News

Date:24/06/2024  Scottish Gigafinal report!

3 of our top juniors travelled to Scotland at the weekend to play in the Scottish Gigafinal.

In the Under 8 boys section, Jayden was on 4/6 going into the last round. A win would have seen him qualify for the Challengers stage of the event. Unfortunately a final round defeat against "Muiz Ul Meeran Mohamed Nasrudeen Meeran" (a big name in at least one way!) saw Jayden finish in joint 10th.

Shanaya finished on an excellent 3/7 in under 8 girls section, while Zhuoyi finished on 2/7 in the Under 12 boys section.

Meanwhile Teesside Megafinal winner Aashita Roychowdhury dominated the Under 12 girls section with 7/7. The Leeds junior chess club star qualifies for the Terrafinal for a 2nd year in a row. Aashita found the Megafinal slightly tougher with our own Sam Stevenson stopping her getting a clean sweep with a draw in round 5!

The Gigafinal is part of the largest junior chess tournament in the UK (the Delancey UK chess Challenge) which culminates with the Terrafinal later in the year. There are 4 stages School, County (Megafinal), National (Gigafinal) and Finals (Terrafinal). Only 12 players in the country in each age group qualify for the Terrfinal (8 boys and 4 girls). The winners of the Gigafinals qualify directly for the Terrafinal and anyone with 5/7 or better goes into the Challengers stage and a last chance to qualify. At the Teesside Megafinal, we had 15 junior players of our 16 who entered qualify for the 3 national finals (Scottish, Northern and Southern). The Gigafinals always feature some very high level players. The winner of Zhuoyi's under 12 section is already rated over 2000! It is great credit to our youngsters (and their parents) that they are prepared to travel to these events and have a go and show that they can be competitive at this level. Well done to all 3!

Date:08/06/2024  Next generation shine at Teesside Junior!

It was a good day for Thornaby at the Teesside Junior Championships with medallists in all 3 age categories.

In the Under 11 section George was 1 game away from being the champion on 4/4 going into the last round, but he lost out to Yarm School's Miles Page who is always one of the favourites in local junior events. George still got a bronze medal finishing in joint 3rd. Meanwhile Freya was on 3/4 going into the last round, but lost to finish on 3/5. She was still joint runner up of the girls behind Kaira Nalawade.

The Under 9 section was loaded with good players and Tashil had a surprise defeat in an early round, but recovered to finish on 4/5. Jayden also finished on 4/5 and the 2 of them both got bronze medals in joint 3rd. The winner was Dara Jafari from Yarm School. Agam was just outside the medals on 3.5. Paulina finished as joint Runner up of the girls on 2.5 behind Scarlet Yang.

The Under 7 section was the most succesful one for us this time. In their first ever external event, the Hartill brothers finished as joint champions! Matthew was on 4/4 and Joseph 3/4 going into the last round. They were drawn against each other and Joseph got the win he needed to equalise. Azaan finished just outside the medals on 3.5. Regular club visitor Shanaya was the girls champion.

Results
Under 7
1st=) Joseph Hartill, Matthew Hartill 4pts
4th) Azaan Sharif 3pts
Girls Champion) Shanaya Chauhan 2pts

Under 9
3rd=) Tashil Lankapura, Jayden Wang 4pts
8th=) Agam Vats 3.5pts
Girls Runner Up) Paulina Roychoudhury 2.5pts

Under 11
3rd=) George Butterworth 4pts
Girls Runner Up) Freya Hind 3pts

Date:07/06/2024  Tashil wins Billingham Rapidplay!

On Wednesday Tashil was one of 3 players from the club to take part in the Billingham Rapidplay. Despite being the youngest player in the event by a considerable margin, it was another fantastic performance from him to finish as the joint winner on 3/3 along with Billingham A's board 1 John Garnett. Tashil beat league organiser Paul Weightman in round 2 and in round 3, he took out Hartlepool A star Bill Wilson. Bill is a regular winner of these events and has come off the back of a fantastic season in the A division, only losing 1 game (to Steve Dauber) all season.

Tashil already has a fearsome reputation within our club in quick events, but beating a player of Bill's calibre in an external event is a different level again. Just to remind everyone, Tashil is still only 9 years old!

Toefl's most important job was to take Tashil to the event, but he himself finished on a respectable 2 points! Meanwhile Nick, in his own words, "played like a plank" and finished on 0.5!

Date:06/06/2024  Bill reaches 100!

A great season for the club has concluded! All areas of the club have progressed since last season. We were actually the Runners Up in all 6 CCA competitions this season! In a way it was disappointing we didn't win any of them, but you can't really argue that the little table below represents anything other than great progress this season:

22/23 23/24
A Division 5th 2nd
B Division 7th 2nd
C Division 6th 2nd
D Division 4th 2nd
Cup SF RU
Plate QF RU

The history pages on the website have been updated:

http://www.thornabychessclub.co.uk/History.htm
http://www.thornabychessclub.co.uk/PlayerHistory.htm

Here you can find out all kinds of things that you never wanted to know, like who our all-time leading D division scorer is or who has played on board 1 for the Aces the most times!

One I missed at the time was that On 9th April, Bill March played in his 100th match for the club! Well done to Bill on reaching this milestone.

Chris

Date:03/06/2024  Best ever finish for Aces!

Darlington A 2-2 Thornaby Aces
Matthew Holton 0-1 Chris Ross
Kevin Wilson 0-1 Francis Batchelor
Luke Owen 1-0 Chris Swales
Jonathan Sams 1-0 Tom Marwood

Thornaby Aces finish the season with their best ever finish of 2nd in the league!

On debut for the Aces, Tom fell first with an aggressive opening that his defences weren't quite ready for, and the game was over to a checkmate in the middle of the board.

The other games lasted until less than an hour to go. Chris R felt he had a slight edge on his opponent for the game, but it looked destined for a draw. That was until a 1 move mistake from his opponent presented a checkmate to Chris to bring us back to level.

Chris S finished soon after but the result was on the cards for a while. He had lost a pawn in the opening, but his opponent wasn't castled and there might have been some counterplay. When he did stabilise, it was Chris's other pawns that were unconnected and weak, so the game slowly went away from him.

It was on me to force through a win to get our league finish. I played a Stonewall defence against the Catalan, and got ambitious with a g5 push. It was a position with a lot of back and forth repositioning moves (my first pawn came off on move 35), but I went a pawn up as it was offered for counterplay but I thought fair game to take. It still might've ended up a draw but with time getting low there was a few slightly inaccurate moves that allowed me to slowly creep through an advantage.

Congratulations to everyone who played for the Aces this year. It'll go on our record books as our best season, until we win the league! We end up slightly short of the title, and are left to rue our dropped points against the B-teams in the first part of the season. An excellent demonstration that our league format gives fair challenge and opportunity to the B-teams in with us.

I suppose I now need to give myself the pat on the back as best performer, finishing the year with a 12.5/15 (83%) score for the season, and also the point-scoring leader of the top division!

See you all next season!

Francis

Date:01/06/2024  Ajay wins library rapidplay!

The last of our rated library rapidplays of the season took place earlier today. Despite quite a few of the normal favourites being away for the holidays, we still had 18 taking part. Thornaby Bomber, Steve Rodgers was getting in some extra practice and giving our top juniors a test and he finished on 5/5. Ajay was taking a break from his GCSE revision and he won the £20 prize by finishing on 4/5 (only losing to Steve).

It was very close between everyone else. Freya beat her brother in a tense last round match to finish as both girls champion and under 11 champion! Zhuoyi and Rav also finished in joint 3rd to share the Under 14 title. Jayden and Agam drew with each other in an interesting end game and that meant the 2 shared the Under 9 title.

