifice to force a win. James is on 4 wins from 4 games on board 1 for the Challengers!

Stephen won on his team debut for Thornaby. He got a pawn up and then another pawn up and then had a devastating attack. A fairly routine win in the end. Good experience for Sam though who recently won group 1 outright at the library for the first time. He'd previously joint won it in the past.

Ajay and Pete both agreed that Ajay had the better of it and he’d possibly missed a win, but opposite squared bishops in an endgame is often a draw.

The Challengers are level on points and board difference with Hartlepool B. Hartlepool B thrashed Middlesbrough earlier in this week and look like the main team to beat for the Challengers. Both are on 9 points out of 10 with the draw against each other the only points dropped.

Date:29/11/2023  Club Championship 3rd Round draw!

The third round of the club championship has been drawn. After 2 rounds of play, of the original 32 entries, only 4 players (Francis, Joe, Chris and Pete) are on 2 wins out of 2. There were no big shocks in the 2nd round. Joseph managed to hold Mike to a draw and both are still dangers in the tournament on 1.5. In form James Urwin also stands at 1.5 and cannot be ruled out for a good run at this years competition.

Full results, standings and draw are here:
http://www.thornabychessclub.co.uk/ClubChampionship.htm

Date:28/11/2023  Juniors whitewash Redcar!

Thornaby Juniors 4-0 Redcar B
Ajay Selvan 1-0 Stanley Allan
Ollie Walton 1-0 Xavier Dixon
Tristan Green 1-0 Noah Graham
George Butterworth 1-0 Katherine Myers

A comfortable win in the end, but some of the games were closer than the final scoreline suggests.

Ollie was first finished. He got his opponent's queen for a piece quite early on.

George finished next. A great debut, finishing with a checkmate involving a knight and queen on h7. Well done George!

Tristan was always in control and eventually managed to win his opponent's queen for 2 knights. It was a routine win from there.

Ajay had a tough game on paper against Teesside Under 11 Champion Stanley Allan. It went to an endgame with Ajay having a rook and a knight against a rook and a bishop with 5 pawns each. Ajay excels in these kinds of positions though and next time I looked he was a piece and a pawn up. The icing on the cake was a knight fork to win his opponent's rook at the end.

It's great to see Redcar fielding so many new players. Apparently they have 12 new junior members in the last couple of months. They will only get better from this experience, our 4 players in this match have all been playing at libraries or clubs for 2 years or more now.

A great night for the club! With the Dynasties match as well, 7 of our Under 18 players won league matches on Tuesday!

Chris

Date:28/11/2023  Youngsters lead charge in emphatic win!

Thornaby Destroyers 0-4 Thornaby Dynasties
Jonathan Feasby 0-1 Toefl Lankapura
Tim Hind 0-1 Sam Stevenson
Janos Mehes 0-1 James Mann
Andy Austen 0-1 Tashil Lankapura

On paper this local derby looked like it should be a close match, but our youngsters in the Dynasties team didn't read the script!

James beat Janos quickly, he found a nice knight sacrifice which forced a queen and bishop checkmate. A clever finish!

Tashil played an agressive game and got a piece off and then traded down for victory. A great start to the season for Tashil, he is 3 for 3 in the D division so far.

Sam also got his 3rd win of the season with a mature performance against the Destroyers captain. He also got a piece up and then traded down for victory. Sam has officially become Tim's nemesis after knocking him out of the last rapidplay in a blitz play off!

Jonathan and Toefl were last finished of all of the 13 matches going on at the club. It was a good debut for Jonathan despite the loss and he said he enjoyed the game. Despite the long gruelling game, he went straight into a friendly with Francis afterwards!

A great win for the Dynasties. Sam, James and Tashil have all made big strides over the Summer and are showing it in the league so far. The dads might have trouble getting back in the team!

Date:28/11/2023  Routine win for Aces!

Thornaby Aces 4-0 Billingham Synthionia B
Francis Batchelor 1-0 Dave Frank
Matt Jackman 1-0 Gary Leighton
Chris Swales 1-0 Ben Dodgson
Mike Creaney 1-0 Bernie Callaghan

A fairly routine 4-0 win for the Aces against Billingham B.

Matt was well ahead from quite early on and ended up with 2 rooks against 2 knights after a devastating attack!

Francis' opponent played a very passive opening and Francis was able to control the game throughout.

Mike got a pawn up in a rook endgame and he eventually had an unstoppable h file pawn when Bernie resigned.

In terms of rating difference at least, Chris had the toughest game against Billingham's young star Ben Dodgson. Ben was very aggressive at the start, but overstretched and lost a pawn. He continued to make a lot of subtle threats, but Chris played solidly and eventually had a nice pawn chain from h7 to d3 with the d pawn being passed. Once the queens were off it was over. Ben did say "You saw everything!" to Chris at the end of the game. We saw the value of Wes playing in the B division last season and I'm sure Ben will also benefit from playing these kinds of higher level games. Well done to Billingham club for putting an extra team in the division to give players these opportunities.

The Aces sit well in the table in 3rd place with a game in hand. Tougher tests against Hartlepool A and Great Ayton A await in December which will show us if the Aces are truly title contenders this season!

Date:25/11/2023  International success for Thornaby!

Our recent junior success has stretched further than we thought possible when one of our recent club attendees won his age group in a chess tournament in Slovakia!

Chris' nephew Martin Swales (13) who lives in Slovakia visited our club twice in the Summer and he enjoyed it so much that when he returned home, he found a club there! He also played a lot of games against his Uncle Chris while he was in the UK.

Martin finished his section in 3rd place with 4.5/6, but as the section was merged with another one, Martin won his age group. Martin actually managed to draw with the eventual winner of the section who finished on 5.5. Well done Martin, one day you might even be able to beat your uncle!

Date:23/11/2023  Radio Star!

At yesterday's well-being festival, Pete was interviewed by BBC Radio Tees. He answered several questions, the hardest one was when asked what his top tip for players was! Well done Pete, for representing the club so well!

The part featuring Pete is from 1 minute to 5 minutes on the below link if you would like to listen:
https://wetransfer.com/downloads/7215d76f9bdc72813837a68fdaa17e8a20231124142934/7c337031f5e4c233acf8e121cbd4d5a920231124143040/a087a4

Date:22/11/2023  Aces slump to Darlington draw!

Darlington B 2-2 Thornaby Aces
Jonathan Sams 1-0 Matt Jackman
Dominic Leigh 0-1 Francis Batchelor
Chris Sinu Bye-0 Gary Dixon
Ryan McGrane 0-1 Chris Swales

The match got off to a bad start when Gary failed to get to the venue. Francis was first finished. He proved too strong for Chris' regular nemesis Dominic Leigh.

Chris felt he always had a slight lead in his game although there was no difference in material until the end. With his 2 rooks and queen on the only open file, he completely controlled the 2nd half of the game and managed to exchange pieces off into a won endgame position.

Matt was the exchange down quite early in his game although the position was complicated and he did have a good attack going. Both players were down to less than 10 minutes on their clocks, but the material advantage was decisive for Jonathan in the end.

The league looks more open this year with all of last seasons top 4 dropping 2 points already. The Aces are still well in the hunt, but this result can only really be seen as a point dropped!

Date:22/11/2023  Well being festival!

Earlier today Chris, Pete and Malcolm attended the Stockton wellbeing over 50s 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.

We do talk a lot about our excellent up and coming junior players, but there are also many over 50's at the heart of our club, a lot of whom hardly miss a week! We also recognise the benefits of chess for loneliness. Some of our elderly members are widowed or live alone and very much enjoy the social side of the club whatever their level of chess. Just to mention 2, our oldest member (Alan Stockley) is 91 years old and still winning games in the league. Mike Creaney is in his 70's now and has lost none of his enthusiasm, playing more league games than anyone for Thornaby last season!

