News

Date:28/06/2023  T-Shirt Tim makes great debut!

Great Ayton Camembert 2½-1½ Thornaby Bombers
Adam Young 1-0 Nick Tadd
Jim Rogers 1-0 Janos Mehes
Gordon Dickinson ½-½ Tim Hind
Stephen Gatenby 0-1 Andy Austen

The last match of the season for Thornaby saw the Bombers travel to Great Ayton to take on the Camemberts! On paper we looked to be heavily outrated, but that didn't take into account our new T-Shirts!

Janos was first finished and he found the going too hard against the experienced Jim Rogers.

Then our 2 players in new T-Shirts stepped up. On his debut for the teams, Tim played his best game so far by holding Gordon Dickinson to a draw. Then Andy defeated the inconsistent Stephen Gatenby.

That left Nick to fight for the overall result. He did well against a much higher rate dopponent, but a blunder towards the end handed victory to Adam.

A narrow defeat, but a great way to end to the season for Tim and Andy!

Date:27/06/2023  Aces Fly to Runner Up Spot!

Thornaby Aces 2½-1½ The Buffs
Francis Batchelor ½-½ John Garnett
Brian Ellis 1-0 Mercia Baldea
Joe McGinnis 1-0 Stephen Ollis
Toefl Lankapura 0-1 Alan Stockley

The aces claimed the runner up spot in the inaugural CCA Team Swiss after a 2.5 victory over The Buffs saw us leapfrog them into 2nd.

Brian beat the unorthodox Mercia Baldea after getting well ahead in development in the opening. Toefl was a piece down, but did get his piece back for pawns. He couldn't hold on in the endgame though. Joe got a good win over Stephen Ollie and Francis wrapped up the victory with a draw against the experienced John Garnett.

A good way to finish the season for the Aces!

Date:26/06/2023  Tashil finishes 15th in Gigafinal!

Over the weekend, Tashil travelled to Scotland to take part in the under 8 section of the Scottish Gigafinal. Tashil qualified for this by winning the Teesside Megafinal at the end of April.

It was a fantastic performance from Tashil to finish in 15th place with 3.5/7 in a very high standard field. It couldn't really get much harder, the winner of his section was recent Under 8 World champion Louis Cheng! Louis became the first Scottish world champion since 1978 earlier this month when he won the FIDE World Blitz Championships for his age group!

It was a good 3.5 as well with Tashil on 2.5 after 3 rounds, so he played a lot of the higher finishing players. Well done Tashil for representing the club so well!

Date:24/06/2023  Library Simul Report!

Earlier today, our Aces captain and usual board 1 player Francis joined us at the library to do a simultaneous display against the library children. It was a tough session for Francis with 17 children taking part and Francis using the black pieces to give them more of a chance. There were several of our league players and even more age group champions and medallists amongst the 17 who took part, so this was a significant step up from the sorts of school club simuls me and Joseph have attempted in the last year or so!

Francis managed to win 15 and draw 1. Ajay managed to get a win after Francis blundered a rook and Ewan was very pleased to agree a draw although computer analysis showed the endgame was +1.5 to Ewan!

Thanks to Francis for giving up his time to do this, the children really enjoyed it! Well done to all of the children, we gave a good account of the library sessions! All 17 lasted at least 20 moves and Francis had plenty of other tough games apart from the ones against Ajay and Ewan.

Chris

Date:20/06/2023  Francis Blitzes to Victory!

Yesterday saw our club blitz championship take place with an impressive 28 members of our club taking part! Originally intended as a round robin, the entry numbers meant it was split into 2 round robin groups of 14 with the winners of each group playing a final!

In total 180 blitz games were played on the night with most people playing 13 group games and it was variously described to me as "like speed dating", "horrendous", "exhausting", "a lot of fun" and "better than I expected"! I think most people found it to be a fun night though!

I was slightly surprised by how few surprises there were! Francis won all 13 of his games in Group A and Sam matched the feat in group B. I was runner up in group A with 11 wins and a defeat to Francis and a draw with Mike. James was 3rd, only losing to me and Francis. Iain was runner up in group B. He only lost to Geoff Mann and Sam. Sagar took 3rd place in Group B with 10/13.

Special mentions to 2 of our other youngsters with Joseph getting 10 points in Group A and 8 year old Tashil managing 7 wins in group B! However, the real surprise packages for me were 2 of our adult players with Vardhan getting 9 points in group A and Manuel scoring 8 in group B. Hopefully both will be regulars in our teams next season!

The plan for the final was that the white pieces would go to the player with the best group record, but with both having a perfect 13/13 the traditional pawn in hand method was used with Francis getting white. A crowd of 15 players were watching the final and Francis capitalised with the white pieces and managed to get a pawn up. The queens were still on though and there were plenty of chances for Sam. However, Francis found a queen fork to win a bishop and Sam resigned at this point. Well done Francis!

Chris

RESULTS....

GROUP A
Francis 13
Chris 11.5
James U 11
Joseph 10
Vardhan 9
Wes 8
Mike 7
Sam S 5
Andy 4.5
Richard 4
Finn 3.5
Malcolm 3
Janos 1.5
Bhima 0

GROUP B
Sam G 13
Iain 11
Sagar 10
Brad 8.5
Manuel 8
Tashil 7
Geoff M 6.5
Toefl 6
Mehmet 5.5
James M 5.5
Ollie 4
Tristan 3
Callum 3 (started part way through)
Laura 0

FINAL
Francis 1-0 Sam G

Date:17/06/2023  Francis finishes as top scorer!

The A division concluded this week with Thornaby having a week off due to the odd number of teams. The main interest for us was seeing if Francis could hold on as top scorer in the A division. Luke Owen from Darlington was only half a point behind, but he didn't play in the Darlington game meaning Francis finishes as top scorer!

It has been a tough season for the Aces, but Francis has put in a captains performance playing in every game getting some great results along the way. Amongst others he's beaten Kevin Wilson, David Baillie and last seasons top scorer Giuseppe Magazzu. He's also drawn against some of the very top top CCA players inclluding Virgil Szekely, Nic Tavoularis and David Wise.

Well done Francis, a signififcant personal achievement! The top scorers in a division are often up and coming players on the lower boards, but Francis has done it mostly from board 1 and occassionally board 2.


Top Scorers
1) Francis Batchelor (Thornaby) 7pts
2) Luke Owen (Darlington A) 6.5pts
3) Kevin WIlson (Darlington A) 6pts
= Jonathan Sams (Darlington A) 6pts
= Martin McLaughlin (Great Ayton A) 6pts
6) Jason Gentle (Redcar) 5.5pts
= Steve Dauber (Darlington A) 5.5pts
= Steve Booth (Great Ayton A) 5.5pts

Date:13/06/2023  First title for David!

With most of the final round games finished now, David has claimed the Club Championship B division. Most people expected a cagey game in his decisive match against Geoff Mann, but David surprised everyone by sacrificing a pawn and forcing a quick win in just 14 moves!