Our under 11 team head for the Teesside Junior Championships next week. Good luck to all!

Top results:
1st) Steve Rodgers 5pts
2nd) Ajay Selvan 4pts (Under 18 champ £20)
3rd) Freya Hind 2pts (Under 11 and Overall Girls Champ)
=) Zhuoyi Lin 2pts (Under 14 Joint Champ)
=) Rav Singh 2pts (Under 14 Joint Champ)
5th) Jayden Wang 1.5pts (Under 9 Joint Champ)
=) Agam Vats 1.5pts (Under 9 Joint Champ)
=) Clair Hartill 1.5pts

Date:01/06/2024  Century for Thornaby!

The latest monthly ratings were published today. A personal target of mine for this season has been achieved as Thornaby have hit a new milestone with 100 players linked to the club on the official site: https://www.ecfrating.org.uk/v2/new/list_players.php?club_code=8GRI

Not all are current members, players stay on this list for 3 years. Also, some have played in 1 event at the club or library without actually joining yet. Then 2 of them are talented juniors from other clubs who have played "on loan" for us in the D division. A "century" sound good though! Our current membership does still stand at a very healthy 78 which is the highest it has ever been.

Our highest climber this month is Jonathan who is up 29 to 1499 thanks to his good showing the Durham Chess Congress. Honourable mentions to Sam Stevenson (up 22 to 1340) and Nick Tadd (up 19 to 1192). Having being the top climber several times recently, Tashil "only" climbed 13 this month, but did go up 61 points in rapid thanks to his most recent library win!

Rhys has his first full rating at exactly 1500 representing a very successful start to competitive chess this season and putting him inside our top 20. This makes him one of 5 under 18 players linked to the club with a full rating of 1500 or more. Sagar still leads the way at 1653, but the others have certainly closed the gap this season.

Chris

Date:28/05/2024  Bombers finish 2nd!

Thornaby B52s 1-3 Thornaby Bombers
Iain Mellis 1-0 Sagar Patil
Thomas Pyman 0-1 Steve Rodgers
Nick Tadd 0-1 Mike Creaney
Neil Sotheby 0-1 Alan Stockley

As expected, the Bombers came on top in the local derby, but not without an early scare!

The B52s got off to a great start when Sagar fell into a carefully prepared opening trap from Iain and the game was over in under 20 minutes!

Mike's game was also very quick and went similarly to a recent quick win in the Durham league. A Colle-Zukertort in which Nick allowed him everything he wanted by pushing too many pawns, neglecting development and going down in 12 moves!

Neil was competitive for a while, but Alan's greater experience showed and he got into an unassailable lead in material.

Thomas was level on material for a long time, but looked to have a slightly exposed king. In the end it was Steve's superior endgame play that won out, but nevertheless a very good performance from Thomas to run him close.

The B52s were put together by us for 5 games to make the league up to an even number after the split and avoid teams having a bye week. As with last season, several players have gained valuable experience at the higher level.

A great season for the Bombers who just missed out on the top half after the split. 2nd in the lower half means the 8th best team in the league overall which is a significant improvement on last seasons 12th.

Date:27/05/2024  Aces title hopes fade!

Middlesbrough Rooks 3-1 Thornaby Aces
Nicholas Tavoularis ½-½ Francis Batchelor
Giuseppe Magazzu 1-0 Matt Jackman
Stephen Cole ½-½ Sam Greig
Paul Gregory 1-0 Chris Swales

Our slight chance at the title fades away with a defeat to a strong Rooks team. Middlesbrough played their top 4 rated players in the same team for the first time this season and we were well outrated on 3 of the 4 boards.

Most of the games lasted a long time, and looked even for most of that, and then all the results seemed to come in very close to each other. Myself and Sam had the draws first. I had a pawn in an endgame, but not a good position to show for it. I was the one who needed to be very precise to avoid collapse so was satisfied to take a repetition draw. Sam's game was tight and he looked to have an edge but very difficult to see any way through. An opposite-coloured bishop endgame went to a draw as could be expected.

Both Matt and Chris has a similar looking games, both with a counterattack down an open file, against a large pawn push through the queenside. Matt fell to pawn getting to the 7th rank and becoming unavoidable to promote. Chris overlooked the follow up move to a back rank check which left him in a hopeless position.

Our final match of the season is next Monday at Darlington. A draw would mean we finish 2nd in the league.

Francis

Date:26/05/2024  Summer Series Launched!

An impressive 21 players have signed up for our new club "Summer Series" tournament! This is for people who want to play some proper full length rated games in the off season. A chance to get some practice in before next season so that we can start with a flyer!

There will be holidays to plan around, so the format is all play all groups of 5 or 6 and there will be no schedule. It will be up to the 2 players to arrange their matches for a convenient date. Matches will need to be played between 28th May and 3rd September. We will do some kind of 1 day finals group in September to decide an overall winner. To try to make the games competitive, the groups have been assigned approximately in rating order. We've tried to put people in groups based on form/rating/development needs and also deliberately kept family members in separate groups as they are likely to be away at the same times. All 4 groups should be competitive for everyone and it looks like it will be a great new event for the club!

Steve Rodgers is the highest rated player and heads group A, but with talented youngsters Ajay and Tashil as well as Pete Townson and the experienced veteran Mike Creaney it will not be an easy group. Group B features some of our strong C division players in Geoff, Toefl and Alan as well as new wild cards Thomas and John. Group C is headed by Malcolm, but with 3 other players in the 1300's on rating and the wiley old campiagners Nick and Janos making up the group it is probably the hardest one to predict. Richard is the top rated player in group D, but our talented rapidly improving young trio of Jayden, Tristan and George will be battling him for the top spot.

Full fixtures are here.

Date:24/05/2024  Bombers Captain Scouts Australia!

Joe has been on holiday in Australia, but has still managed to find time to visit an unusual looking chess venue (at least on the outside). Nice to see the Thornaby Club shirt on its longest away trip so far!

Date:23/05/2024  International Call Up for Tashil!

Earlier today the club were contacted by the organisers of the 2024 Glorney Cup inviting Tashil to play for the international Under 14's team. Unfortunately Tashil will be away in Sri Lanka at the time, but it is another measure of his fantastic progress this season! This shows that his results have been noticed at a national level.

Date:21/05/2024  Aces stay on track!

Thornaby Aces 2½-1½ Darlington B
Francis Batchelor 1-0 Nick Webb
Matt Jackman 0-1 Dominic Leigh
Chris Swales 1-0 Bob Donner
Mike Creaney ½-½ James Garner

Mike was first finished. He looked in trouble at one point, but Mike is always an excellent end game player and he managed to find a way to draw.

Francis defeated recent Durham Congress major section winner Nick. He got a pawn up and then Nick's position collapsed fairly quickly.

Chris completed the match victory with a win over Bob. He did go a couple of pawns down, but it was an opposite side castling game and Chris had already managed to open up the king side with a dangerous looking rook and bishop pointing towards the king. A forced 5 move mating combination followed soon after he went the 2nd pawn down.

Matt looked in command, but a miscalculated rook sacrifice went wrong and Dominic capitalised to get the win.

The Aces are still level on points with Great Ayton A at the top of the table with 2 matches to go!

Date:16/05/2024  4 joint winners of Club Championship B division!

The club championship B division was decided on Tuesday and it finished with a 4 way tie for the title! Will was on 3/3 going into the last round, but a great performance from Zhuoyi to beat him saw 3 players (including Zhuoyi) catch him up! Matt also finished on 3/4 and Jayden won against Neil despite being a rook down at one point to also finish on 3. Well done to everyone who took part and especially our 4 joint winnners!