With all that in mind, this was something we jumped at the chance to be involved in! 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 all the chocolates came home with us!

Date:21/11/2023  Challengers remain top!

Thornaby Challengers 3-1 Darlington C
Joe McGinnis 1-0 Ryan McGrane
Pete Townson ½-½ Mark Turner
Geoff Mann ½-½ Barry Hopkins
Alan Stockley 1-0 Rhys Dakin

A solid performance from our team with none of the 4 losing. Veteran Alan Stockley continued his good start to the season with a win on board 4 while Geoff Mann had a solid draw on board 3. Pete felt he'd thrown away a win as he was 2 pawns up, but it finished up a draw.

It was left to Joe to close out the match win. He was well ahead on time in his game after getting almost half an hour up in the opening phase of the game. That proved decisive with his opponent making some mistakes in the endgame undeer time pressure.

The Challengers remain at the top of the C division.

Date:21/11/2023  Comets struggle against Hartlepool!

Thornaby Comets ½-3½ Hartlepool B
Mike Creaney ½-½ Graham Matthews
David Pizzi 0-1 Alex Kalyviotis
Matt Rowett 0-1 Dave Kelly
Will Rowett 0-1 Mark Priest

Another defeat for the Comets although with our bottom three boards being outpointed in rating by 565 we didn't stand much of a chance. Mike's game ground to a draw against Graham Matthews – same as last time they played. Matt and Will came up against much more experienced players but both said they had learnt much from their games. David had another excellent game, once more against a player ranked 200 points higher! Unfortunately, he couldn't pull off a win this time. He is improving so much that he can hold his own against any of the Division C players. The match experience everyone is getting is the main reason for the Comets team's participation in the C Division and our players will only get better from these types of games.

Hartlepool B are a very strong C division team and we have played what is probably the best three teams in Division C so hopefully we may get a few results from our next three games.

Malcolm

Date:20/11/2023  Rhys wins again!

Middlesbrough Bishops 3-1 Thornaby Cadets
Ray Pallister 1-0 Toefl Lankapura
Jake Pearson 1-0 Joseph Machin
Chris Rumsey 1-0 Ollie Walton
Andrew Salter 0-1 Rhys Orton

The Cadets travelled to Middlesbrough on Monday to take on one of the unbeaten top 3 C division teams. It was a step too far on this occassion. The experienced Ray Pallister beat Toefl on board 1. Rising star Jake Pearson defeated Joseph on board 2 and Chris Rumsey proved too strong for Ollie on board 3.

The big positive from a Thornaby point of view was a 2nd win in only his 2nd league game for Rhys. Definitely a future star in the making! Next game for the Cadets is another tough one against our own top of the table Challengers team!

Date:16/11/2023  First win for Destroyers!

Redcar B ½-3½ Thornaby Destroyers
Alastair Dicken 0-1 Alan Stockley
Joseph Dodds ½-½ Mehmet Isci
Xavier Dixon 0-1 Tim Hind
Hordiy Shchogolev 0-1 Andy Austen

Our first win of the season! Redcar fielded a very inexperienced team who played well.

Tim finished first in a pretty dominant display. Once his opponent had blundered his rook on the back rank, the advantage was Tim's and he picked off his pieces as he created a mating net with his queen, rook, and pawns.

Next to finish was Andy against another young player. Andy said he got a bit worried in a few points in the game, and was happy when he managed to get a mate with queen and a rook.

Mehmet had a very tough game which was very even and deservedly a draw. Mehmet was down by a pawn, but in a better position than his opponent. He was not confident enough in his attack though and offered a draw which was accepted.

The last game to finish after just over an hour and a half was Alan's against a very promising teenager who has only been playing a few months. Experience shone through in the end game as Alan forced through a pawn promotion while forcing his opponent to sacrifice his remaining rook and a few moves later got his mate.

It will be interesting to see how our Juniors fair against them.

Tim

Date:15/11/2023  Bombers Hold Billingham!

Billingham Synthonia A 2-2 Thornaby Bombers
John Garnett 1-0 Gary Dixon
Stephen Roe 1-0 Mike Creaney
Paul Frank 0-1 Joe McGinnis
Brian Whitaker 0-1 Sagar Patil

My recent record of counting chickens has not been that great; nevertheless, I thought our chances in this one were likely to depend on the bottom two boards. With John Garnett on 1 and Stephen Roe on 2, this team managed a draw with Darlington A and only lost by a point to the Aces.

We had two interesting pairings on 3 and 4 - me against my former colleague from Teesside University, Paul Frank, whom I had never played, and Sagar against Brian Whitaker. The student got one over on the master as Sagar was first to finish, with a win as Black. I was too busy with my own game to properly see what happened, all I could make out at the end was a cluster of black heavy pieces around the white king.

Sadly Mike got squelched on Board 2, but I managed to get the better of Paul in an interesting game which took a couple of big swings. I haven't analysed it yet, but I thought I had the better of the opening, having a decent position and a 15 minute time advantage after 15 moves. I lost my way a little bit, he got the initiative and got the clocks back to level, then played a move which I thought was going to prove decisive. Fortunately I found the only defence, and a couple of moves later hit him with a sacrificial skewer. He had to take my undefended bishop with his queen, but that left him with an undefended bishop on c7, which I grabbed with a rook. He moved his queen to defend this b7 pawn, but failed to spot that I could attack his Knight and rook together with Qh5. There was no way to save the Knight, I forced the queens off a few moves later and he resigned shortly afterwards.

So at least a draw was secured with wins on the bottom boards, and there was a chance of an unlikely victory as Gary had a Knight and four pawns against a rook and one. It was probably a draw at least, objectively; unfortunately he also had about one minute to his opponent's 20, and wasn't able to hold out, eventually resigning with nine seconds left.

I would certainly have taken 2-2 at 7.00 - a good first point for the Bombers after last week's tribulations.

Joe

Date:14/11/2023  Thornaby reach Cup final!

Thornaby Aces 3½-1½ Middlesbrough Rooks
Francis Batchelor 0-1 Nicholas Tavoularis
Matt Jackman 1-0 Giuseppe Magazzu
Gary Dixon ½-½ Brian Myers
Chris Swales 1-0 Nikhil Bhandari
Joe McGinnis 1-0 Sahil Farooq

The Aces are through to the final of the Cup for the first time in our history!

After losing in both cup competitions 2.5-2.5 on the tie-breaker last season, we took the black on odds boards to give us the tie-breaker advantage, but it was not needed.

All the games went a long distance, but first finished was Chris, who managed to use his B+P vs Rook endgame to generate a win when a draw or defeat could've been possible. Gary and Matt finished around the same time, both with complicated and busy boards but I didn't catch the endings. With those results in, that got us the 2.5 required to win the round. I was quite even through the opening, but then a mistake let my opponent in and I was under a lot of pressure. I went down the exchange but didn't manage to pick up pawns for it and move to an endgame. When the inevitable re-sacrifice happened both of us thought it was a done deal and allowed a pawn through and a won position, only for the crowd to point out after my resignation that its a technical draw! Joe then finished the job right through the end. He went down a pawn in the opening but had all the play and his opponent had to manually castle, this gave him all the impetus through the game and must've seen through to the endgame advantage.

Back to the league next week at Darlington B. We will face the current league and cup champions Great Ayton in the cup final in March!

Francis

Date:14/11/2023  First league win for Matt!

Thornaby Dynasties 2-2 Billingham Synthonia E
Sam Stevenson 0-1 Stuart McLaughlin
Matt Rowett 1-0 Nicola Britton
Will Rowett 0-1 Nicola Harrington
Tashil Lankapura 1-0 Sean Cooke

The Dynasties put up a good battle against the top of the table team.