Toefl beat Sam to join Geoff on 3/4. His son Tashil may join him for a share of joint runner up if he can beat Will Rowett. That is one of 2 games still to play. In the other matches, Richard got his first competitive win in a marathon match with Laura. Youngsters James Mann and Ollie also picked up good wins against solid players.

David has got better and better as the season has gone on and this is a significant achievement for him. He's finished with a flawless 4/4 and beaten several players who are doing well in the league. Well done David, it looks like next season is going to be a good one for you!

Full results and latest standings are here:
http://www.thornabychessclub.co.uk/ClubChampionshipBDivision.htm

Date:13/06/2023  Brie too strong for Juniors!

Thornaby Juniors 0-4 Great Ayton Brie
Sagar Patil 0-1 David Wise
Wes Park 0-1 Martin McLaughlin
Joseph Machin 0-1 Ray Honeybourne
Ollie Walton 0-1 Andrew French

Not a surprising result, but it is a measure of the progress this season of our top 4 junior players that they were disappointed! Our Aces team lost 3-1 to Great Ayton Brie earlier in the season and on rating, this team was even stronger than that one!

We put a junior team in the Team Swiss event precisely to give them the experience of playing in matches like this against some of the top players in the league. A couple of them probably didn't get out of the match what we hoped. David Wise hasn't lost a single one of the 14 games he's played this season and unfortunately Sagar chose this game to make his worst blunder of the season losing his queen! Joseph also lost quickly and said it was his "worst perforamce of the season"!

Ollie put up a good fight against the CCA chairman Andrew French and Andrew said Ollie played well for most of the game, but Andrew's greater experience showed in the end.

As is often the case, Wes was last finished! He was a piece for 2 pawns up, but with a very draughty looking king. The complexity of the position left him on 10 minutes remaining when Martin still had over an hour which proved fatal. Martin forced a checkmate and said afterwards that Wes had used too much time on some of the early moves.

For Great Ayton, this win means they can't be caught in the Team Swiss compeition now. Great Ayton club are looking for an unprecedented treble when they take on Middlesbrough in the cup final next week. Well done to all of the Bries and particularly our favourite opposition team blog writer!

For us a defeat, but nevertheless the progress of our junior players this season has been phenomenal! Last season we had 1 junior player who didn't win a game in the league. This season we've had 12 under 18's play in the league for us and 11 of them have won at least 1 league match. Sagar and Wes are both in our top 10 players on rating and Joseph is heading there as well after going up about 150 rating points this season. Between them, our junior players have won 9 age group titles and 15 medals in the big 3 local junior events over the last couple of months and we also have 10 players going to the regional Gigafinal at the start of July. Next season is going to be an exciting one at Thornaby Chess Club!

Date:10/06/2023  Next generation shine at Teesside Junior Chamionships!

 

It was a very good day at the Teesside Junior championships for the club and library with 2 champions and a further 4 medallists across the 3 categories. An impressive total of 118 children from 19 schools competed across the 3 categories and 16 of them were from our club, library and the school clubs we run.

The stand out performance was the Under 9 category where Isaac surprised everyone including himself by beating Tashil in an earlier round! In the end, Isaac and Jap were the 2 joint champions in this category with 4.5 and Tashil recovered to win his remaining games for 4 points and Joint 3rd.

This was the first time we've had anyone in the Under 7 category and our newest library star Lucas didn't disappoint finishing with 4 out of 5 and the status of joint runner up! Lucas is only 6 years old and our youngest ever medallist. He still has another year to go in this category! The winner of the category was Yarm School's impressive Jayden Wang.

The Under 11 section was very competitive with a multitude of club players, junior event champions and school champions taking part. Tristan and Agam managed to negotiate through the difficult field to finish with 4 out of 5 for a share of joint 3rd. The category was won by Redcar's Stanley Allan with a difficult to get 5 out of 5 in such a loaded field. Stanley is of course well known to us having played a couple of games "on loan" for our junior team this season. We're pleased to have helped a talented youngster on his way by giving him some proper match experience in the league. Apparently Redcar have joined the junior bandwagon and have a good group of 4 youngsters at the club now and are hoping to run a B team again next season. Good news for chess in the area!

Brothers Jap and Agam have been coming to the library for quite a long time now, but this was their first ever external competition and it was a fantastic performance for both to finish in the medals! I'm particularly pleased for Agam. I've been trying to convince him to have a go at a competition for over a year and he kept telling me he wasn't good enough!

Well done to all 16 of our children, as well as the medallists there were lots in contention on 3 and 3.5. They all acquitted themselves well and seem to have had an enjoyable day! It's nice to see them do well, but the most important thing to me is that Sean Marsh commented on their sportsmanship and manners when I was chatting to him afterwards!

Chris

FULL RESULTS:
Under 11
Tristan and Agam 4pts/5 (Joint 3rd)
Sam 3.5
George 3
Harrison 3

Under 9
Isaac and Jap 4.5pts/5 (Joint winners!)
Tashil 4 (Joint 3rd)
Paulina, Shadrach, Harvey 3
Freya, Ben 2
Seb 1

Under 7
Lucas 4pts/5 (Joint Runner Up!)
Angela 1.5

Date:09/06/2023  Iain wins Fantasy Chess Season!

The final league matches have been played and the Fantasy Chess season is complete! Iain has led from start to finish and never really looked like getting caught. Joseph and Ollie were pushing Brian closer over the last couple of months, but a strong month from Joe McGinnis kept Iain nicely ahead. Iain managed to find the top scorer in 4 of the 7 categories including our top scorer in each of the 3 CCA divisions (Francis 7 in the A, Joe McGinnis 8 in the B and Sagar 6.5 in the C). Well done to Iain! A prize will be awarded soon!

The big miss by everyone was Sam in the Durham League who finished with 7 points, 3.5 more than anyone else!

FINAL TABLE:
Iain Mellis 33pts
Brian Ellis 28pts
Ian Swales 26pts
Francis Batchelor 23pts
Joseph Machin 22pts
Sagar Patil 21pts
Chris Swales 21pts
Harris Wilson 21pts
Ollie Walton 20pts
Joe McGinnis 20pts
Fletcher Hoyland 20pts
Laura Holdforth 19pts
Mike Creaney 16pts
Nick Tadd 8pts

THE DREAM TEAM WAS:
Aces) Francis Batchelor 7pts
Bombers) Joe McGinnis 8pts
B52s) James Urwin 5.5pts
Challengers) Sagar Patil 6.5pts
Cadets) Joseph Machin 4.5pts
Wild Card) Ollie Walton 2.5pts
Durham) Sam Greig 7pts
MAX TOTAL: 41pts

Date:07/06/2023  Bombers finish strongly!