Full results and standings are here.

Date:15/05/2024  Neil wins again!

Billingham Synthonia B 3-1 Thornaby B52s
Harry Tennant 1-0 Pete Townson
Gary Leighton 1-0 Malcolm Goldspink
Darren Donnison 1-0 Thomas Pyman
Graham Bartram 0-1 Neil Sotheby

With several of the regular B52s needed by the Bombers due to holidays, it was a bit of a scratch team that travelled to Billingham in all honesty. We put up a creditable fight on all board though, but in the end the higher rated players from Billingham proved too strong. Neil (the bearded junior!) did got another win for the team on board 4 to keep up his 100% record this season. Surely an Aces call up is just around the corner! Match report from Neil is below.


Chris


My opponent was also a last minute stand in and I only won because he got a little impatient at my defence and decided to swap his bishop for a pawn. After that I managed to manoeuvre for a mate a little while later. Not my best performance after analysing to be honest but still a win. I think I got very lucky there. Not sure I'm ready for the aces just yet ha ha!

Toms match (we analysed in the bar after) - he was very strong with a slight advantage until mid game. Tom moved a single pawn which opened up a check which he was just unable to come back from. He was gutted.

I didn't see any of Peter's match but he did say that he felt as though he played well and was beaten by the better player on the night. I also heard his opponent Harry talking about pure mathematics and statistics with someone before the game which made me nervous ha ha.

I only saw a little of Malcom's match but seemed very close up until the very end. I saw two rooks side by side staring at his opponents king, but just no way to utilise them unfortunately.

Neil

Date:14/05/2024  Bombers go down to Billingham!

Thornaby Bombers 1½-2½ Billingham A
Mike Creaney 0-1 John Garnett
Iain Mellis ½-½ Stephen Roe
Pete Townson 0-1 Keith Harrison
Stephen Ollis 1-0 Paul Weightman

First and foremost a big thank you to Iain ,Pete,& Steve for coming to the rescue when i was struggling to get a team together due to holidays! To be honest I predicated that a heavy defeat was the most likely outcome which proved overly pessimistic.

No fireworks in my game from John, even less likely from me, I answered his 1.d4 with the Noteboom variation of the Slav, it was even for a while then it got tactical and John won a pawn and in the ensuing endgame with Knight's and Bishops John played the obvious and technically correct move to force a Bishop exchange with a winning Knight and extra pawn endgame.

Pete was embarrassed to show his game afterwards, I saw that he was the exchange down and obviously he couldn't recover from there. Iain had mostly the better game than my nemesis and higher rated Steve Roe but with maybe one or two inaccuracies a level (ish) position arose, he was thinking of pushing for more, but subsequent analysis (not Stockfish) told us that he was correct in conceding the draw. Steve had a firm grip on the position against league organiser Paul and duly squeezed the maximum out of it.

Mike

Date:13/05/2024  Jayden medals again!

In the Darlington Junior event that took place on one of the days of the Durham Congress, "the legendary Jayden Wang" took a bronze medal with an impressive joint 3rd place in the under 11 section. Jayden has proven to be peerless in his own age group in this area, but this event attracts some of the top children from all over Durham, Newcastle and Northumberland as well. Given Jayden would still have 4 more years in this age category, it is a very impressive result! There was no specific girls prize this time, but Freya did finish as the best girl in the section.

The Under 18 and Under 14 sections were merged and our 3 players did well against some much older children. George and Sam both finished just outside the medals on 3/3 with Charles just behind them on 2.5.

Chris

Date:13/05/2024  Durham Congress Results!

6 of our players took part in the Durham Congress over the weekend. Tom Marwood and Sam Greig played in the major section and performed well to both finish on 3/5. On the tie breaker, Tom was 9th overall out of the 48 players. In the minor section Jonathan was our best performer finishing on 3/5. Joseph finished on a creditable 2.5 with Pete on 2 and Alan on 1. Nick Webb from Darlington chess club was the joint winner of the major section.


Major
Tom Marwood 3/5
Sam Greig 3/5

Minor
Jonathan 3/5
Joseph 2.5
Pete 2
Alan 1

Date:08/05/2024  Challengers finish on a high!

Great Ayton C 1½-2½ Thornaby Challengers
Connor Wilson 0-1 Pete Townson
Peter Archer ½-½ Jonathan Feasby
Stephen Gatenby 1-0 Geoff Mann
Alan Jefferson 0-1 Alan Stockley

The Challengers finished their season with a good win at Great Ayton C. Pete was the star performer defeating regular Thornaby nemesis Connor Wilson on board 1. The points were sealed by a win for Alan on board 4 and Jonathan getting a good draw with Peter Archer on board 2. Geoff lost to the erratic Stephen Gatenby on board 3.

An excellent 2nd place finish for the Challengers with 9 wins, 2 draws and 3 losses and only finished behind a very strong Hartlepool B team by 2 points. James Urwin finished as our top scorer across the 3 C division teams with 6.5.

Date:07/05/2024  More final agony for Thornaby!

Thornaby Bombers 2-3 Middlesbrough Knights
Chris Swales 1-0 Sahil Farooq
Sagar Patil 0-1 Jake Pearson
Steve Rodgers 1-0 Ray Pallister
James Urwin 0-1 Robbie Brown
Stephen Ollis 0-1 Ged Murphy

I'm not going to lie, I was devastated with this result as for me personally it was my last chance at the plate! I'll be too high rated next season to play in it. We lost the toss and had 3 whites, so had to win the match 3-2.

-Sagar got in a mess early on and allowed 3 of Jake's pieces onto rows 5,6 and 7 on his queenside. His white squared bishop was trapped on the start square and his queen side rook was threatened for nothing as far as I could see. Sagar did well to create anything at all, but still ended up 2 pawns down. However, once the queens were forced off the endgame was easy for Jake.

-I had a relatively comfortable win over Sahil. Sahil made the unusual request at the start to leave the game for 10 minutes at 9pm so that he could do some kind of raid on a mobile phone game that his is currently addicted to! As someone who is maximum town hall with maximum level heroes on Clash of Clans I totally understood! I got a pawn up on move 16 with a discovered attack and just exchanged down into a won endgame position. Sahil resigned just before 9pm after I'd queened one of the pawns!

-Steve got a pawn up against Ray. I didn't see how it finished, but it was fairly sudden as Steve was out in the bar area not long after me.

-The bottom 2 boards were where it really went wrong. James was a piece up and in control, but too much pressure on his king side forced him to swap his queen off for a rook to avoid mate. Even then it was pretty level on material, but the follow up pawn charge by his opponent was too much to stop.

-Stephen was well in control, but blundered his rook for a piece and lost from there.

Well done to Middlesbrough. All 4 semi-finalists in the plate were very similarly rated and all the games from that stage onwards were 3-2 to one team. They just had that little bit extra when it mattered.

Chris

Date:07/05/2024  Comets streak to local derby win!

Thornaby Comets 2½-1½ Thornaby Cadets
Mike Creaney 1-0 Tashil Lankapura
Malcolm Goldspink ½-½ James Mann
Matt Rowett 0-1 Sam Stevenson
Thomas Pyman 1-0 Ollie Walton

The Cadets were missing most of their regular team with GCSE and mock revision and we had a line-up that looked more like Thornaby Dynasties on a home night! The Comets were missing Steve who was playing in the plate, but all this led to a good competitive match which highlighted the development advantages to us of having these 2 teams!