First finished was Will. He was a piece up, but unfortunately completely missed a 1 move checkmate.

Sam had a tough game on board 1 against Stuart McLaughlin. He put up a good fight, but ultimately his opponent was too strong.

Tashil looked dead and buried with all of his opponents pieces in dangerous places near Tashil's king, but he somehow came back to win.

Matt always looked on top against Billingham captain Nicky. It was a battle though and Matt was last finished.

Despite the oldest other player on the team only being 13, Matt was actually the most inexperienced player on the team! This was his first competitive win in only his 2nd match. Well done Matt!

Date:13/11/2023  Super siblings win on debut!

Darlington D 0-4 Thornaby Juniors
Dave Martin 0-1 Joseph Machin
Maksymilian Konczynski 0-1 Manuel Lopez
Elliott Inkster 0-1 Charles Hind
Dulein Malawi 0-1 Freya Hind

Thornaby Juniors travelled to Darlington with Thornaby Destroyer's captain Tim Hind taking on the acting captain duties as well as bringing half of the team! Charles and Freya were both making their debuts for Thornaby teams, the first brother and sister ever to play in the same team for us!

First finished was Freya. Her opponent was also making his debut and played an unconventional f and g pawn push. Freya exploited the weakness created to get a quick checkmate. Freya is often the weekly girl's champion in our library sessions, but has good battles with the likes of Omi, Paulina and Amy amongst others. She is the first under 18 girl ever to play for Thornaby, but she certainly won't be the last! Well done to her!

Second finished was Charles in a closer game against another new player for Darlington. Not to be outdone by his sister, he managed to finish off the game with a series of checks before forcing a mate. Well done Charles, a great debut!

Third finished was Manuel who never looked in particular trouble. He got a nice skewer with a knight later in the game, but he always already up by 3 pawns at this stage.

Joseph was last finished, although he didn't use much of his own time. In his endgame he had quite a lot of trouble forcing through a mate despite being up by 3 pawns. All was good in the end though as he promoted one of them to a queen and a few moves later his opponent resigned.

Proud Dad Tim said, "I don't think I've ever seen my pair as high as this. They'll never sleep!"

We had a bit of trouble getting a team together for this one with several players unavailable. Manuel stepped in for Jake's normal team as Jake was working. Rhys picked up a rugby head injury on Sunday (he's OK), so Joseph stepped in on the morning of the game. Thanks to both, but the brother and sister steal the headlines!

Date:08/11/2023  Challengers go top!

Billingham Synthonia C ½-3½ Thornaby Challengers
Sean Cassidy 0-1 James Urwin
Gary Leighton 0-1 Iain Mellis
Geoff Garnett ½-½ Bill March
Paul Scott 0-1 Geoff Howsden

First to finish was Geoff whose opponent made a good attack putting him a piece up, but he left his king and two pawns against 2 rooks and a queen with his other pieces stuck in nowhere land so Geoff was more than happy. He ended up with a relatively comfortable win, eventually getting a piece & a few pawns up before Geoff executed an unstoppable mate with a rook & queen combination.

Next to finish was Bill, who was down a pawn, but the game steadied on into the end game and with minimal progress to be made they both agreed a draw.

I finished next, and I decided to give the pseudo Catalan a whirl, but I didn't really get what I wanted from the opening, I imagine due to my inexperience of this opening! Sean Cassidy, my opponent, maintained a strong light square bishop that cut right across to the B1 square which was where the open file was. After a few attempts to infiltrate he ultimately swapped off his light square bishop and I felt the board open up for me a little more. He managed to place his knight on e4 which was pretty daunting to have to deal with. However this led to an exchange of pieces that gave me an advantage into the endgame that had me with the only passed pawn and my king being closer to the centre. I was able to create two central passed pawns in the endgame, whilst Sean had one beginning to march down the C file, however my king could always stop it and still maintain one central passed pawn with no real hope of ever stopping it from queening. This realisation prompted Sean to resign!

Last to finish was Iain who I noted played one of his gambit openings that he said is called "The Portuguese". It seemed the game was pretty smooth however and I suddenly looked over to see Iain up by about 3/4 pawns. The endgame came and it was a given that Iain's pawns were impossible to stop, thus securing victory.

After 3 games from each team, the Challengers are sitting pretty at the top of the table!

James

Date:08/11/2023  Defeat in Durham!

Durham City C 2½-1½ Thornaby
Joseph Barr 0-1 Joe McGinnis
Vaughan Davison ½-½ Mike Creaney
Philip Brooks 1-0 Pete Townson
Tony Shires 1-0 Manuel Lopez

We travelled to Durham to find a team with an ungraded player on Board 1, but three in the high 1500s lower down. Three of us travelled together but Manuel came in his own car, which was just as well as he lost after half an hour - not sure what went wrong. Mike drew in a game where not a lot happened, whereas I had a crazy win on top board. After 1c4 e6 2e4, my opponent spent about 5 minutes deciding on his 2nd move; I don't think my clock went down significantly till move 6, at which point I was about 13 minutes up. All of this got me thinking I should be good enough to win. I got overconfident and went for a spectacular attack, which would have led to mate if he's played the obvious reply - then realised there was the losing option, the option I'd spent ages calculating, and the KxB option which I had entirely overlooked! Fortunately he played the calculated option, but I was rattled, my time advantage had disappeared, and he was coming up with threats of his own. I've just analysed the game now, and my spectacular attacking move was not only correct, but brilliant (in chess.com terms anyway). My next move was a blunder, I missed a mate in 3 three moves later, had a level position but just 4 minutes on the clock after move 28 - and he left his queen en prise!

So 1.5 each again, and all down to Pete again, and it looked good for a while as his opponent had less than 3 minutes - but the time control in the Durham League has 15s increments, and he had a clearer idea of how to play the endgame than Pete, so was able to play quickly enough that he never got down to 2 minutes. Combined with better endgame knowhow, that was enough to secure the win. Pete felt a bit better about this one though, as he didn't really throw away an advantage - he had intentionally sacrificed a bishop for two pawns, and indeed he got 2 passed pawns eventually, but the bishop camped on the queening square of one of them, and covered the advance of the other, so he wasn't able to make them count.

Joe

Date:07/11/2023  David plays a blinder!

Thornaby Comets 1-3 Middlesbrough Bishops
David Pizzi 1-0 Sahil Farooq
Tim Hind 0-1 Robert Brown
Nick Tadd 0-1 Jake Pearson
Andy Austen 0-1 Ammar Alghasra

Out-pointed in ratings by 1140 the Comets had an uphill battle but the games we lost were tight competitions with both Nick and Andy lasting 2hrs+. One pawn made the difference in Nick's game. Nick said "Great game against a nice lad, I probed and probed, but he just didn't make one mistake".

Tim found his board 2 opponent too strong. David had a brilliant game against a very experienced opponent. David was down by a bishop and 5 pawns to a rook and 5 pawns when Farooq blundered his rook and jokingly declared "I suppose we will have to call a draw!" This was a couple of moves after David had offered one himself! Obviously, David refused and played on, promoting a pawn and winning comfortably with the Queen. Excellent game David, you played a blinder! His best ever win in terms of rating at least!

Malcolm

Date:07/11/2023  Bomber's chickens fail to hatch!