Billingham A ½-3½ Thornaby Bombers
Paul Frank 0-1 Sam Greig
Gary Leighton 0-1 Mike Creaney
Brian Whitaker 0-1 Joe McGinnis
Paul Weightman ½-½ Pete Townson

An excellent finish to the season for the Bombers, with two 3½-½ wins in succession. Unusually we were the higher graded team last night, except on board 4 and the results reflected this.

Pete managed a highly creditable draw with Paul Weightman. The games were all pretty long; I was focused on my own battle with Brian and didn't know what else was happening, but it seemed like three finished in quick succession. I had to pay a quick visit to the toilets as soon as my game was over (fortunately it did not go to a long and complex endgame!), and came back to discover Sam had won, Mike's opponent was playing on despite being a queen down, and Pete had a knight and 2 pawns versus 3 pawns. Unfortunately his pawns were doubled and stuck on the g file and he needed his knight to deal with Paul's passed a-pawn. As Mike says, it was probably drawn at this point, but perhaps winning several moves previously if Pete had got his king over earlier.

I came out of the opening OK against Brian, but lost my way a bit in the middle game. I thought I was losing, and threw in a fairy desperate f4, hoping he might attend to his threatened bishop and miss the fact that it was preventing a fork on king and queen. He didn't, but a couple of moves later he pushed f5 himself to stop me doing so. It looked safe, but wasn't; after exchanging pawns he missed that I could take again with my bishop, and he couldn't recapture with his rook as the bishop move had opened the way for my queen to deliver a check which would have won the rook. With the pawns gone, his king was wide open (as was mine, but I got in first!) and I was able to win the exchange whatever he played. After that I took the queens off, then a pair of rooks, leaving me with a rook and an extra pawn against his bishop - a straightforward but not necessarily quick win, greatly accelerated by his blundering the bishop while trying to stop my pawn.

Joe

Date:07/06/2023  Best ever win for Joseph!

Darlington B 3-1 Thornaby B52s
Luke Owen 1-0 James Urwin
Jonathan Sams 1-0 Bill March
Richard Harris 1-0 Brad Werritt
Alex Kalyviotis 0-1 Joseph Machin

The B52s finished their season against a strong Darlington side. Heavily outgraded, the top 3 boards went as expected with James, Bill and Brad all succombing to their more illustrious opponents.

Board 4 was a different story and Joseph played probably his longest ever game at 3 hours and also got his best ever win in terms of rating! Alex has had a good season and is rated 1648, but Joseph came out on top! A great sign of his increasing skill and maturity that bodes well for next season.

The B52s were intended as a development team for us and can hold their heads high with a win and 5 draws and a 22-34 board difference from 14 matches across the season. At the start we said if 1 or 2 players can get close to a 50% record, it would be a success. In the end James, Iain and Wes all had very solid seasons with performace ratings over 1650. Joseph and Brad got experience and points at the higher level and the more experienced duo of Bill and Geoff chipped in with points as well. Well done to James for captaining the team this season and getting so much more than we expected from his players!

Date:06/06/2023  Ladder grows to 40!

Tonight at the club we had a ladder night with 16 players playing at least 3 matches in the club ladder competition. The big winners on the night were Andy and Joseph who climbed to 4th and 5th respectively.

Several of our new members took the chance to play their first competitive games (the ladder is rapid rated) and we now have a record 40 players on the ladder! The highest of our newbies at the end of the night was Mehmet who has already reached position 31. Full details and latest standings are here.

Date:30/05/2023  Challengers leapfrog Cadets!

Thornaby Cadets 0-4 Thornaby Challengers
Rosie Irwin 0-1 James Urwin
Toefl Lankapura 0-1 Callum Abbott
Tashil Lankapura 0-1 Pete Townson
Sam Stevenson 0-1 Malcolm Goldspink

The C division campaigns for our 2 teams finished with a match against each other and an emphatic win for the Challengers saw them jump over the Cadets in the table to take 6th place!

With Sagar playing for the Aces and Joseph and Wes away for half term, the Cadets were under strength, but nevertheless they put up a decent fight:

Tashil was a couple of pawns down, but had Pete in trouble at one stage and possibly missed a chance to go ahead. Pete is proving to be a very solid player for us though and he weathered the storm and came out on top.

Sam and Malcolm's game looked level for most of the time, but Malcolm managed to come through in a rook and bishop endgame. Sam resigned when he realised he was going to lose a bishop or allow a pawn through.

James had a tough match with Rosie, but managed to get the exchange up and it was easier from there.

Callum managed to get up a piece, but Toefl still battled on well and it took a while for Callum to finally get the victory. It was good to see Callum playing again and he is still on 100% for the season with 2 wins out of 2!

We do largely use the C division to give our players experience and a total of 28 players (Challengers 16, Cadets 12) have played for us in the division this season with 23 of them scoring points! There have been some highlights. When all 3 of Sagar, Joseph and Wes were playing, the Cadets won every match they played including beating both of the top 2 teams in the division (Middlesbrough Bishops by 3.5-0.5!). When the Challengers were at their best they also had some emphatic wins including a 4-0 win at Billingham!

Individually in the season, our top scorers were James (Challengers) and Sagar (Cadets) with 6.5 points each. Joseph played the most matches plaing in 10 out of the 14 for the Cadets while Nick and James featured in 9 for the Challengers.

A bit of trivia to finish on, Toefl and Tashil became the 3rd father and son to play on the same team for us this season. Can you name the other 2 pairs?

Date:30/05/2023  Swales avoids whitewash!

Thornaby Aces ½-4½ Darlington A
Chris Ross 0-1 Steve Dauber
Francis Batchelor 0-1 Kevin Wilson
Brian Ellis 0-1 Luke Owen
Sagar Patil 0-1 Jonathan Sams
Chris Swales ½-½ Richard Harris

An unfortunate result to finish the season, with both teams putting out some of our strongest rated players.

Sagar felt he was winning at one point and was disappointed with the final result. He did offer a draw at one point, but soon after he'd lost a piece for a pawn and was going for perpetual check. The finish was a Queen check on h6 and Jonathan blocked with a rook on h7. Unfortunately Sagar's king was on h3 with nothing in between!

Brian went into an even on material endgame with Luke again, but once again Luke found a way to win.

Chris R felt he had an advantage in the opening, but he overextended and allowed Steve in to win.

Francis' verdict was that he got into a good position, but was impatient with his attack and weakened his king unnecessarily.

Chris S managed to avoid the whitewash by getting a slightly fortunate draw. He said "I was getting slowly crushed in my game, Richard is a very solid positional player. None of his moves were spectacular or unexpected, it was one of those games where it was what he didn't do that showed he's a good player! There were no wasted moves or carelessly placed pawns. No wild attack on a particular side of the board. The position of every piece and pawn was carefully thought through based on my position. He slowly waited and probed until he could push his pawns one further square or force a swap that was in his favour. He never got material up, but for about an hour or more I felt like defeat was inevitable. At the end he looked like he'd won a piece with my knight pinned against my queen and his bishop and queen pointing at it. I moved my queen to c8 and he took the knight, but this allowed me to get a check on c1. He was able to avoid the perpetual check at first, but I was able to threaten his bishop and repeat moves to force a draw. Time was possibly a factor for him, he was down to about 13 minutes to my 45, so I think he was happy to just take a draw at this point rather than try to work through the complications of how to avoid the perpetual checks. This one was definitely a bit of a get out of jail free card, Steve Dauber said to Richard afterwards “How did you not win that!” which I'm pretty sure is what he was also thinking! Maybe the new club T-Shirts are lucky!"