-Thomas continued his solid start to league chess with a 3rd league win and dispatched Ollie who played a bit too fast!

-Tashil played at a good level for most of his game with Mike despite reminding me of a jack in the box for most of the evening! In between moves he was watching mine and Steve's games a lot, explaining to Thomas how he should have won 10 moves earlier and wandering around looking at all the other games! Mike was a pawn up with 2 rooks each at the end and he found a combination which made nice use of the extra pawn to force checkmate after a mistake by Tashil. Both me and Toefl were pleased with Tashil's level in a long game that was over 2 hours against a strong opponent though. He does need to be playing opponents of this level now.

-James was slightly ahead at one stage, but then slightly got out of jail in the end. When I first saw the endgame, he had 3 pieces against a rook and a piece. The next time I looked he had a knight and 2 pawns against a rook and 2 pawns, but he managed to secure a draw. Malcolm is planning some work on his endgames!

-Sam and Matt played a very crazy attacking game. Both players seemed determined to make the game complicated, at times via the method of giving away pawns and pieces for nothing! A good performance from Sam though, he saw the threats and made his own that were much more devastating. A great follow up to being crowned the joint Teesside boys champion for his age at the weekend.

Both these teams finished well behind the rest of the pack in the C division in 7th (Cadets) and 8th (Comets). We do have to look at the development advantages of having them though. The Comets have been there ready for new players like Steve Rodgers and Thomas Pyman to have a go and also mean Mike Creaney can continue to play all the games for 2 teams now that he is not an A team regular! We don't have to have specific junior teams, but it does give a well defined pathway for players like Tashil, James and Sam to move from the D division to the C division. It is also a good thing for me to say when publicising the club. I say that we "have 10 teams in local leagues and 3 of them are dedicated to junior players". Joseph, Ajay and Rhys are clearly C division level players at least. The biggest issue this season has been that the top board in the C division is just that bit too strong for any of our juniors outside of Sagar. It may be that we have an experienced adult playing on baord 1 for the Cadets next season. Ajay proved very difficult to beat and finished on 2 wins, 8 draws and 2 losses on board 2 and 3 and was our top scorer in the C division across our 2 development teams with 6 points.

Chris

Date:05/05/2024  5 Megafinal Champions for Thornaby!

It was another successful day at the Teesside Megafinal for Thornaby Club and Library. 16 of our players were amongst the 150 children taking part. We had 5 champions, a further 3 medallists and 15 of our 16 players qualified for the regional Gigafinal in Manchester.

Jayden was our star performer winning all of his 6 games to win the Under 8 section. Azaan came close to qualifying in his first Megafinal with 2.5/6.

In the Under 10 section, Freya played very well all day and was up with the leaders after 4 rounds, but after defeats in the last 2 rounds she thought she'd lost her chance. However 3.5 was enough to be the joint girls champion. A first ever girls champion for Thornaby! A boy from Warrington was the overall winner (sorry forgotten the name!). Tashil had a surprise defeat in one of the early rounds, but came through to finish with 5 out of 6 and a share of 2nd place. Isaac Machin just missed the medals on 4.5. Recent library attendees Olly Rutter and Isaac Brette from Fairfield school also qualified for the Gigafinal with 3.5.

The Under 12 section was won by the impressive Aashita Roychowdhury from Leeds with 5.5/6. Aashita won the Under 10 section last year and went on to win the Gigafinal as well to qualify for the national Terrafinal. However, the boys section was a lot closer with 5 boys tied for first on 4.5. Sam managed a last round draw with Aashita to seal his share of the title and Zhuoyi also managed to finish on 4.5, a great first tournament for him! George just missed out on the medals finishing on 4, but he will be in the same age group next year. Rav was also playing in his first event and played very well to qualify for the gigafinal with 3.5.

Entries were lower than last year for the older 2 sections and they were merged together for pairing purposes. This was a really tough competition with regular league players who are 1500+ rating everywhere you looked. Sagar didn't have things all his own way against the boys from the older section, but he was once again the champion of his own age group with 3.5. James finished in 3rd place with 2.5.

In the older section, Joseph went into the last round on board 1 with 3.5 playing against the leader (Billingham's Harry Tennant) who was on 4. A win would have given Joseph the title, but he couldn't pull it off this time. A good tournament win for Harry who looks destined for Billingham's A team next season. Rhys and Sagar agreed a tactical draw in the last round to ensure Gigafinal qualification for both with 3.5. Harris leaped over all of them to finish on 4 and get a share of 3rd place. Very well done to him, a great performance on the day to finish ahead of Joseph, Sagar and Rhys!

What was most pleasing to me was the way they all handled any defeats or disappointments. There were no tears or tantrums!

Chris

Full results:

Under 18
3rd=) Harris Wilson (4)
Gigafinal) Joseph Machin, Rhys Orton (3.5)

Under 14)
Champion) Sagar Patil (3.5)
3rd) James Mann (2.5)

Under 12
Joint Boys Champions) Zhuoyi Lin, Sam Stevenson (4.5)
Gigafinal) George Butterworth (4)
Gigafinal) Rav Singh (3.5)

Under 10
Joint Girls Champion) Freya Hind (3.5)
2nd=) Tashil Lankapura (5)
Gigafinal) Isaac Machin (4.5)
Gigafinal) Olly Rutter, Isaac Brette (3.5)

Under 8
Champion) Jayden Wang (6)
Azaan Sharif (2.5)

Date:04/05/2024  Tashil Takes Title!

It was a reasonable turn out of 21 for the Library rapidplay today, especially considering the Megafinal is tomorrow. Some of our top juniors have GCSE exams coming up and it was a convincing win for last months winner Tashil who took home the £20 prize. The first player to manage to win 2 of these. His toughest game was against Sam where he was the exchange behind, but Sam played it too fast and made a mistake.

James Reidy, who is from the St Pats secondary school chess club, took an impressive joint 3rd and share of the Under 14 prize along with Sam. James has only recently started attending the library sessions. Jayden was the best primary school aged performer (outside of the champion) and Freya was the girls champion. All of these won chocolate prizes! Results:

1 Tashil Lankapura 5 (Champion)
2 Toefl Lankapura 4
3 James Reidy 3 (Joint Under 14 Champion)
= Sam Stevenson 3 (Joint Under 14 Champion)
5 Jayden Wang 2½ (Under 11 Champion)
6 Clair Hartill 2
= Charles Hind 2
= Freya Hind 2 (Girls Champion)
= Bertie Mellis 2

Date:02/05/2024  Durham League Season ends in defeat!

Thornaby 1-3 Peterlee
Steve Rodgers ½-½ Stephen Carter
Joe McGinnis 0-1 Kenneth Boxall
Tom Marwood 0-Bye John Reddington
Mike Creaney ½-½ Logan Richardson

A bad start when Tom had a last minute problem and was a no show. We play our home Durham League matches on Thursday, so there was nobody there to step in. Steve as is becoming the norm recently held an edge but couldn't see a clear path subsequent engine analysis showed the way to get a clear advantage. Joe succumbed to a Knight fork,

I carelessly dropped a pawn out of the opening so it was going to be a struggle, the game lasted 59 moves mainly because of the opposite coloured Bishop endgame which my opponent obligingly and wrongly allowed by letting me exchange Rooks.

Mike

Thornaby finished 6th of 9 in the Durham League B division this season. A good effort from our team as there were 2 very strong teams in the B division this season from Hetton and Delves and also the 2 Durham university teams were both stronger than last year. Mike was our top scorer with 4 and captain Joe played the most games with 10.