Thornaby Bombers 1½-2½ Hartlepool A
Gary Dixon 0-1 Peter Harker
Mike Creaney ½-½ Graham Matthews
Joe McGinnis 1-0 Alex Kalyviotis
Pete Townson 0-1 Dave Kelly

Hartlepool A at home should have been more competitive, and on seeing the Hartlepool team I thought we were warm favourites with them missing their top 3 players. Last time I played against Hartlepool A I faced Peter Harker on Board 3; with him on Board 1 against Gary, and Graham Matthews on 2, I had 2 chickens counted. Unfortunately Gary produced the worst game he's played in many years (his own words), and Mike couldn't manage more than a draw against Graham. I was (inevitably) up against Alex Kalyviotis again, and managed another win, this time without the aid of a catastrophic blunder on the final move. I was pleased with how I played it on the whole, particularly the end game. So it all came down to Pete on Board 4. I had a couple of glances at his game, and saw he was a pawn up, then a piece up, so the unhatched chicken count reached 3 - but he lost the piece, lost a rook and lost the game.

Joe

Date:06/11/2023  Captain Joseph inspires Cadets win!

Darlington C 1½-2½ Thornaby Cadets
Ryan McGrane 0-1 Joseph Machin
Mark Turner ½-½ Ajay Selvan
Richard Kuby 1-0 Ollie Walton
Aman Agarwal 0-1 Rhys Orton

In the same venue as the Bombers, the Cadets got a much better result than us!

Ollie had probably the toughest task of the Cadets and lost a piece early in the opening. Once the queens were swapped off a few moves later it was over.

Rhys had a fantastic debut and completely outplayed his opponent. He was well ahead on material by the end.

Ajay was in a very even battle against 1497 rated Mark Turner throughout. It was a 6 pawns against 6 pawns endgame, but Ajay's structure looked slightly weaker to me. He found the right moves though and they played down to 1 pawn each and a draw was agreed.

Joseph put in the captains performance. The best thing was that he took his time and wasn't finished until after all of the other games apart from mine. Great result against one of Darlington's form players, I saw snatches of the game and it looked like Joseph out-played his opponent in a complex position.

A great win for our team who are all under 18 years old. Darlington C were the champions 2 seasons ago and are a strong team who could still contend for the title this season.

Chris

Date:06/11/2023  Bombers fail to get off the ground!

Darlington A 4-0 Thornaby Bombers
Steve Dauber 1-0 Gary Dixon
Kevin Wilson 1-0 Chris Swales
Luke Owen 1-0 Mike Creaney
Richard Harris 1-0 Joe McGinnis

The Bombers belatedly got their season started after 2 postponed games. Any hopes that Darlington A might take the Bombers lightly were dashed when their team sheet was revealed, with their top 3 players all playing! Mike resigned about 2 seconds after Joe, maybe because Joe was giving him a lift! He was the exchange down and Luke was on top. Gary's game was complicated and he thought he might have a repetition draw at one point, but one small mistake was fatal against Steve. The 2 bishops proving stronger than Gary's 2 knights. My game was last finished and completely symmetrical after 11 moves. I managed to defend pretty well for most of the game. In the end he managed to swap everything off to a knight and pawn end game where he was a pawn up. Against a player of my own rating I might have been able to hold on for a draw, but Kevin played the endgame perfectly and I made a mistake which allowed the knights to be swapped off into what was a won position for Kevin whatever I did.

With the A/B division merged for the first half of the season, the Bombers will have some tough games. There are easier matches to come, but we all had enjoyable games nontheless!

Chris

Date:01/11/2023  Malcolm opens season account!

Billingham Synthonia E 3-1 Thornaby Destroyers
Derek Simpson 1-0 Vardhan Bunga
Ben Dodgson 1-0 Alan Stockley
Nicola Harrington 0-1 Malcolm Goldspink
Sean Cooke 1-0 Laura Holdforth

Not a great result, but a good battle from our team. Vardhan and Alan's games were relatively quick and although both games were tight they went the wrong way for us.

Malcolm was next finished. After 3 tough league games, he got his first league win of the season with a relatively comfortable win over former Marsh's Angel Nicola Harrington.

That left Laura who put up an excellent fight. She was a Bishop and 2 Pawns down with most of her major pieces pinned. She stayed calm and played some very good safety and eventually freed her pieces and won back the Bishop to even the game. Unfortunately, she made a careless slip and lost her remaining Knight. She was one move away from getting a checkmate when Sean came back with a series of checks which ultimately led to mate. Well done Laura for a gallant fight.

Date:31/10/2023  Aces held by valiant Knights!

Thornaby Aces 2-2 Middlesbrough Knights
Matt Jackman 0-1 Stephen Cole
Francis Batchelor 1-0 Brian Myers
Chris Swales ½-½ Nikhil Bhandari
Sagar Patil ½-½ Ray Pallister

The Aces were held 2-2 by a strong looking Middlesbrough Knights team.

Sagar was first finished. He established a good pawn centre and there was a lot of piece manoeuvring from both players, but the position reached an impasse and the 2 players agreed a draw.

Chris slightly made up for his worst defeat of last season when he resigned after 20 moves and was in a lost position after just 15 moves. This time he managed to hold Nikhil to a draw, but like last time Nikhil had all the play and controlled the game. Chris managed to force off most of the pieces to a queen pawn endgame and neither player felt they had any advantage, so a draw was agreed.

Matt was making his debut for Thornaby after getting a default win last time out. He ended up in a king pawn endgame, but Stephen managed to exploit his forward position and Matt's double pawns to get a win.

Last season's A division leading scorer Francis was even for a while, but found a way to explode the position and managed to get 2 pawns ahead. It was plain sailing from there.

A reasonable performance from the Aces to continue our unbeaten start to the season, but we would expect to win against Middlesbrough's second team. We were of course missing 4 players ourselves and there wasn't much of a rating difference on 3 of the 4 boards.

Date:31/10/2023  Champions take Juniors to school!

Thornaby Juniors 0-4 Billingham D
Joseph Machin 0-1 Harry Tenant
Wasim Alwakeel 0-1 Bernie Callaghan
Tristan Green 0-1 Paul Scott
Karam Alwakeel 0-1 Graham Bartram

Last seasons D division chamnpions Billingham D showed they are in no mood to relinquish their crown with a convincing demoliation of our junior team.

Karam was only a pawn down, but in all sorts of trouble on the queen side and he ended up getting mated. A tough debut for Karam!

Wasim was material down from early on, I didn't see how it finished.

Joseph had a level game, but 1 mistake against a player of Harry's level was fatal and he ended up a piece down.

Tristan was last finished. He missed a pinning tactic and was a rook down, but managed to get a pawn on the 7th row. His opponent was never really in trouble though. Talking of 7th row, Paul was last seasons D division top scorer and he is now on 7 wins from 7 games since the D division started in February!

Hopefully our team will have learnt something about what it takes to win at this level!

Chris

Date:30/10/2023  Dynasties go top!

Hartlepool C 1-3 Thornaby Dynasties
Mark Priest 0-1 Geoff Mann
Michael Smalley 0-1 Sam Stevenson
Matthew Tyson 0-1 James Mann
Ashton Woodward 1-0 Richard Stevenson

Strange old night at the Pool. Dynasties come away with a hard fought 3-1 win and go top of the league after a long, long night.

James was first to finish after about 15 minutes. Both players playing very quick and James managed to win a rook. From then on he traded his way to win a room end game.

Next to finish was Sam who forked his opponents queen and rook and then managed to get another minor piece for free. It was game over from there.

Then a short while later Richard succumbed to his opponent. Unfortunately he lost his queen to a discovered check and never managed to recover. Valiant effort though.

Then to my game which lasted 2 and a half hours and I had still had 58 minutes left when finished. After a very tight opening game I managed to pin a knight. I sacrificed my knight and queen for his queen and rook before taking his unprotected second knight. I then went about taking pawns and trading off. It came down to two rooks and one pawn v 1 rook and 4 pawns. I positioned my king so the paws couldn't pass and swapped a rook. My opponent then shook hands with 45 seconds left on his clock.