So a disapppointing end to the season for the Aces who finish 5th in the table. We have reasons for optimism next year though, with a lot of players in the club having ratings heading upwards towards A division standard. Sam definitely looks like the real deal and he'll hopefully be a good board 3 player for us next season.

Date:30/05/2023  Sam wins County Championship!

The results are in and we can confirm that Sam has just been announced at the Under 1600 rating County Champion for Durham County! Sam's impressive 6 wins and 2 draws in 8 league games put him well ahead of his nearest rival, Barry Edgar from Hetton Lyons.

Sam takes home the William Bentley Trophy! Well done to Sam and the other 3 County Champions for Durham this season:

Overall: David Mooney - South Shields
Under 1950: George Gazis - Durham City
Under 1750: Daniel Turnbull - Peterlee
Under 1600: Sam Greig - Thornaby

Date:27/05/2023  Freya wins School Championship!

Following on from Tristan's success earlier in the year, Freya has just won the Delancey UK Challenge School stage for her school. Despite playing fewer games due to illness, Freya still tied for first place in her Holy Trinity Rosehill school!

As a result of her achievement, Freya has been selected for the school chess team of four students and will be playing her first match for them in the coming weeks.

Freya has only been coming to the library for a few months, but has made a phenomenal start to chess! Having already finished 3rd in the Teesside Megafinal, this is another great result! Well done Freya!

Date:23/05/2023  Bombers flying high!

Thornaby Bombers 3½-½ Darlington B
Sam Greig 1-0 Jonathan Sams
Chris Swales ½-½ Robert Donner
Joe McGinnis 1-0 Carl Stephens
Pete Townson 1-0 Sam Ball

After a season of (mostly) narrow defeats, the Bombers came good in the last home match, blowing away Darlington B 3.5-0.5. It wasn't the strongest Darlington team, but we were not at full strength either, missing Sagar and Mike. We were still outgraded on every board, but for once we managed to overcome the odds:

I finished first. Carl thought he had the advantage at move 15, and he may well have been right, but his 16th and 17th moves were dubious as he failed to see what I was aiming for on the king's side, and his 19th disastrous, losing a piece at least. He thought for a while and then resigned, probably correctly as I think I would have hit him with a series of checks leading to further hefty material loss.

At this point, Chris and Pete were both level on material, but Sam was already up the exchange against Jonathan Sams. Chris agreed a draw shortly afterwards, with a bishop and 7 pawns each and no obvious way of breaking through.

Pete had R and B v R and N, but importantly a passed pawn on the queen's side while his opponent had a 4-3 majority on the king's side. Next time I looked Pete had forced the exchange of the pawn for the knight, technically a winning advantage but still with some work to do. His opponent then stumbled into a nice checkmate, probably missing the fact that the rook going to h8 would be guarded by the bishop on the long diagonal. So a good B division debut for Pete, getting the point that sealed the match.

Board 1 went down to the wire. Sam retained his material advantage throughout, but as the clocks ticked down both players apparently missed winning chances. Jonathan resigned with 3 minutes left, I think because in order to get out of check he would either leave a knight en prise, or make it impossible for his king to stop Sam's passed pawn. His team-mates promptly swooped in to tell him how he could have won - usually it's the top board player who does that when somebody lower down has blown it! They also pointed out an easy win that Sam had missed earlier. There is a quote by (I think ) Tarrasch to the effect that the winner of a chess game is the one who makes the second- last mistake, which seems to have been demonstrated in this one!

Joe

Date:23/05/2023  Champions smash B52s!

Thornaby B52s 0-4 The Buffs
James Urwin (1550) 0-1 Sean Marsh (2213)
Joseph Machin (1365) 0-1 John Garnett (1945)
Toefl Lankapura (1100) 0-1 Mercia Baldea (1579)
Andy Austen (1059) 0-1 Stephen Ollis (1465)

With 5 regular players missing from our B division development team and playing against the team that have already sealed the title, this was probably the most mis-matched league game in CCA history at least in terms of the rating differences on each board! The total rating difference between the teams was over 2100! Sometimes in sport the underdog defies the odds and gives the favourite a bloody nose. Unfortunately this one went exactly as the ratings predicted!

Joseph (-580) was first finished. He completely mis-calculated a combination and ended up a rook down. Pretty fatal against anyone, but against a player like John definitely lost!

Toefl (-479) didn't last much longer. In his first B division match, he said afterwards "This is a different level!"

James (-663) played local legend Sean Marsh and was pleased with his performance and the kind words from Sean after the game. Apparently Sean has been "following James' results"!

As is often the case, Andy (-406) was last finished and put up a good fight against a much higher rated player. He looked good for at least a draw for a long time, but unfortunately Stephen came out on top in the end.

We can still be proud of our team. No other club has 3 teams in the top 2 divisions and with 5 regular players missing, it's good that we could still field a team that could play anything that resembled a competitive match! Any other club in the league would most likely have defaulted or re-arranged the match in the same circumstances!

Date:23/05/2023  David and Geoff maintain 100% records!

In the penultimate round of the Club Championship B division, David and Geoff kept up their 100% records. David beat pre-tournament favourite Toefl in a complicated middle game and Geoff got the better of Malcolm in a rook and pawn endgame. The 2 will meet in a Championship decider in the final round. Good luck to both players!

There were some good performances from our junior players with Tristan coming close to beating Ollie, but finishing with a draw after a mistake in the endgame. Sam, Will and James all beat adult players and Tashil continued his recent good form picking up another competitive win in a quick fire game against Finn.

Full information on the competition with all of the darw and round results is here.

Date:19/05/2023  Club T-Shirts Now Available!

For the first time ever, we have club T-Shirts that can be ordered! All of the male supermodels I was going to use for the photo shoot were busy, but the picture below shows what they look like! It's only £7.20 to buy one. Email me directly, or email the club via mail@ThornabyChessClub.co.uk for details on how to order one.

Chris

Date:18/05/2023  Durham League 4th place for Thornaby!

Our inaugral season in the Durham League has concluded. The last match earlier this week saw Peterlee beating Darlington B and this meant Thornaby finished 4th out of 9 in the B division! With 2 very strong teams in the B division this year, we performed well with only 4 losses in 16 matches.