Chris

Date:01/05/2024  Top scorer Tashil helps Dynasties finish 2nd!

Billingham Synthonia D 1-3 Thornaby Dynasties
Michael Joynes 0-1 Tashil Lankapura
Martin Curry ½-½ Toefl Lankapura
Paul Scott ½-½ Geoff Mann
Graham Bartram 0-1 James Mann

Everything went to plan for the Dynasties with the team claiming the runner up spot in the D division and Tashil finishing as the divisions top scorer!

The kids are all right securing 2nd place. First finished was James who played quickly against an underrated opponent to secure the first point. James was in control throughout and his opponent resigned after losing both rooks.

Second finished was me. I went a pawn up early in a very tight game with all the pieces in the middle of the board. After an exchange of pieces my opponent got his pawn back and took another pawn to check. I didn't want to trade a bishop for a knight so moved my king to which he perpetually checked and we agreed on a draw. I was content on this knowing we only needed a point now for the win.

Third was Tashil who managed to be too strong in the endgame with too many threats and his opponent resigned.

Toefl finished last. He managed to trade a knight for a rook so was up and the in the end game he had a bishop and two pawns versus a passed pawn. Unfortunately this pawn was too strong and once the bishop caught it his opponent took his last pawn causing a draw.

Great result!

Geoff

A great season for the Dynasties finishing 2nd in the D division. The junior players Tashil, Sam, James and Will have played the bulk of the games, with 2 families travelling to the away games and Dads filling in as reserves in some of the home games as well. James finished on over 50% with 5 out of 8 and Sam was close with 4.5/10 despite playing on board 1 or 2 most of the time. Will had a tough start, but once we sorted his estimated rating so that he wasn't on board 1, he won 3 of his last 5 and currently leads the club championship B division. All 4 Dads can be proud!

Well done to Geoff for captaining and the other Dads for helping out. I'd say it was our smoothest season and best organised team of our 6 teams in the lower 2 divisions.

With Harry Tennant busy helping Billingham's B team beat their A team, Tashil secured the top scorer in the D division honours with 11 out of 12. Tashil could only do what he had to and beat the player who was there though and it has been an incredible season for a 9 year old!

Chris

Date:01/05/2024  Stephen Stops Whitewash!

Great Ayton B 3½-½ Thornaby B52s
Ray Honeybourne ½-½ Stephen Ollis
Mike Pointon 1-0 Rhys Orton
Jim Rogers 1-0 Joseph Machin
Connor Wilson 1-0 Pete Townson

A tough away trip for the B52s. Joseph and Rhys both lost pieces to their more experienced opponents. Stephen managed to hold a draw on board 1 against Ray. Pete went the exchange down against Connor, but put up a good fight before eventually succumbing.

Stephen's report "My game was caro- kann which followed theory for 9 moves until I forgot I got my plans mixed up completely and castled queenside to leave myself in a fairly tied up middle game which the engine had as even but looked fairly miserable for me to play. However Ray also felt it looked miserable and offered a draw and as we were 2-0 down and Pete was down an exchange and looking lost I happily accepted!"

Date:30/04/2024  Zhuoyi wins again!

Thornaby Juniors 1½-2½ Billingham Synthonia E
Tristan Green 0-1 Stuart McLaughlin
Zhuoyi Lin 1-0 Nicky Britton
George Butterworth ½-½ Nicola Harrington
Jayden Wang 0-1 Sean Cooke

A good effort from the juniors against the new champions with all the games lasting a good amount of time and all of them close for a while.

Tristan was first finished. Stuart has had a great season on board 1 for Billingham E and will be too high rated for the D division next season. The rating gap of around 500 proved a bridge too far for Tristan! A decent effort for a while, but he ended up a rook down.

Jayden lost a piece against Sean. He did create some threats, notably with his 2 bishops placed on e5 and d5 for several moves, but he couldn't find a way through.

George got out of jail a bit as he was losing by a knight and a pawn going into the endgame, but managed to push a pawn far enough to force the knight off and get a draw.

It was another good performance from Zhuoyi on board 2. He got 2 pawns up against the Billingham captain Nicky and ruthlessly converted a rook and pawn endgame. Nicky said afterwards, "I may not be able to win against Thornaby players, but at least I can win as a captain!"

A tough second half of the season (particualrly on the top 2 boards) concludes with the Juniors finishing 8th of 8 in the D division with 3 wins, 2 draws and 9 losses. The 3 wins were all in the first 5 games. Ultimately, it is a development team for us and we're not worried about the league position. A board difference of 22-34 shows the team were at least competitive in most of the matches. Tristan featured in the most games with 9 appearances. George finished as the team's top scorer with 3.5 out of 6. We gave a lot of players a taste of league chess with 18 different players featuring for the team this season and 14 of them winning at least one game. Zhuoyi is one of several who looks likely to play at a higher level very soon. With our Cadets and Dynasties joining them, our junior team heads to the Teesside Megafinal this weekend in great shape!

Chris

Date:24/04/2024  Will leads B Division!

Narrow win for Destroyers!
Darlington D 1½-2½ Thornaby Destroyers
Rhys Dakin ½-½ Malcolm Goldspink
David Martin 0-1 Thomas Pyman
John Halliday 0-1 Nick Tadd
Maksymilian Konczynski 1-0 Andy Austen

The Destroyers finished the season with a narrow win which sealed a respectable 4th place in the D division.

I finished my game with only 12mins used on my clock and mate in 19 moves so I was able to watch all the other games! To be fair John Halliday played well thwarting all my attacking intentions, but a catastrophic Knight move threatening my Queen gave me a mate in one! Poor John "I never saw that coming!" 1-0

Andy, playing well, was in a good position against his young opponent, both with Q/2R/B and 5 pawns each, when Andy inexplicably missed taking a free Bishop, which also would have given him a passed pawn on the 6th rank, and then went on to lose ! 1-1

Fortunately Tom was two pawns up by this stage and went on methodically to make this advantage count, and win in the end game. 2-1

All eyes then went on to the Rhys v Malcolm game on top board. It went into the middle game pretty even and there were several missed opportunities! Malcolm went into the end game with B/3Pawns against Rhys B/N/2Pawns - only one winner! Except Rhys inexplicably gave away his Knight and without either of them able to make much progress, a draw was agreed and so we won the match 2½-1½

Phew!

Nick

Date:29/04/2024  Knights Slay Bombers!

Middlesbrough Knights 2½-1½ Thornaby Bombers
Stephen Cole 1-0 Joe McGinnis
Nikhil Bhandari 0-1 Sagar Patil
Jake Pearson 1-0 Steve Rodgers
Ray Pallister ½-½ Tom Marwood

Ray Pallister said at the start something along the lines of "We just need 4 draws and we can all go home at half seven". Apparently he wasn't entirely joking, but nor was he entirely successful - his game with Tom ended in a draw at 7.35.

I finished next, going down to Stephen Cole in an enjoyable game where I had a few opportunities to gain an advantage on my next move. Unfortunately these all required him not to see what I was aiming for, and he plainly did, and moved to prevent it every time. I was not able to do the same in return, unfortunately. I lost a pawn due to a miscalculation, but managed to win it back a few moves later. I probably should have left it alone, as my queen ended up on a7 and effectively out of the game for several moves. I did spot his plan to trap it, and was able to prevent it, but he got his rook to the 7th rank, pinning my bishop, and his queen on the long diagonal. In order to avoid mating threats I had to give up more material, leaving me with a rook against bishop, knight and 2 extra pawns. With everything close in to my king, I couldn't cover all the threats and was soon mated.