The top 3 boards for Hartlepool were all previously unbeaten so far this season. A great night for the Dynasties!

Geoff

Date:28/10/2023  Silver Sam Second in Scarborough!

Sam travelled to the Junior Rapid play event in Scarborough yesterday. The U18 section was a bit short on players, so it was merged with the U14 section. This meant some tough games against much older players, but Sam emerged with a very creditable 3 out of 6. Going into his last game he was leading the Under 14 section, but lost to Sara Kundan Khan from the Poulton chess club in Lancashire who was on 2.5. The result was still enough to give Sam 2nd place in the Under 14 section!

Tashil also travelled to Scarborough and scored 4 out of 6 in the under 9 section for a share of 3rd place overall.

Well done to both for representing the club so well! 2 medals out of a possible 2!

Date:26/10/2023  Pete return inpsires Durham League win!

Thornaby 2½-1½ Delves(Consett)
Joe McGinnis 0-1 Daniel Williams
Mike Creaney ½-½ Owen Temple
Pete Townson 1-0 Stephen Brown
Toefl Lankapura 1-0 Mark Temple

Caro-Kann for me again, known line for 6 moves again and then a surprise and I got annihilated afetr playing the wrong move in the opening. I resigned on move 14, it was mate next move anyway. I now know what not to play in the fantasy variation!

Pete's first game of the season after his return from Spain and he never looked in trouble. His opponent was giving off heavy sighs for quite a while, so I assumed Pete was getting on top from what had looked an even position. When I looked closely again Pete was up a bishop and four pawns, and it didn't last much longer!

Toefl looked dead in the water early on, being down 3 pieces for a rook, but when I came back to it an hour or so later (having passed the time by playing my opponent assuming I'd not blundered in the opening, I still lost!), he was right back in the game. Still down on material, now 2 Bishops and a pawn for the rook, but with 59 minutes on his clock to his opponent's 9, a strange but solid- looking pawn structure which was unlikely to crack in 9 minutes, and chances to hassle his opponent's queen with his 2 rooks, which he duly did. I spotted a winning move - the Black king, bishop and queen were all on the f file, White just needed to chase away the queen with one rook, then bring the other one over as well and he'd have 2 attacks on the bishop, which was now pinned and undefendable. Toefl didn't see it, and tried repositioning his queen - which left one of his rooks en prise! His opponent missed this, and moved his bishop instead, leaving the queen and king nicely lined up for a rook pin. Toefl didn't miss it a second time!

Mike's game looked like a solid positional queen's pawn game throughout, and a draw was very much on the cards from a long way out. This team could be a very different proposition in the return match, though, as they have players rated 2040 and 1900 or thereabouts, who were not available tonight!

Joe

Date:25/10/2023  Aces start with win!

Billingham Synthonia A 1½-2½ Thornaby Aces
John Garnett ½-½ Francis Batchelor
Paul Frank 0-Def Matt Jackman
Paul Weightman 0-1 Gary Dixon
Keith Harrison 1-0 Sagar Patil

A win in the new look Aces first game of the season. The Aces got a point on the board early with a default on board 2, Matt will have to wait yet again to make his debut for us.

I then got my third draw from 3 against John, who may have had the better of me in all of them. This one I tried to be too ambitious on the flanks, thinking I had the centre in hand and finding that thought mistaken. I brought it to a draw with opposite-coloured bishops and the position neutralised.

Sagar has a game that went back and forth. I thought he was in trouble at one point as was very behind on development, but then he managed to get his pieces moving and claiming some pawns. It converted into an imbalanced 4v2 kingside and 1v3 queenside. It might have been in hand for Sagar with his central king but one slight overextension to try and push his pawns through game the queenside pawns the 1 move they needed to force through.

Gary's debut went right down to under 5 minutes each, and the victory was on time in the end. Queens came off the board early and Gary then claimed a pawn. For the majority of the game it was a BN vs BN on a closed board with a lot of massaging required. eventually with a few pawns swapped off Gary was free to move his king away from defence and into attack where he got into a spot to swap pieces and win another pawn.

Francis

Date:25/10/2023  300 up for Mike!

Great Ayton C 2-2 Thornaby Comets
Connor Wilson 0-1 Mike Creaney
Tom Brough 1-0 Malcolm Goldspink
Peter Archer 1-0 Janos Mehes
Stephen Gatenby 0-1 Andy Austen

The Great Ayton blog prediction of a 4-0 whitewash proved to be some way off the mark! Partly due to our "ringer" on board one!

I was last to finish with 3 mins left, but with an overwhelming position by then, Connor played on until checkmate.

Malcolm had the better position for a long time but Tom turned the tables with a nice finish, Janos was also doing well but dropping a Queen meant disaster, My prodigy Andy proved the Hippo doubters wrong winning nicely with Black.

A satisfying result that could have been even better!

Mike

A nice report from Mike, but this was also a milestone for him. His 300th match for Thornaby club! He's been in the club since it was founded in 2007 and holds nearly all of our longevity and "most" records! Mike is a legend within the club with universal respect from all of our players and also almost all players from other teams in the league. He shows no signs of his enthusiasm dwindling, last season he played an incredible 39 matches for the club (more than anyone else) in 3 different teams. There is little doubt that he will make it to 400 over the next few years!

For those interested, our season by season player history is here:
http://www.thornabychessclub.co.uk/PlayerHistory.htm

Chris

Date:24/10/2023  Challengers hold Hartlepool!

Thornaby Challengers 2-2 Hartlepool B
Joe McGinnis 1-0 Alex Kalyviotis
James Urwin 1-0 Kevin Waterman
Bill March 0-1 Graham Matthews
Vardhan Bunga 0-1 Oliver Brightey

The Challengers enacted mini-revenge for the Cadets losing last week with a draw against a Hartlepool team out-rating them on every board. Vardhan's game finished first, but I didn't catch what happened.

Bill then missed out on what might have been a draw in a queens and pawns endgame with a 1 move error that put his king in trouble.

From 2 down and needing the wins James then brought in a victory after making inroads to his opponents Q-side in the middlegame and giving pawn promotion threats.

Finally Joe declined a late-middlegame draw to bring home the match, even at a pawn down. It was an attacking game and Joe was down a pawn that you wouldn't mind because it was giving him open files to attack the king. But the game started swapping off pieces and it looked like a draw would be forced, but then his opponent fell into a smothered mate when trying to hold onto pawns as time was getting low.

Francis

Date:24/10/2023  Tough night for Cadets!

Thornaby Cadets 0-4 Billingham C
Ajay Selvan 0-1 Gary Leighton
Ollie Walton 0-1 Graham Edwards
Mehmet Isci 0-1 Bernie Callaghan
Wasim Alwakeel 0-1 Fraser Craig

With our regular top 2 boards missing, it was a tough night for the Cadets!

Ollie found the 2 board jump a bit much and he lost quite quickly on board 2. Wasim was a last minute substitute and he played a decent game which will hopefully help him in his future D division matches.

Mehmet lost a piece early on, but played well and came back to 5 pawns against a knight and 3 pawns. Bernie said that it was a tough game. Ajay lost a piece for a pawn, but put up a good fight.

Good experience and plenty more chances for the Cadets this season!

Date:22/10/2023  Victory for Tashil!

Earlier today, Tashil won the Elstree qualifier for the Under 10 section of the London Junior Chess Championships! A fantastic performance to finish on a very convincing 5.5 out of 6. He now goes on to play in the finals in December.

Well done Tashil!

Date:17/10/2023  First Dynasties Win!