The highlight of the season was definitely our away win against the eventual champions Hetton Lyons, their only defeat of the season! Having just 1 team in the Durham League allowed us a lot of flexibility in terms of who played and all season we've tried to share the games round whilst still giving our opponents close matches. Our 4 wins, 8 draws and 4 losses show that we managed to do that pretty well! Francis was part of this flexibility and said he would play if our opponents had a strong board 1. Against Hetton we played our strongest possible team including Francis and managed to get a win and a draw overall in the 2 matches. We used some of our other matches to develop players and give them extra experience.

Congratulations from us to Hetton Lyons on winning the B division. Also, congratulations from us to South Shields who won the A division. Fide Masters Tim Wall and Dave Mooney along with National Master Dave Walker proved to be a strong trio on the top 2 or 3 boards in most of their A division matches!

A total of 15 different players took part during the season for Thornaby. Full details are here, but the main individuals to note were Sam and Mike. Sam finished the season with an impressive 7 points from 8 games and finished amongst the top 10 individual scorers in the division. As well as being the regular home night captain, Mike soldiered away on board 1 for us for most of the season and easily played the most matches at 12. Mike was often heavily out-rated, but still finished with 3.5 and having him on board 1 allowed others in the club to get more competitive games.

All in all it was an enjoyable season from our point of view: visiting new clubs, taking on new players and having plenty of exciting competitive games and matches.


Stats

Final Table
1) Hetton Lyons 26pts
2) Durham Univeristy B 23pts
3) Peterlee 18pts
4) THORNABY 16pts
5) Darlington B 16pts
6) Durham City C 14pts
7) Hartlepool 11pts
8) Durham University C 10pts
9) Bishop Auckland 10pts

Thornaby Individual Most Pts
1) Sam Greig 7.5
2) Mike Creaney 3.5
=) Joe McGinnis 3.5
=) Chris Swales 3.5
=) James Urwin 3.5

Thornaby Individual Most Appearances
1) Mike Creaney 12
2) Sam Greig 8
3) Joe McGinnis 7
=) Chris Swales 7
5) James Urwin 6
6) David Pizzi 4

Date:16/05/2023  Best ever win for Sam!

Thornaby Aces 2-3 Middlesbrough Rooks
Batchelor, Francis 0-1 Nicholas Tavoularis
Sam Greig 1-0 Giuseppe Magazzu
Brian Ellis ½-½ Stephen Cole
Mike Creaney ½-½ Peter Ridsdale
Joe McGinnis 0-1 Ray Pallister

Another close contest with the Rooks!

Joe and I put us behind on the board with the losses first. Joe's light squares showed a weakness in the opening to let his opponent invade. I got a few chances to create an even game, but ultimately was out-calculated in the sharp middlegame.

The other matches went much deeper into the evening. Brian with a good draw, an opposite side castling game and I think it was his opponent forcing perpetual checks to claim it. Mike was in a way lucky and unlucky. He has a won endgame but was running out of time. We must applaud Peter's sportsmanship for taking the draw right when Mike was on seconds left to go. I'd estimate with about 2mins more on his clock Mike would've got the win.

Finally, Sam completed his best ever result with a win on time. He was up a pawn and it went into a difficult R+B endgame. It might have been difficult to prove how to win rather than draw, but Guiseppe ran out of time.

Only one match to go for Aces in the league this year, in 2 weeks at home vs Darlington.

Francis

Date:16/05/2023  James ends Roe's unbeaten record!

Thornaby Challengers 1-3 Billingham Synthonia B
James Urwin 1-0 Stephen Roe
Pete Townson 0-1 Brian Whitaker
Nick Tadd 0-1 Gary Leighton
Malcolm Goldspink 0-1 Ben Dodgson

A tough match against the top team in the division. The highlight was undoubtedly that James managed to defeat C division top scorer Stephen Roe!

Going into the match Stephen was unbeaten in the C division with 7.5/8 and James managed to establish a lead on time if nothing else in the early part of the game. The game finished with an interesting endgame with James having a rook a bishop and 2 pawns against a rook and 5 pawns with 3 of them passed and connected. Stephen blundered a pawn when he was starting to get in time trouble and James converted from there.

Malcolm and Nick put up a good fight, but found their opponents too strong. Pete was even for most of the game against Brian, but missed a queen tactic that won Brian a pawn and he was able to win the endgame from there.

Billingham B just need to win their last game to take the title. The last game of the season for the Challengers is in 2 weeks time against the other Thornaby team in the division!

Date:15/05/2023  First League win for Sam!

Darlington C 3-1 Thornaby Cadets
Robert Donner 1-0 Wes Park
Chris Sinu 1-0 Toefl Lankapura
Mark Turner 1-0 Andy Austen
Jack Decosemo 0-1 Sam Stevenson

A tough night for the Cadets at Darlington, but great for Sam that he got his first league win!

The match got off to a bad start when Wes started feeling ill and resigned his game.

Sam had played a game in the D division, but was called up to the higher level following his excellent recent results in Junior events. He didn't disappoint and it was a great first league win on his C division debut! Well done to Sam, I'm sure it will be the first of many!

Andy was up against a releative newcomer to Darlington in Mark Turner and found him too tough to crack.

Toefl ended up a knight down against Darlington's best junior player Chris Sinu and couldn't get back into the game from there.

Last game of the season for the Cadets is in 2 weeks time against the other Thornaby team!

Date:15/05/2023  Darlington Junior Competition Report!

I've got the full info on the event now. Players came from all over Durham, Northumberland and Cleveland to take part in the competition and the standard of play was very high. It's great credit to our club that we had so many competitive players scoring 3 or more and we also had 2 out of the 4 champions! A great result for Rhys as well finishing runner up in the oldest age category and Tristan and Sam were just outside the medals in the age 9-10 section.

The older 2 sections and younger 2 sections were combined for pairing purposes, but a top 3 was awarded in each of the 4 age sections. Forest Hall's Joe Eggert won the 14-16 section, but did lose out to Sagar during the event and Durham City's Daniel Sewart won the age 9-10 section.


Age 14-16
Rhys was runner up with 4/6!

Age 11-13
Sagar was the champion with 6/6!
Wes finished on 3.5/6

Age 9-10
Sam finished on 4/6
Tristan finished on 3.5/6
George finished on 3/6

Age 7-8
Tashil was the champion with 5/6!
Isaac finished with 3/6
Freya was the best girl on 2/6

Photo shows 4 Thornaby players in contention! All with black on the top 4 boards as the Junior section comes towards the end!

Date:14/05/2023  Thornaby Junior Stars Shine Again!

In todays Darlington Junior Competition, 2 of Thornaby's brightest young talents continued their excellent form from the Megafinal of 2 weeks ago. Both Sagar and Tashil were age group champions again! Thornaby had 9 players taking part across the 4 age categories with several others well in contention for honours going into the last 2 rounds. I'll give a full report when I have all of the details!

Date:14/05/2023  Good Congress Debuts for Pete and Joseph!