I spent the next half hour in the car park, using my mini air compressor to reinflate Stephen's flat tyre - maybe he'll feel he owes me one the next time we play! On returning to the match, Steve Rodgers was down a piece but had everything pointing at Black's king; he also had only 18 minutes to Jake Pearson's 50-odd. I thought he had a chance, and couldn't understand at first why he let his clock run down to less than 3 minutes, and then resigned without moving. I had missed a black rook over on the other side of the board, which was able to defend against the threats I thought I'd seen. Apparently Steve had missed a win earlier on.

So it was left to Sagar to fly the flag, which he did in some style against Nikhil Bhandari. The clock situation in this game was similar, but Sagar was the one with the advantage, and was also a pawn up. Although he surrendered the material advantage, he got both his rooks on the 7th rank and probably had several ways to force the win. In serious time trouble, Nikhil doubled his rooks, completely missing a simple back rank checkmate. Incredibly, Sagar missed it as well, and Nikhil was able to play a series of easy checks, which might conceivably have led to a perpetual. However, with his time running out, he played a move which wasn't a check, and Sagar didn't miss the back rank mate a second time.

Joe

Date:24/04/2024  Will leads B Division!

Will is the only player on 3/3 in the Club Championship B division after 3 rounds. He came out on top in the high stakes family match against his Dad! There are several players within striking distance on 2 though. Full standings and next round fixtures are here.

Date:24/04/2024  Matt wins A2 Division!

Our Club Championship A2 division has concluded and the hot favourite Matt has come out on top with 3/3. This was a special round robin competition for some of our high level recent joiners to give everyone more competitive games rather than them being in the B division.

Steve was also on 2/2 going into their match, but Matt came out on top in a complicated game.

Final standings:
Matt Jackman 3
Steve Rodgers 2
Tom Marwood 1
Jonathan Feasby 0

Full information is here:

Date:23/04/2024  Challengers secure promotion!

Thornaby Challengers 3-1 Middlesbrough Bishops
Iain Mellis 1-0 Ammar Alghasra
Stephen Ollis 1-0 Chris Rumsey
Geoff Mann 0-1 Andrew Salter
Bill March Bye-0 Robbie Brown

The match swang heavily in our favour when Middlesbrough's expected board 1 had a list minute problem and couldn't make the game. That meant Middlesbrough were 1 behind at the start (an early night for Bill!) and their other players having to play one board higher than they were expecting to.

The dream start continued when Stephen won in just 12 moves. A well prepared opening trap came off and he was finished in under half an hour.

Geoff looked in control for most of his match and was a pawn up, but unfortunately blundered a rook towards the end and lost the game.

That left Iain. The game was level on material at the point Geoff lost, but Iain did have some pressure on the f file. A couple of sub-optimal moves from his opponent allowed Iain to get his unified rook on the back rank. His opponent took back with his rook which allowed Iain to do an intermezzo check with his queen pretty much forcing check mate or the loss of all major pieces.

The result means the Challengers have secured 2nd place in the C division and promotion with a match to spare. A very good performance from them. Iain has been an integral part of the squad and this win takes him to an impressive 5.5 out of 6 in the C division this season!

Date:23/04/2024  Ajay prevents whitewash!

Thornaby Cadets ½-3½ Great Ayton C
Joseph Machin 0-1 Jim Rogers
Ajay Selvan ½-½ Andrew French
James Mann 0-1 Tom Brough
Harris Wilson 0-1 Connor Wilson

We won the reverse fixture, but with our opponents board 1 from that game on board 4 this time, it was a different proposition for our young team!

A quick finish for James. Great Ayton's rising star Tom proved too strong and was quickly a piece up and had the game won inside half an hour.

Joseph had a good battle against Jim, but a couple of sub-optimal moves and he lost his way and Jim came out on top. The computer engine actually said Joseph was winning when he resigned, but it was not spotted by any human who looked at the game!

Harris was level for a lot of the game against his much higher rated opponent. Connor got a pawn up and then another pawn up and it was a formality in the end. A good performance from Harris though.

Ajay avoided the whitewash with another commendable draw against an expreienced CCA player. This time it was league chairman Andrew who couldn't find a way to break down our solid GCSE student, with Ajay recording his 9th draw of the season! Ajay is taking a break from league chess for a couple of months now to study and all at the club wish him well for his exams!

Chris

Date:22/04/2024  Comeback win for Aces!

Hartlepool A 1½-2½ Thornaby Aces
Stonehouse, Raymond 0-1 Francis Batchelor
Price, Bernard 0-1 Matt Jackman
Harker, Peter ½-½ Chris Swales
David Kelly 1-0 Sagar Patil

The Aces stayed joint top in the table after a comeback win. Sagar finished first after getting into trouble in the late opening and not finding an opportunity to castle his king out of danger.

Chris looked to have quite a sedate game with not many chances before a draw was agreed.

I managed to find a good position from the opening, queens came off early and I had the invading rook on the 7th rank, eventually allowing me the a-pawn, albeit that wouldn't necessarily have been enough to finish. Converting into the endgame I could see how to pick up the isolated b pawn as well, and it was then clearly enough for victory.

Matt was in a sharp game with opposite side castling. He had the benefit of flexibility in his positioning to allow the attacking pieces to also assist with defence and space to reposition, which gave him the critical breakthrough.

Great Ayton keep pace with a win on the same night at Middlesbrough. Both teams are on 19 points with 3 matches to go.

Francis

Date:22/04/2024  Comets Quadruple Draw!

Darlington C v Thornaby Comets 2-2
Robert Donner ½-½ Steve Rodgers
Richard Kuby ½-½ Mike Creaney
Mark Turner ½-½ Matt Rowett
Barry Hopkins ½-½ Thomas Pyman

An excellent result for the Comets who have struggled at times this season. First of all thanks to Matt and Tom for stepping in to the breach with a lot of players missing for this one.

The light heavy weight clash on board one was the last to finish with Steve having an edge but with nothing concrete immediate and all other boards drawn so rather than slug it out for another hour or so peace was agreed.

In contrast to my boastful win in the Durham league, I was trailing from very early on in this one, before the game i was confident that i would outplay Richard we all know what usually happens next and i ended up scrabbling around for a perpetual check .In the final position. The engine gives +3.11 to Richard he obviously thought i could get the perpetual and offered the draw ....off the hook .

Tom seemed to have the better of it for a long while but still managed a creditable draw as did Matt who although a piece down which is irrelevant if you're threatening a perpetual. A first result for both Matt and Tom at C division level against opponents who are both having good seasons.

Mike

Date:18/04/2024  Bishop A battered by Thornaby!

Bishop Auckland ½-3½ Thornaby
Bryan Bainbridge 0-1 Steve Rodgers
Chris Clyne 0-1 Tom Marwood
Deborah Edmondson 0-1 Mike Creaney
Mike Siddle ½-½ Iain Mellis

There must be something magical on the roads between Bishop Auckland and Thornaby because in our 4 matches against them over the last 2 seasons, the away team has won every single time and the home team has only won 1 board in 4 matches!

Thanks to Iain for stepping in at short notice, he played in his usual style being a piece down, but with a very strong supported Knight in white's guts which seemed adequate compensation although when the smoke cleared he appeared to be worse but managed to salvage the draw in the end.

Steve managed eventually to curb his overconfidence and after winning a piece, this time remaining in control and easily converted.

Tom reckoned that he was always in the driving seat, when I watched late on material was level, but Tom had the safer King and better pawn position and he to duly converted.

I being first to finish had an effortless win as White in the Colle Zukertort starting with a Greek Gift sacrifice followed by a Queen and Rook on the open h-file, no real resistance after this. It's nice when your plan goes like clockwork.