Thornaby Dynasties 3-1 Thornaby Juniors
Will Rowett 0-1 Tom Brough
Sam Stevenson 1-0 Ollie Walton
James Mann 1-0 Tristan Green
Tashil Lankapura 1-0 Jake Lopez

A quick fire D division match featured 8 under 18 players and showcased our club's commitment to junior chess! The junior team lost Wasim and Karam shortly before the game with illness, so the team was filled with the first 2 eligible players through the door! Ollie and Jake were solid replacements and the Juniors were higher rated overall.

Dads were in attendance for the Dynasties team and the Sons did them proud with 3 wins across the 4 boards. A first ever win for our Dynasties team! Sam got his first win of the season over the higher rated Ollie. James Mann continued his impressive start to the season with a win over Tristan. Definitely a player on the up. Teesside Megafinal Champion Tashil recorded another win, this time against Jake who who was making his league debut for Thornaby. Tom proved too strong for Will and after 2 rounds of games, he is the only player in the D division with 2 points. Well done to him!

These 2 D division teams are primarily for developing our new players, but the Dynasties team could do some damage with the likes of Toefl and Geoff Mann available to them as well as these 4 promising up and coming junior players. An exciting season is ahead for both teams!

Date:17/10/2023  Marathon Match ends in Hartlepool win!

Thornaby Destroyers 1-3 Hartlepool B
Malcolm Goldspink 0-1 Mark Priest
Janos Mehes 0-1 Mike Smalley
Nick Tadd 1-0 Ed Lightfoot
Andy Austen 0-1 Michael Thomas

An excellent D division match for a veteran Destroyers team saw all 4 games going on after half past 9, which is unheard of in the D division! It could have gone either way really, but Hartlepool finished off the games better.

Andy was 4 pawns to 3 up in a rook endgame, but his opponent managed to force one of his through first. Janos was close for a long time, but then blundered his queen towards the end. Nick was always ahead, but his opponent made him work for it. In the end 2 central pawns for Nick were unstoppable down the middle. Malcolm's game was even all the way, but his opponent pipped him in an endgame.

Good to see Hartlepool fielding an extra team this season which is mostly full of new players. They've moved to a bigger room in their venue and look like a club on the up. For the Destroyers, the fighting qualities shown in this match bode well for the rest of the season.

Date:10/10/2023  Challengers go top!

Thornaby Comets 0-4 Thornaby Challengers
David Pizzi 0-1 James Urwin
Malcolm Goldspink 0-1 Iain Mellis
Nick Tadd 0-1 Bill March
Andy Austen 0-1 Alan Stockley

A good start to the season for the Challengers with a convincing win over our Comets team.

Iain was first finished and he found a combination that resulted in a back rank mate. James had a tougher match against David, but eventually came out on top.

Alan was making his debut for our club, but he is a very experienced league player and he proved too strong for Andy.

Bill has spent the last 2 seasons nominated and playing on a high board in the B division. He's had a lot of good draws in that time, but this was actually his first league win since before covid. Well done Bill!

For the Comets, they are a new development team for us and they will have easier matches this season! A good start for the Challengers though!

Date:10/10/2023  Local MP Visit!

Earlier this evening we had a special visitor at the club when our local MP Matt Vickers joined us for our weekly Tuesday club night.

Matt had played in school before a long time ago and was able to play a reasonable game, moving the right pieces most of the time and spotting threats. Of course, against regular club players there was only likely to be 1 result!

Matt came to find out about the club and hear how we have grown from 12 members to 60 in 2 years. He was also interested in school chess and the benefits to children of playing the game. This follows a recent government announcement of extra money for school chess.

We'd like to thank Matt for his visit and taking some time in his busy schedule to find out about the club and chess in general and of course for letting our players win against him!

Date:09/10/2023  Debut Manuel Win!

Hartlepool 2-2 Thornaby
Bernie Price 1-0 Chris Swales
Michael Smalley 0-1 Toefl Lankapura
Michael Thomas 1-0 Vardhan Bunga
Ashton Woodward 0-1 Manuel Lopez

Our Durham League season got off to a familiar start with a draw! Last season we drew half of our games in the Durham League 2-2! It was an inexperienced Hartlepool team apart from the 1832 rated Bernie Price on board 1. We were actually ahead on all 4 boards at one point.

Manuel was finished first. On his league debut he played a good attacking game and got a piece for a pawn up and never looked likely to lose.

Toefl finished next. A decisive bishop pin on queen and king effectively ended this one. Toefl was ahead anyway at this point.

Vardhan got a pawn up and always looked slightly on top, but then his opponent crashed through on the king side and found a checkmate combination.

Chris was last finished. As is often the case with Bernie, he played a sacrifice to get a good attack going. He swappped his bishop for 2 king side pawns and Chris had to tie up his pieces to hold the position. Chris had managed to weather the storm and thought he'd essentially forced a draw by threatening mate in 1, but allowing a perpetual check. Bernie found a move to keep the game going and 2 moves later Chris made a disastrous error that lost his queen to a 3 move tactic! Chris said, "Disappointed, but it was a really good testing game, I feel ready for the season now!"

A solid start to the season for the team and great for Manuel to get a win straight away. We're expecting him to do some damage this season!

Date:09/10/2023  Unbeaten Ajay continues to impress!

Hartlepool B 3½-½ Thornaby Cadets
Alex Kalyviotis Def-0 Wes Park
Graham Matthews 1-0 Joseph Machin
Mark Priest ½-½ Ajay Selvan
Oliver Brightey 1-0 Ollie Walton

A tough match for the Cadets which got off to a bad start when Wes had to pull out at the last minute with illness.

Ollie lost quickly after an early mistake saw him fall a queen for a minor piece behind. He battled on all the way to checkmate, but the result was never really in doubt from then.

Joseph and Graham had a close tough game. It was even for a long time, but Graham managed to get his rook into a good position in the endgame and get 2 pawns up.

The highlight for Thornaby was another mature performance from Ajay. He was last finished by a long way and is unbeaten in his first 3 competitive long games. This was another typical solid difficult to break down performance from Ajay. He got a pawn up and was well on top in the end game, but his opponent managed to claw it back to level on material and they agreed a draw. Mark is a solid league player with a 1447 rating who has been playing regularly in the league for nearly 20 years, so to be competitive in this game was a great performance from Ajay which justifies our 1450 estimate for him this season.

Date:03/10/2023  Juniors go top!

Thornaby Juniors 3-1 Thornaby Destroyers
Tom Brough 1-0 Vardhan Bunga
Ajay Selvan 1-0 Mehmet Isci
Tristan Green 0-1 Tim Hind
Wasim Alwakeel 1-0 Laura Holdforth

The first of many Thornaby Vs Thornaby matches this season saw our Junior team take on our Destroyers team with 5 of the 8 players making their Thornaby debuts!

Ajay and Mehmet were first finished. They went into an even looking end game, but Ajay is very good in these kinds of positions and Mehmet blundered a rook. A first full length win for Ajay!

Tim managed to get a piece up against Tristan, but it was even for quite a while and lasted 52 moves altogether. Relief for Tim, he can still show his face in the library!

Vardhan was a piece up, but blundered and Tom came back to win. Tom is allowed to play in the D division for us "on loan" from Great Ayton because they do not have a team in the division and as a club we like to encourage all junior players in the area as well as our own. Last season Redcar's Stanley Allan featured for our junior team and he went on to win the Teesside Junior Under 11 title. Tom is apparently under the tutelage of Great Ayton's Transylvanian star Virgil Szekeley and he looks like a good prospect for them!

Wasim and Laura were last finished and it looked even early on. Then Wasim managed to get his queen in on Laura's king side before Laura had castled and it was all over from there. A good debut win for Wasim!

So a couple of debut wins for 2 of our promising junior players. No doubt these will be the first of many for Ajay and Wasim! With the first round of matches almost completed, the juniors are top of the D division!

Date:02/10/2023  Debut win for Richard!