5 Thornaby players were at the Durham County Chess congress over the weekend. Pete and Joseph were playing in a Congress for the first time and were in the minor section. Joseph played well to finish on 2.5/5. Pete had an excellent first event and managed to finish the tournament unbeaten with 1 win and 4 draws for 3/5!

In the major section, Sam continued his good recent results with 3/5 and Mike finished with 1.5/5. In the Open section, Francis finished in the middle of the pack with 2.5/5

Date:09/05/2023  Honours even in B Division local derby!

Thornaby B52s 2-2 Thornaby Bombers
James Urwin ½-½ Chris Swales
Iain Mellis 1-0 Mike Creaney
Bill March 0-1 Sagar Patil
Wes Park ½-½ Joe McGinnis

At the start of the season this would have been considered a surprising result, but the B52s have been consistently competitive in the B division all season and a close match was expected with Sam unavailable for the Bombers.

Chris and James were first finished. James was 2 pawns up in the game at one stage, but Chris had 2 active rooks and a queen and managed to get a pawn back and swap things down into a drawn endgame position. Chris said "I played a couple of moves too fast when I thought we were still in the opening! I thought I'd established a strong pawn centre, but what I actually established was my 2 central pawns disappearing 5 moves later!"

Sagar was a pawn down against Bill, but managed to get it back and then converted the endgame after a sacrifice from Bill to gain advanced pawns didn't pan out.

Mike was happy with his position at move 21, but when he declined to castle things started to turn in Iain's favour. The winning advantage was achieved on move 25 when Mike missed Qa5+ winning a pawn and trapping Mikes King exactly where he wanted it. Iain proceeded to grind out the result from there.

A protracted struggle between Wes and Joe proved the maxim that rook and pawn endgames are always draws. Joe was actually in a winning position, but with only a minute on the clock he made a couple of psoitional mistakes and couldn't convert. Computer analysis showed Wes slightly ahead in the middle game, but the advantage switched to Joe after he got a pawn up.

So a good close match that showcased the strength in depth the club has now!

Date:03/05/2023  Early Coronation Day for Great Ayton!

Great Ayton A 3½-1½ Thornaby Aces
Virgil Szekely ½-½ Francis Batchelor
David Wise 1-0 Sam Greig
Steven Booth 0-1 Chris Swales
Andrew Smith 1-0 Mike Creaney
Martin McLoughlin 1-0 James Urwin

Coronation day came early in the CCA with Great Ayton claiming their first ever A division title after a win over the Aces! Congratulations to them, we do see a lot of them during the season in various competitions and it's always a friendly club to visit!

From the Aces point of view, we gave them all good matches tonight, and it wasn't too far off a few matches flipping to cause them an upset in their goal for a perfect season!

Chris gave us the first result against my work colleague Steve, a great result for him. It looked a tight game that moved into an endgame with his king much better placed and he mopped up several pawns to get the victory.

I then drew with Virgil, when really, we both backed away with a draw when a result might have happened. He was much lower on time but up a pawn, so I was happy to take a draw after being under pressure and from the opening. He's a player that seems to always find my Achilles heel!

James lost a pawn quite early, but it was never a very secure advantage. There was a moment when they both thought Martin had blundered his advantage, but a check to escape saved him. It went down the pawns only endgame though where the 1 pawn advantage counted.

Mike was in an exciting game where his king stayed in the middle of board and he was launching big attacks on his opponents Q-side castled king. He unfortunately dropped pawns during his attack and didn't get enough compensation to see an advantage.

Finally, Sam took Dave the distance to under 5mins left each. He was down a pawn for much of the game, but it was a doubled c-pawn and was in a precarious spot. A draw might have been salvageable but the difficult queenside majority saw through for his opponent.

2 matches left of the season, Middlesbrough Rooks at home next on the 16th.

Francis

Date:03/05/2023  Solid draw for Geoff!

Great Ayton C 3-1 Thornaby Challengers
Jim Rogers ½-½ Geoff Mann
Gordon Dickinson 1-0 Nick Tadd
Connor Wilson 1-0 Malcolm Goldspink
Tom Brough ½-½ James Mann

The Challengers put up a good fight on every board, particularly as we were heavily outgraded on the top three boards.

Congratulations to Geoff and James Mann for gaining two draws. As I was embroiled in a long tussle with Gordon, I didn't get to see much of the other matches.

Geoff was first to finish in what certainly looked like a drawn game. Jim is pretty much the definition of a solid club player and it shows Geoff's progress over the last few months that he can get a draw with him. Then James got out of jail to achieve his draw from what appeared to be a lost game when he was a rook down towards the end. Then after a very close encounter Malcolm eventually had to concede.

My game with Gordon went on to the bitter end with both of us running our clocks down. The middle game was very tight with Gordon quite boxed in. (He said to me afterwards if I had asked for a draw at this time he would have agreed one!) Typical! But I played on hoping that I could win to draw the match but one careless move which ended with my Rook and Bishop getting forked by his Knight led to my ultimate demise.

Nick

Date:02/05/2023  Rampant Cadets hammer Bishops!

Thornaby Cadets 3½-½ Middlesbrough Bishops
Sagar Patil 1-0 Nikhil Bhandari
Wes Park 1-0 Sahil Farooq
Joseph Machin 1-0 Ged Murphy
David Pizzi ½-½ Chris Rumsey

3 of our recently crowned Teesside Megafinal champions continued their amazing form from the weekend with all of them winniing. This combined to give us an incredible result against top of the table Middlesbrough Bishops who had also won their 3 previous matches!

-Sagar got a pawn up and never really let Nikhil into the game.

-David and Chris still had quite a few pieces left on, but agreed it was a draw.

-Joseph showed a new level of patience and maturity to outplay his opponent in a rook and 4 pawns each endgame!

-Wes thought he was slightly behind, but in the end Sahil blundered a knight. Sahil played all the way to checkmate even though the position was completely lost for quite a while! Wes had his knight protecting a pawn on the a file and Sahils king couldn't move because it had to defend it while Wes queened his other pawn on the king side.

We were up against a very strong team for the C Division and this result really does demonstrate how 3 of our top juniors are progressing. On the same night and in the same room, Ollie moved on to 3 out of 4 in the club championship by beating Pete and then followed it up with a win in the ladder competition against Joe McGinnis! The future is bright for Thornaby Chess Club!

Date:30/04/2023  Megafinal Success for Thornaby!

I'm happy to report a very successful day at the Teesside Megafinal for Thornaby chess club and Thornaby Library, emphasising our commitment to junior chess and the effort we put in. The Megafinal is part of the biggest youth chess competition in the country and leads to a regional, then a national final for successful players. We had 4 champions across the 5 age categories, 2 further medallists and a total of 9 players qualifying for the regional Gigafinal! Last year we only had 1 (Sagar) who qualified for both the regional and national stage.