I believe the Americanism is GO THORNABY! I know ....Urgh!

Mike

Date:16/04/2024  Debut win for Thomas!

Thornaby Destroyers 3-1 Billingham Synthonia D
Alan Stockley 0-1 Harry Tennant
Malcolm Goldspink 0-1 Martin Curry
Thomas Pyman 1-0 Michael Joynes
Nick Tadd 1-0 Paul Scott

D division leading scorer Harry went to 11.5 out of 12 for the season. Alan put up a decent fight, but Harry always looked on top. Malcolm found Martin Curry too strong on board.

Thomas was nervous before his league debut, but things went well and he came out on top. A good result for Thomas against a player who has made a good start to the D division.

Nick was last finished and was able to bring the scores level with another victory over Paul Scott. Someone Nick has beaten before.

Stop press: an error in board order by Billingham D means the board 2 score is reversed and the Destroyers win the match 3-1.

Date:16/04/2024  Tashil wins again!

Thornaby Dynasties 1½-2½ Redcar B
Sam Stevenson ½-½ Matthew Allan
James Mann 0-1 Oliver Williams
Tashil Lankapura 1-0 Stanley Allan
Will Rowett 0-1 Katherine Myers

2 of the best young players in the area battled it out on board 3. Both are age group champions in this area. We had last seasons Teesside Junior Under 11 champion Stanley taking on Teesside Megafinal Under 8 Champion Tashil. It was a good attacking game and Tashil came out on top beating his older opponent with a clever combination to force a smothered mate.

James was doing well against a strong player for Redcar on board 2. Unfortunately, he made a mistake and missed a bank rank mate!

Will was in a complicated game on board 4 and a couple of miscalculations allowed his young opponent to get her first win in the league.

Last finished was Sam who got an excellent result against Matthew Allan. Matthew is unbeaten on board 1 in his 6 matches in the D division and currently has a P rating of 1652. It was a complicated game, but Sam played very well and in the end it was Matthew who was hanging on and found a perpetual check to force a draw.

The Dynasties will play Billingham D in a crucial last game of the season with the winner taking 2nd place in the Division!

Date:16/04/2024  Zero for 52s!

Thornaby B52s 0-4 Middlesbrough Knights
James Urwin 0-1 Steve Cole
Geoff Mann 0-1 Brian Myers
Stephen Ollis 0-1 Jake Pearson
Manuel Lopez 0-1 Ray Pallister

A big rating gap of nearly 1000, but still good experience for one of our development teams. Iain dropped out at the last minute, so thanks to Geoff for stepping in. Lower rated than Stephen, but high enough to keep the rest of the team on the boards they'd prepared for.

Steve Cole was late, but didn't waste much time dispatching James! Didn't see how it ended, but James wasn't happy with how he played.

I didn't see much of Geoff's game, it was even the only time I looked. It was always a tough ask to get a result against Brian Myers though!

Ray Pallister and Manuel played a good exciting game, but Manuel lost a piece in the end. Ray said it was a “brilliant game” at the end when we had a quick chat and he said Manuel had played very well.

Stephen was last finished of all of the 14 games going on at the club! It was a good game, but he went the exchange down against rising star Jake Pearson and couldn't come back from there.

Chris

Date:15/04/2024  Rhys back on form!

Hartlepool C 3-1 Thornaby Juniors
Ashton Woodward 0-1 Rhys Orton
John Marsden 1-0 Ollie Walton
David Berry 1-0 Charles Hind
Hayden Thompson 1-0 Freya Hind

After some initial confusion at the entrance of the Hartlepool venue, Thornaby Juniors found their way upstairs to take on Hartelpool C at the Athenauem Club in Hartlepool!

First finished was Charles. An even start, but as the game developed Charlie blundered his queen and David took an easy win from there.

Next was Ollie. A very close start, but as with Charles's game experience showed and John took over the game with a big material advantage. Ollie battled on looking for a stalemate and played right to checkmate in the end.

Freya was third finished in a well fought and generally even game. Hayden managed to promote a pawn towards the final stages of the game and a checkmate quickly followed with 2 rooks despite Freya's determined defence of her king. A good performance from Freya and most importantly she enjoyed the game!

Finally Rhys in an incredibly even game. Towards the end game Rhys was up by a pawn against his opponent's isolated pawns. This put Rhys into a controlling position which he converted to a mate with only around 15 minutes left on his clock. A welcome return to form for Rhys after a couple of losses. This his 9th game for Thornaby and he's heading for a first full rating over 1500 after this win!

Date:09/04/2024  Hard fought derby win for Challengers!

Thornaby Challengers 2½-1½ Thornaby Cadets
Joe McGinnis 1-0 Toefl Lankapura
Bill March ½-½ Ajay Selvan
Alan Stockley 0-1 James Mann
Manuel Lopez 1-0 Sam Stevenson

The Challengers kept up the pressure for 2nd place in the C division with a hard fought win over our own Cadets team.

It was a quickfire win for Manuel who had an overwhelming advantage the first time I looked. Manuel has some very good quick play results in the club and he was too much for Sam this time.

Another good win for James Mann. He trapped a piece quite early in the game, but Alan is no pushover and this is another statement result for James. He will certainly be playing regularly in the C division next season on current form.

2 of the most solid players in the club, Bill and Ajay, played out the draw I was very much expecting! Ajay has had 7 draws in the league this season! I'd sometimes like him to be a bit more adventurous, but it's his first season and he is consistently getting results against good players. As a player who got 9 draws in a row at one point in 2022, I can't really complain!

Toefl managed to half trap Joe's queen with a knight which forced it to move away from guarding a forking square. Despite being a pawn and the exchange up, Toefl couldn't convert the win and Joe played well in the endgame to give the Challengers the win.

From our club, well done to Hartlepool B who sealed the C division title earlier this week. On paper they always looked like they would be a strong team at this level, but chess isn't played on paper and they have shown it on the board as well! The trio of Graham Matthews, David Kelly and Alex Kalyviotis are well known to us and have all had good seasons playing in most of the games for the B team, but several of their new players have also featured and won important games on the lower boards. Hartlepool are very much a club on the up now with 3 teams, a new library session and they have moved into a bigger room in their venue during this season. We look forward to many more matches with them next season with hopefully some better results for us!

Chris

Date:09/04/2024  Creaneys Comets Seal Draw!

Thornaby Comets 2-2 Billingham C
Steve Rodgers ½-½ Keith Harrison
Mike Creaney 1-0 Stuart McLaughlin
David Pizzi 0-1 Gary Leighton
Malcolm Goldspink ½-½ Bernie Callaghan

Steve was disappointed because he did beat Keith earlier in the season.

A Good win for Mike. Stuart plays board 1 for the all conquering Billingham E team in the D division and has only lost to 1500+ rated players this season.

David had a tough task against Gary Leighton, but had an even game most of the way through. David was disappointed with the way it ended after a big blunder from him.

A draw for captain Malcolm meant the Comets shared the points. He was a rook and a pawn on the 7th rank against 2 pawns a knight and a bishop at one point. It was quite complicated, but in the end it went to Malcolm with a rook against a knight and there was no way to force a checkmate. Malcolm lost to Bernie earlier in the season and this was still a good result as Bernie is having a good season.

A good draw for the Comets who take on Darlington C next.

Date:09/04/2024  Champs shock Aces!

Thornaby Aces 0-4 Great Ayton A
Matt Jackman 0-1 Virgil Szekely
Francis Batchelor 0-1 David Wise
Chris Swales 0-1 Steve Booth
Joseph Machin 0-1 Andrew Smith

We start off the second part of the year with a whitewash... to the visitors! The defending champions showing that they are in no mood to give up their title easily!