Darlington D 3-1 Thornaby Dynasties
Richard Kuby 1-0 Matt Rowett
Aman Agarwal 1-0 Will Rowett
Dave Martin 1-0 Sam Stevenson
Maksiy Karezynski 0-1 Richard Stevenson

First match of the season for a Thornaby team. A 3-1 defeat against a strong Darlington lineup!

The Rowett and Stevenson Dynasties featured in this match with all except Sam making their debuts for Thornaby teams. Matt and Will found their more experienced opponents too strong. Sam lost out to Dave Martin, so it was left to stand in captain Richard to prevent a whitewash by getting a debut win. Well done to him! He now has a 100% record for our teams, so maybe an Aces call up is just around the corner!

Darlington were a little disorganised with their captain not even realising they had a match and an admin error in their player registrations means the match goes down as a draw in the league. So a first point and all good experience for our new family based team!

Date:27/09/2023  Club Championship 2nd Round Draw!

The first round of the club championship has largely been completed and the 2nd round has been drawn.

There were few surprises in the first round with the higher rated players winning in most of the ties and drawing in the other 3. James Mann was the star of the round with an excellent draw against James Urwin in the battle of the Jameses! James M was actually a pawn up in a king pawn endgame when they agreed a draw, but couldn't see a way to get it through. Still a good result that bodes well for the new season!

The competition gets tougher in the 2nd round with more of the clubs top players paired against each other. Mike Vs Joseph is probably the stand out tie of the round!

Full information is here.

Date:18/09/2023  Joseph shines at Darlington blitz!

4 players from Thornaby attended the Gary Hewitt memorial blitz competition at Darlington Chess Club on Monday. Joseph has always been a very good quick player, but in a high calibre field he excelled himself finishing in joint 5th of the 29 entries with 5.5/9. His best win of the day was undoubtedly against Darlington's board 1 A team player Steve Dauber in the last round. Well done Joseph!

Tashil and Toefl both finished on 4 out of 9 and James Urwin finished on 3.5. Tashil was by far the youngest player in the event and 4 out of 9 in a field of this quality was a great achievement as well!

Date:12/09/2023  Lankapura family dominate Quickplay!

Yesterdays quickplay was a good day out for the Lankapura family! We had 3 players finish on 3 out of 3 and Toefl and Tashil were 2 of them. Vardhan had an impressive win over Mike in a tight game in the last round to also finish on 3 points. Toefl felt he was behind in all of his games, but showed his fighting qualities each time. Tashil is right on form at the moment and he won all of his games in typical quickfire fashion! All 3 of our winner won a box of chocolates!

In only his 2nd visit to the club, Jake Lopez also impressed and finished on 2 out of 3. This won him a chocolate prize as the "surprise of the competition". Young stars Ajay and Joseph were amongst the other players finishing on 2. Ajay lost to a smothered mate against Toefl and Joseph was beaten by Tashil in an endgame.

We'll hopefully have a second stage to this event later in the season and it may be Toefl Vs Tashil to decide the winner! At the moment Tashil leads on countback based on the CS, SOB,ROB tie break system!

RESULTS
1st) Tashil 3pts
2nd) Vardhan 3pts
3rd) Toefl 3pts
4th) Mike 2pts
5th) Ajay 2pts
6th) Joseph 2pts
7th) Mehmet 2pts
8th) Janos 2pts
9th) Jake 2pts
10th) Manuel 2pts
11th) Wasim 1pt
12th) Joe 1pt
13th) Tristan 1pt
14th) Malcolm 1pt
15th) Laura 1pt
16th) Ollie 1pt
17th) Nick 1pt
18th) Andy 0pts
19th) Karam 0pts
20th) Daniel 0pts

Date:08/09/2023  Club Championship Preview!

The first round of the 2023/24 Club Championship has been drawn. A record 32 players have entered the competition this year. The format will be a 6 round Swiss system again.

Francis is the hot favourite to win the title for the 5th time in a row. 2nd seed Chris is entering for the first time. 3rd seed Mike seems to have returned to form after winning the Vince Skillcorn event over the Summer. 4th seed Joe has been runner up the last 2 years.

As well as these 4 there are of course a lot of upcoming and new players who could cause anyone problems. James, Pete and Vardhan all had good championships last year. David will be buoyed by his victory in the B division last year. Wes, Joseph and Ollie led the junior charge last year and all finished amongst the leaders. Newcomer Ajay could be a tricky opponent for anyone having beaten Chris at both the club and the library and Francis in a simul in the last couple of months. Youngsters Tashil, Sam and Tristan are getting better all the time and amongst a host of players who will be trying to make an impact on the championships this year.

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

Date:05/09/2023  Francis Masterclass!

Tonight at the club, Francis gave the rest of us a masterclass going through some of his Durham Congress games. It covered a lot of themes and there were tips for all phases of the game. Around 20 club members took the opportunity to learn from last seasons CCA A division top scorer! A big thank you to Francis for arranging this and passing on his expertise to us mortals!

Date:03/09/2023  Thornaby Show 2023!

Earlier today Chris, Tim, Pete, Nick and Joseph attended Thornaby Show to spread the chess word in the local community! We had a fun day and played and talked to lots of people and handed out a lot of leaflets about our club and library sessions.

Members of the public could win a box of chocolates if they could beat one of our "experts"! We had some good games, but only one person managed to win, getting a victory over Nick. We also gave out a box to a youngster who got a good draw against Pete and missed a checkmate towards the end. A former Elmwood player gave Chris a tough game, but Chris came out on top in the end game. Tim also had a tough game against a former league player, but won with a bank rank mate! Joseph was probably our deadliest player on the day!

Hopefully we'll see lots of new people at the club and library this week!

Date:30/08/2023  Champion Mike!

Over the Summer, club legend Mike Creaney has been playing in the Vince Skillcorn Summer Tournament at Billingham Chess Club. The tournament is held in honour of a former Billingham player who died a couple of years ago. Mike has played very well and was unbeaten with 3 wins and 2 draws in 5 matches. A last round win over Stuart McLaughlin gave him a joint share of the title with Kevin Waterman. Mike knew Vince well and was partly playing in the tournament to remember him.

Well done Mike! It bodes well for the new league season!

Date:28/08/2023  Pre Season Training!

Many of our players are continuing to practice during the Summer break, but I'm not sure any are as keen as Tim and Freya! They are pictured here interrupting a holiday picnic to get in some extra practice!

Date:15/08/2023  AGM and Annual Awards Ceremony!

Our annual AGM and awards ceremony was a positive night reflecting our growth and success over the last season. We will be entering a record number of teams in the league and we have 3 new enthusiastic people on our committee.

The 14 awards went to 10 different players and our top 3 junior players all took home awards. Sagar taking the prestigious young player of the year and Wes winning best newcomer. Joseph was D division player of the year.

If that wasn't enough, there were 5 potential new members playing at the club as well, showing that our recuitment strategies are continuing to work! One of the 5 was from Slovakia and another was a 2000+ rated player who is potentially moving here from the Nottingham area. Who knew that our publicity streteched so far!

2023/24 COMMITTEE
Chair : Nick Tadd
Secretary+Internal Comps : Chris Swales
Treasurer : Geoff Howsden
Membership Officer : James Urwin
Team Captains : Francis, Chris, Joe McGinnis, Malcolm Goldspink, Geoff Mann, Tim Hind
Junior Captain : Joseph Machin

2022/23 AWARDS
Club Champion : Francis Batchelor
Club Championship B Division : David Pizzi
Young Player of the Year : Sagar Patil
Best Newcomer : Wes Park
Most Improved : James Urwin
Clubman of the Year : Andy Austen
A Division Player of the Year : Francis Batchelor
B Division Player of the Year : Joe McGinnis
C Division Player of the Year : Sagar Patil
D Division Player of the Year : Joseph Machin
Durham League Player of the Year : Sam Greig
Rapidplay Winner : Sam Greig
Club Blitz Champion : Francis Batchelor
Fantasy Chess Winner : Iain Mellis

Date:14/08/2023  Team Rapid Runners Up!