Under 14 Boys
Joseph and Wes were joint champions on 4.5/6
Finn and Ewan also qualified for the regional Gigafinal with 3.5/6
Ollie and Harry both just missed out with 3/6

Under 12 Boys
Sagar was the champion with 5.5/6
Sam was joint runner up with 4.5/6 (along with Stanley Allan who is from Redcar club, but played some games for us in the D division)
In his first ever event, Zak scored a creditable 2/6.

Under 10 Boys
Isaac qualified for the regional Gigafinal with 3.5/6
George just missed out with 3/6

Under 10 Girls
Freya was 3rd with 4/6. A great performance in her first event. All the age groups are mixed in terms of the pairings and the girls section in this age group was very strong. The overall under 10 winner was a girl with 6/6.

Under 8 Boys
Tashil was the champion with 6/6

Well done to all of our players who took part! Apologies if I missed anyone from this list, it was busy at the venue!

Some other names people will know. Alice Sturman was girls under 18 champion and Natasha Pointon was girls under 14 champion. Harry Tennant from Billingham finished 3rd in the Boys Under 18s. Ajay who mainly goes to Stockton library, but also comes to us sometimes qualified for the regional final in the under 18 boys.

Date:26/04/2023  Destroyers finish on a high!

Billingham E 1½-2½ Thornaby Destroyers
Graham Edwards ½-½ Geoff Mann
Ben Dodgson 1-0 Vardhan Bunga
Graham Bartram 0-1 Malcolm Goldspink
Sean Cooke 0-1 James Mann

The Destroyers finished the season on a high with a narrow victory over Billingham E!

Malcolm is in form and won again. A 2nd league win for James will be great for his confidence and is a good sign that we have another emerging junior star on our hands!

Vardhan had the short straw of playing Billingham's top up and coming junior Ben Dodgson and he couldn't win this one. Geoff drew on the top board to seal the victory!

The D division has finished now. Destroyers finished 4th and Juniors 5th. Joseph was our top scorer with 3pts on top board for the juniors. Several 2's for the Destroyers (Vardhan, Malcolm and James) and Ollie was also 2/2 for the juniors. It has given valuable experience to everyone who played (15 different player for us in total across the 2 teams). They were close competitive matches and we finished on 19.5-20.5 goal differnce across the 2 teams showing how close it was. Hopefully the concept will return next year as well.

Date:26/04/2023  Club Championship B Division Round 2!

The 2nd round of the Club Championship B Division has finished. There were quite a few adult Vs junior matches in this round and in most cases the adults came out on top! Toefl, Geoff and David all won to leave themselves as the only 3 players on the full 2 points. Meanwhile Tashil got his first competitive standard length game win!

Draw for the next round and full results are here

http://www.thornabychessclub.co.uk/ClubChampionshipBDivision.htm

Date:25/04/2023  Club record for Tashil!

Darlington D 2-2 Thornaby Juniors
Richard Kuby 1-0 Joseph Machin
Xander Gray 0-1 Ollie Walton
Nehemiah Carter 1-0 Finn Whitfield
Jack Decosemo 0-1 Tashil Lankapura

The last league match of the season for the juniors and a good result against top of the table. Ollie continues to have a solid first season and registered another win.

The headlines were stolen by Tashil though as he became our youngest ever winner in a league match at just 8 years old! We knew it would happen soon and it was a typical attacking game from Tashil. He was a piece down, but managed to put a lot of pressure on the e file and force a back rank mate. Both Ollie and Tashil's opponents were on 2 wins out of 3 before the game, so not an easy win by any means.

Richard has done a good job captaining the Darlington juniors and is playing himself in the away games essentially as the driver! He is probably the strongest player in the D division and Joseph blundered twice in quick succession which you won't get away with against a player of this strength. Joseph does finish the season as the teams top scorer though!

Finn was even for most of the game and the position looked quite drawish, but then Finn blundered a rook and it was game over.

STOP PRESS! Congratulations to Billingham D who have won the D division! Our result here meant they could pip Darlington D with a win against Marsh's Angels on Thursday and they managed to get the win they needed.

Date:25/04/2023  Bombers lose to table toppers!

The Buffs 2½-1½ Thornaby Bombers
Sean Marsh 1-0 Sam Greig
Matt Jackman 1-0 Mike Creaney
Mercia Baldea 0-1 Chris Swales
Stephen Ollis ½-½ Sagar Patil

Against top of the table this was always likely to be a tough match, but it was close.

Sagar was first finished. The position was even on material and neither player could see a way forward. Sagar felt his opponent had the marginally better position though and a draw was agreed.

Mike put up a decent showing against the B divisions leading scorer Matt Jackman, but this was always going to be a tough ask with such a big rating difference and he was beaten in the end.

Chris managed to get a pawn up in his game and although he always had an edge he was never totally sure he had it won. The game went into a 1 rook and pawn endgame with Chris still having the pawn edge. The game ended with a blunder when his oppoent allowed a king move from Chris to create a discovered check and win his opponents rook. Forget studying chess theory. After 4 defeats in a row in March, Chris has returned to his lucky T-shirt in April and won 2 out of 2! The T-Shirt says "Always 3 moves ahead"!

Sam gave a good account of himself against local legend Sean Marsh. The game was very open and Sean said there were about 7 moves in a row where it looked like both players were ignoring their opponents moves! Sean got material up and looked close to checkmate when Sam eventually resigned. Sam enjoyed the experience though and said he wants to play more games against opponents like that!

Date:24/04/2023  Good Knights beat B52s!

Middlesbrough Knights 2½-1½ Thornaby B52s
Nikhil Bhandari ½-½ James Urwin
Ged Murphy 1-0 Iain Mellis
Aiden Darlow 0-1 Wes Park
Chris Rumsey 1-0 Geoff Howsden

An unfortunate defeat but a good effort from everyone, once again, especially Wes! I didn't see much of the other games, so the report is limited.

Wes finished first, no idea what happened or the opening, but just that he snagged a win from Aiden Darlow!

Geoff finished next with an unfortunate loss. He surmised the game as a simply awkward game where he was waiting for an error that never came, his opponent eventually got the better of him and won.

My game was against Nikhal, a rematch from my C division match up against him that went much better. I opted for the Queen's Gambit and he responded with the Slav. The opening carried out typically but I had slightly more active pieces as Nikhal had his light square bishop stuck on the back rank. The game played out with myself always better by small or large margins, but it required risky play to capitalise that I was never brave enough to do. I offered a draw first once it became difficult to make meaningful progress. Nikhal opted to carry on a few more moves before offering a draw himself once we rotated our pieces around the board a few times and I agreed.

Last to finish was Iain against Ged Murphy, where Iain made it to the end game being a pawn down. Ultimately he could never win the pawn back and Ged was able to finalise his win.

James

Date:20/04/2023  Thornaby get Bishop Auckland Revenge!