Chris didn't manage to develop in time in a Queens Gambit and succumbed to a kingside attack that he couldn't get his pieces over to defend.

A little later Matt was in an awkward position with a lot of pawns on the board, and in an attempt to get a counterattack found his rook was getting trapped in his limited space.

Stepping up for his first Aces game of the season, Joseph played well against an opponent 400 rating points higher than him. He went down a pawn fairly early, but brought it back with a blocked up board and looked like a draw might have been possible with repetitive checks or just having no route through for the kings. But on my next look the 1 pawn had turned into 3 pawns and not a position to be saved.

I played an opening heavy match, a lot of thinking required in the multiple variations possible in moves 10-15. The one that played out ended up favourable for Dave, and gradually resulted in more active pieces for him. Trying to counter too recklessly led me to dropping a knight, and the overall control of the board for black meant there was no possibility of recovery.

Great Ayton draw level with us after our lead through the first half of the season, our unbeaten record went with a bang! It will be a neck and neck run-in race in the last 4 games.

Francis

Date:06/04/2024  On form Tashil takes Library Rapidplay!

We had the best field yet for one of our new monthly rapidplays with 21 players taking part and all 3 previous winners (Rhys, Ajay and Joseph) in the same event for the first time and Thornaby Bomber Steve Rodgers in the draw as a banana skin for the juniors! With that in mind, it was an excellent 5 out of 5 win for Tashil who followed up his blitz final at the club on Tuesday with some fantastic performances.

He defeated the much older quartet of Steve, Rhys, Joseph and Ajay in the last 4 rounds, so it was a thoroughly deserved win! There was some great endgame play in at least 2 of the games showing that Tashil is really maturing as a player. This is the first time he has won prize money (£20), so we can say he is a professional now!

James arrived late and missed the first round, but won all his other 4 games to finish 2nd. Ajay was on 3.5 going into the last round against Tashil. A reverse of the position when Ajay won 2 months ago, but this time Tashil managed to use his extra pawn to win. Ajay still finished 3rd overall.

It was a good first visit to the library for Olly Rutter who finished in joint 4th and was the joint under 11 champion. Olly was part of the Fairfield school team (along with Sam Stevenson) that won the CSC Team Championship last season and he has done well in local junior events before having previously qualified for the Gigafinal twice.

Along with James and Olly, Joseph Hartill, Ajay and Isaac M also won age group prizes.

Results:
1 Tashil Lankapura 5 (Champion)
2 James Mann 4 (Under 14 Champ)
3 Ajay Selvan 3½ (Under 16 Champ)
4 Zhuoyi Lin 3
= Isaac Machin 3 (Joint Under 11 Champ)
= Olly Rutter 3 (Joint Under 11 Champ)
7 Joseph Machin 2½
8 Clair Hartill 2
= Joseph Hartill 2 (Under 7 Champ)
= Steve Rodgers 2
= Senon Weerakkody 2
= Rhys Orton 2

Date:03/04/2024  Club Championship 5th Round Draw!

The draw for the 5th round of the Club Championship has been made. Francis leads the way with a perfect 4/4 after a convincing win over Chris, the only other player who was on 3/3. James and Ajay are only half point behind and it is still all to play for. Ajay had an excellent win over Joe McGinnis in round 4 to keep himself in contention.

James Urwin V Francis Batchelor
Ajay Selvan V Chris Swales
Geoff Mann V Stephen Ollis
Mike Creaney V Vardhan Bunga
David Pizzi V Joseph Machin
Joe McGinnis V Ollie Walton
Malcolm Goldspink V Pete Townson
Iain Mellis V James Mann
Richard Stevenson V Toefl Lankapura
Alan Stockley V Tashil Lankapura
Nick Tadd V Tim Hind
Andy Austen V Sam Stevenson
Manuel Lopez V Tristan Green
Karam Alwakeel V Wasim Alwakeel
Laura Holdforth V Janos Mehes

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

Date:02/04/2024  Chris spares adult blushes!

After Joseph won the rapidplay last week and with Sagar and Tashil both returning from holiday this week, nobody would have been surprised if we'd had another junior winner this week in the Easter blitz! They all played well, but it was Chris who came out on top this time.

It was a good attendance for the middle of the school holidays with 25 players taking part in total. That included newcomer Ryan who is a friend of Thomas and recently played in a blitz event in Berlin against International Masters! There were plenty of the usual crazy finishes, total blunders and groans around the room as the 11 round group stages progressed!

On paper, the random draw looked a bit lopsided with most of the pre-tournament favourties in Group B. Despite being only 9 years old, Tashil is known in the club as a very good blitz player and he took advantage of this to walk through group A with 10.5 out of 11. His only draw was against Malcolm. Ajay joined in after 4 rounds after a surprisingly quick victory over Joe McGinnis in the club championship. He won 6 of his 7 games (only losing to Tashil) including a demolition of Chris, so would have probably taken the 2nd spot if he'd played the full competition. As it was, Chris qualified comfortably in the 2nd spot with 9 wins out of 11. The rest of the group was a good close fight with Harris and Zhuoyi sharing 3rd on 6.5. The most exciting game was Zhuoyi against Richard with both players down to 1 second left, but Zhuoyi managed to win on time!

Group B was much closer in terms of the qualifiers. The high standard was evidenced by Mike Creaney only finishing on 4.5/11! Sagar lost to Steve in the last round to miss out on the semi finals. Steve finished on an impressive 10/11 (only losing to Jonathan who also played well again). Blitz specialist Iain joined him in the semi finals with 9/11. Joseph beat Sagar, but losses to Steve, Iain, Sam and Mike stopped him repeating last weeks triumph!

As is often the case, the players from the stronger group lost in the semi-finals. Tashil progressed to the final first after beating Iain. The game between Chris and Steve was an exciting finish, Steve's recent opening work was very much in evidence and he was well on top after 20 moves including being material up. Chris managed to hold on though and Steve blundered a rook. A measure of how strong Steve's position was at this point was that it still didn't look particularly comfortable for Chris from there. He managed to activate his 2 rooks and cause Steve enough problems to win on time with only 16 seconds left on his own clock!

The final drew a big crowd and was filmed live (on Iain's phone)! Tashil did get into a good attacking position and Chris thought he'd lost it at one point when Tashil's queen got onto the dangerous a1-h8 diagonal. Chris managed to engineer some exchanges to get a favourable endgame position and then started to capture pawns when it was down to rook and pawns leaving him 4 pawns up in the end. A relatively comfortable 46 seconds were left when he got the mate!

Chris said, "I think I was lucky that it was well past Tashil's bed-time at the point we played the final! In the group stage he totally outplayed me. It's pleasing to see our junior players continue to develop, but it was my turn this time, they've still got things to learn from the old dog!"

FINAL
Tashil 0-1 Chris

SEMI-FINAL
Tashil 1-0 Iain
Steve 0-1 Chris

GROUP A
Tashil 10.5
Chris 9
Harris 6.5
Zhuoyi 6.5
Ajay 6 out of 7 (joined in after his club championship win)
George 6
Toefl 6
Thomas 4.5
Malcolm 4
Richard 3
Ryan 3
Sanjay 1
Janos 0 (withdrew after 1 game)

GROUP B
Steve 10
Iain 9
Sagar 8.5
Jonathan 8
Joseph 7
Sam S 6
Manuel 5
Ollie 5
Mike 4.5
Neil 2
Laura 1
Sachin 0