Thornaby sent a team to take part in a Team Rapid play event organised by Hartlepool Chess Club. It was for players rated below 1400 and the team performed very well finishing 2nd to Billingham in the event. Captain Nick and Tristan managed 2 wins from 3 games on board 3 and 4. Ollie scored 1.5 on board 2 and Malcolm played well on board 1 getting 1 win in his three games.

Laura also took part for a CCA All Stars team which was mixed from players from all of the clubs taking part and Marsh's Angels.

Thank you to Peter Harker from Hartlepool for organising the event and inviting us to take part. It was a good format to give our players some practice matches playing for a team.


Overall Result:
1st Billingham 6pts
2nd Thornaby 4pts
3rd Hartlepool 2pts
4th CCA All Stars 0pts

Date:02/08/2023  Novelty Set Night!

It was "novelty set" night at the club last night. Unfortunately I was ill and missed it, so all those wondering why I play Mickey Mouse chess will have to wait until next year! OK, I've included a photo below as I know how let down everyone feels!

There were still some weird and wonderful sets brought in by our members. See photo for my favourite!

Chris

Date:01/08/2023  Rating List Update!

The August rating list is out and Thornaby have a record 55 players on the list! July saw 2 quickplay events at the club and a big junior competition that have given several of our players their first rapid ratings.

This is the end of the season and the most eye catching move over the year has been Sam moving up to 3rd in our list. Amongst many new entries, our newest full member Isaac has his first official rapid rating thanks to his Gigafinal appearance and playing in the club rapidplay. A very solid 1091 for someone of his age.

As well as having more members, the list shows the overall quality in the club is much higher than last year with 9 players over 1600 compared to just 5 last year and 21 over 1400 compared to 11 last year. This is from players including Joseph, Sam and James making big rating jumps over the season and also from a lot of our new players getting good first ratings including Sagar, Brad and Wes.

Our full list is here:
http://www.thornabychessclub.co.uk/PlayerRatings.htm

Date:24/07/2023  New role for Geoff!

At todays Cleveland Chess Assiciation AGM, Geoff was elected into a new role as the league's publicity officer! Our club continues to provide several key roles to the league. Francis stays as President and Chris stays as both Grader and Web Officer for the Association. Good luck to Geoff in his new role!

There was a lot of debate in the meeting itself, but there were few big changes. The most exciting from our clubs point of view is that the D divsion with a 1500 rating cap will be oveer a full season this time. This proved a great place for us to develop players last season and hopefully will be again in the coming season.

Date:20/07/2023  Chris Ross Coaching Session!

Earlier today, our top rated player Chris Ross delivered a master class to 15 club members via Zoom. Chris went through one of his games and explained his thinking and asked for suggested moves at various points, in most cases explaining why they were not as good as his! It was a brillinat session and Chris managed to cover many important themes through one game including (but not limited to):

-Awareness of weaknesses created by your own pawn structure.
-Control of white squares and black squares.
-Pawn islands.
-Piece activity.
-How to plan in the middle game.
-Spotting tactics.
-Exploiting opponent weaknesses.
-When, whether and which way to castle.

A big thank you to Chris for giving up his time, it can only help to make those who attended into better players!

Date:11/07/2023  Francis takes Summer rapidplay!

Another big field of 28 took part in one of our end of season tournaments! This was our regular rapidplay event which is done in the format of the football world cup with players getting 15 minutes each for all moves. The players were split into 7 groups of 4 with the top 2 in each group progressing to the knockout stages.

Normally at least one of our juniors has a good run in this competition, but Joseph and Wes finished 3rd in the 2 toughest groups of death! It was left to our younger juniors to show the way and 5 reached the knockout stages. Tristan was the best, winning his group with 3/3 and ending up as the 2nd seed before losing to Iain in the Quarter finals. Sam, James M, Isaac and Finn also got out of their groups with James holding Vardhan to a draw before losing in the blitz tie break.

The most exciting finish to a group was in group B where Sam needed a blitz play off win over Tim to progress. Sam only had 2 seconds on his clock when he delivered the checkmate! Nick finished as the top seed for the knockout stages with 3 wins and the highest total rating of players beaten of the people on 3. The rest of his group was a lot closer and James M needed a blitz play off win over Andy to progress.

Most games in the knockout stages went to the higher rated player. Joe manged to beat me in the last 16 after gaining an advantage in the opening and eventually winning a piece. Vardhan matched his good blitz performance from a few weeks ago to reach the semi finals. Iain and Francis also followed up their good blitz tournaments last month by making the semis. Top seed Nick lost out to Joe on a blitz tie break in the Quarter finals.

In the semi finals, Joe beat Vardhan and Francis beat Iain. Joe's good run came to an end in the final though and the pre-tournament hot favourite completed his 7th win of the evening! Joe claims he's no good at quick games, but in the 2 rapid competitions he's done at the club it has taken Francis to knock him out!

Several debutants from our library sessions tried the club for the first time and hopefully some will be playing for our teams in the not too distant future. It was another fun night at the club and 28 players turning up to take part in the middle of the off season is a great show of strength!


RESULTS:

FINAL
Joe 0-1 Francis

SEMI FINALS
Joe 1-0 Vardhan
Iain 0-1 Francis

QUARTER FINALS
Nick 0.5-0.5 Joe (Joe wins blitz tie break)
Vardhan 1-0 Toefl
Tristan 0-1 Iain
Francis 1-0 Mike

LAST 16
Chris 0-1 Joe
Vardhan 0.5-0.5 James M (Vardhan wins blitz tie break)
Toefl 1-0 Sam S
Iain 1-0 Isaac
Francis 1-0 Richard
Mike 1-0 Finn

GROUP STAGES
GROUP A
1) Iain
2) Joe
3) Wes
4) Charles

GROUP B
1) Francis
2) Sam S
3) Tim
4) Freya

GROUP C
1) Mike
2) Chris
3) Joseph
4) Geoff M

GROUP D
1) Toefl
2) Isaac
3) Fletcher
4) George

GROUP E
1) Nick
2) James M
3) Andy
4) David

GROUP F
1) Tristan
2) Finn
3) Tashil
4) Janos

GROUP G
1) Vardhan
2) Richard
3) Neil
4) Daniel

Chris

Date:02/07/2023  Sagar comes close in Gigafinal!

A total of 12 players with links to our club and library took part in the Northern Gigafinal over the weekend. It is one of the 3 gigafinals around the country.

Every age section was very tough, there were 2000+ rated players as low as the under 12 section and 1900+ players in the under 8 and uner 10 sections! The under 18 section was won by an international master!

Nevertheless, all of our players did very well. Ewan had to leave early, but all of the other 11 got at least 2 wins. Sagar was the star performer. After 5 rounds he was right in contention playing on board 2 with 4.5 out of 5. Unfortunately, he lost his last 2 and just missed out on making it to the national challenger stage. Well done to all of our players and particularly Sagar. There were very few clubs with 11 or more players scoring 2 or more that's for sure!


Under 18 Boys
Rhys 2/7
Ajay 2/7

Under 14 Boys
Joseph 3/7
Wes 2/5
Ewan 0/3

Under 12 Boys
Sagar 4.5/7 (was on 4.5/5 on board 2 after 5 rounds)
Sam 3/7
Stanley Allan 2/7

Under 10 Boys
Isaac 3/7

Under 10 Girls
Freya 2/7

Under 8 Boys
Tashil 4/7
Jayden 3/7