Bishop Auckland 1½-2½ Thornaby
Bryan Bainbridge 0-1 Chris Swales
Paul McGuigan 0-1 Callum Abbott
Deborah Edmundson 1-0 Nick Tadd
Mark Edmundson ½-½ David Pizzi

A successful night in the Durham League. Our opponents fielded exactly the same team that beat us 4-0 at home, so it was no easy game with most of our Durham League regulars playing at Redcar for the Aces or unavailable.

Nick was first finished. He was a piece up and ahead for most of the game. Unfortunately a check from a rook revealed a discovered attack on his queen and he couldn't get back into the game from there.

I finished next against league organiser Bryan. He touched his knight on f6 and moved it to d7 (a natural looking developing move in the position as the kingside was blocked and all the action was on the queenside), but before he let go he realised that it blocked his protection on c7 which would allow me to get a knight fork on king and rook. He put it back and then thought for a while and moved it back to g8! Then his next move was to move it back to f6 again. This disastrous double tempo loss was enough for me to get my rooks doubled up on the open a file and get a pawn up. Bryan resigned at this point rather than suffer the slow death, he was just too far behind in development.

David got his first result in the Durham league after some tough games early in the season. There was a lot of positional manoeuvring and David definitely had the edge for most of the game, but neither player could see a way forward after 20 moves and a draw was agreed.

It was a welcome return to team action for Callum! He was last finished by quite a way and with 10 second move increments they were both down to about 10 minutes each with 70 moves played each. His opponent did get a pawn up, but Callum had created 2 sets of double pawns which always looked like an end game he could at least hold. Callum offered a draw at about move 35 when the position looked locked, but his opponent decided to push for a win and swapped a rook for a bishop and a pawn and tried to push 2 passed pawns. At best this turned the match slightly in Callum's favour and now he looked to have the winning chances. When Callum was starting to get on top his opponent blundered a rook and it was game over in effect and Callum duly converted to give us the overall team win.

It was a fun and late night. We were the last people to leave the venue after Callum's 2 celebratory pints!

Chris

Date:20/04/2023  Aces slip to Redcar defeat!

Redcar 3½-1½ Thornaby Aces
David Baillie ½-½ Francis Batchelor
Gary Dixon 1-0 Mike Creaney
Royce Parker 0-1 Sam Greig
Jason Gentle 1-0 Joe McGinnis
John Cowle 1-0 Brad Werritt

We fall to defeat to Redcar, so need to get something in our last 3 matches of the season now!

The defeats came first. Brad was a pawn up but gave his opponent a chance invade his 2nd rank, which caused all sorts of problems and led to a checkmate sequence.

I saw a point for Joe where he had to give up a central pawn to stop a horrible knight fork, then looking later it had turned into a piece down.

Mike played a solid defence that frustrated his opponent. He managed to claim an exchange but in a closed position his opponents pawns started making traction down the board to lead to the defeat.

I had the better of David for most the game. I went up a pawn but if anything tried to make the board too solid with that advantage. By the end I was under 10 minutes and going to find it difficult to win it in that time so agreed a draw.

Sam's game flew back and forth but soon ended up with Q and pawns endgame, he was trying to find a place for his king to go to be safe from the queen checks, knowing he had the advantage if he found it. It went like this for a lot of time and after a big king walk he found the way to win.

Next for us is 3rd of May at runaway champions Great Ayton

Francis

Date:18/04/2023  Captain Nick saves the day!

Thornaby Challengers 2½-1½ Bilingham Synthonia C
James Urwin ½-½ Keith Harrison
Iain Mellis 0-1 Harry Tennant
Nick Tadd 1-0 Paul Scott
Malcolm Goldspink 1-0 Sean Cooke

Unfortunately I didn't see much of the other games as I was locked into a marathon against Paul Scott which went to 70 odd moves before I managed to finish him off - which was just as well, as Thornaby came out on top 2½-1½.

Iain's game finished first against Harry Tennant - one of Billingham's young rising stars. When I had a glimpse of the game earlier on I had assumed Iain had won - but he'd lost somehow!

Second to finish was James Urwin v Keith Harrison on Board 1. It was a very locked position and they agreed a draw.

Next to me on Board 4 was Malcolm playing Sean Cooke. What I saw of the match was Malcolm in a disastrous position in the end game, but quite how he did it I really don't know, but he actually came out with a win!

Well done to all - onwards and upwards!

Nick

Date:17/04/2023  3rd win in a row for Cadets!

Hartlepool B 1½-2½ Thornaby Cadets
Oliver Brightey 0-1 Sagar Patil
Dave Kelly ½-½ Wes Park
Andy Robson 0-1 Joseph Machin
Ed Lightfoot 1-0 Bhima Patil

Another great result for the Cadets earlier this week. A 3rd 2.5-1.5 win in a row. Our top 3 rated junior all continue to impress. Sagar and Joseph both won again and Wes drew agaist the dangerous Dave Kelly.

It's nice to see another club in the CCA doing well in terms of recruitment. All of the Hartlepool players are new this year, but this was no easy match. Dave had won 3 games out of 4. Andy 3 games out of 3 and Oliver 3 out of 6 (on the higher boards against good players) before the match. Bhimma's opponent Ed is newly registered and Bhima found it too tough.

Sagar is closing in on the top scorers in the C division with 5.5 out of 7. He has played all of those games on board 1 as well!

Date:04/04/2023  Honours Even in D Division Derby!

Thornaby Destroyers 2-2 Thornaby Juniors
Janos Mehes 0-1 Joseph Machin
Vardhan Bunga 1-0 Stanley Allan
Andy Austen 0-1 Finn Whitfield
Malcolm Goldspink 1-0 Sam Stevenson

In tonights D Division local derby, the 2 Thornaby teams shared the spoils in a close match.

Malcolm won the board 4 battle of our 2 league debutants, but Sam played well and the game was even for quite a while.

Janos made a mistake early in his game against Joseph and wasn't able to come back.

In the hardest fought game of the night Vardhan came out on top against Stanley, but Vardhan was full of praise for his young opponent afterwards.

That left Finn needing a win against Andy to level the match. When I looked, Finn looked on top, but the position was very open. He did manage to convert soon afterwards though to level the overall match. Well done to Finn, a first league win!

Both teams have 1 game left in the D Division and they're level on points. The title is out of reach now, but final positions and more importantly Thornaby bragging rights are still to play for!

Date:04/04/2023  Sagar stays at the top!

In the latest round of ladder matches, Chris challenged Sagar for top spot. At one stage he thought he'd got a pawn up, but a check from Sagar followed by a fork allowed him to win a rook for a knight. Chris fought on and created a few threats, but Sagar was up to the challenge and found a rook mate with both players down to about 2 minutes on the clock.

Meanwhile Nick defended his 6th place from David and Francis moved menacingly up to 12th with a victory over Laura.

The ladder is open to all of our club members and a good way to have some relatively friendly competitive games. Information and latest standings are here:

http://www.thornabychessclub.co.uk/Ladder.htm