News

Date:09/04/2025  Aces finish on a high!

Darlington B 1-3 Thornaby Aces
Nick Webb 0-1 Francis Batchelor
Dominic Leigh 0-1 Chris Swales
Richard Harris ½-½ Brian Ellis
Stephen Halliday ½-½ Mike Creaney

The last league game of the season and there was no possibility of any change in league positions. The Aces still finished 4th, but it was nice to beat the 3rd place team in our last game of the season. Darlington have split their squads more evenly this year and their "B team" is stronger than the name suggests!

Mike was first finished. A "late substitute to the upper echelons once again" in his words! It followed a similar course to his last A-team effort with a promising kingside attack, but ultimately not enough firepower in that vicinity. His opponent then launched his central counterplay doubling Rooks on the d-file and Mike was then on the defensive, but he managed to nullify the position and with Rooks off & soon to be Queens off a draw was agreed.

Chris was playing his "nemesis" Dominic Leigh for the 5th time in the league in the last 3 seasons. The career head to head was previously 3-1 to Dominic and for most of the game, this looked to be heading towards 4-1. Dominic was 2 pawns up after a mistake by Chris on move 15, but was starting to get a little low on time with the position still reasonably complicated which may have influenced what came next. A complete blunder decided the game. Chris moved his queen to get it into a better position, but also to attack Dominic's rook. Although he initially saw it, he ended up playing the second move of his analysis first leaving Chris was an unassailable lead. Chris said "I was wearing my lucky shirt for the first time in a while and it must have worked. You rarely get 1 move blunders like this in the A division!"

Brian was playing against the Caro Kann exchange variation and tried to upset his opponent's rhythm with an unusual move early on. The sort of move a computer doesn't like, but difficult to find the correct counters if you're not a computer! Richard played it well though and Brian was just countering his threats whilst positioning his pieces for a surprise attack. He gained some momentum and the position looked fairly equal in the end. With both players approaching the time control, Brian accepted Richard's draw offer.

Francis had one of his usual trademark complicated position with pieces spread all over the board. Nick was certainly on the defensive though and a King side pawn push from Francis broke open the position. Nick resigned with mate or catastrophic material loss inevitable.

Both teams were resting players, but still nice to get a win. The cup starts next week and the Aces go into it in good spirits!

Date:09/04/2025  Tough night for Dynasties!

Billingham Synthonia Irons 3-1 Thornaby Dynasties
Graham Glass ½-½ Geoff Mann
Dermot O Higgins ½-½ James Mann
Martin Curry 1-0 Sam Stevenson
Graham Edwards 1-0 Richard Stevenson

With two wins needed to avoid relegation and gaining back a poor goal difference, tonight was too much for the team.

It started off bad when star player Tashil could not make it due to illness, so Richard stepped in last minute and meant everyone else stepping up a board.

Sam was first finished and lost against a tricky opponent. I saw Sam was looking good with two rooks against a rook and a knight but the horsey proved too much and Sam resigned.

James was next finished on board 2. James played well and offered a draw with a pawn and rook each. I think there was a chance to push the advanced pawn through but it would have been risky.

Next finished was Richard and I think time got the better of him. I kept looking over and it looked fairly equal but his opponent managed to get the better of him. Richard was down almost 200 points on rating, so a great effort.

I finished last. We both cancelled each other out until my opponent pushed pawns down the board. I managed to be up a bishop put 3 pawns down. He managed to manoeuvre his rooks into possible check mate so I sacrificed my bishop to stay in the game. A mistake when pushing a pawn by my opponent made me break his connected pawns and there was no way of passing so a draw was agreed.

We still have the under 1500 cup final, but not a great league season. Let’s see what next season brings and hopefully a shot at the D division title!

Geoff

Date:08/04/2025  First win for Bombers!

Thornaby Bombers 2½-1½ Billingham Synthonia A
Steve Rodgers ½-½ Steve Cole
Mike Creaney 1-0 Stuart McLaughlin
Brian Ellis 0-1 Darren Donnison
Joe McGinnis 1-0 Dave Elsdon

A first win of the season for the Bombers! Anyway a win is a win albeit against an under strength Billingham, but we couldn't field a first choice team either. Top board was last to finish and after our Steve equalized his early pawn deficit, the draw was always on the cards well to me at least.

My game was a fairly routine affair after Stuart allowed me two pawns start, then exchanging them for a piece and finally leaving a Rook en prise, I have been known to convert many of those position.

Brian had an advantage then inexplicably went very wrong towards the endgame, I think even Darren was surprised to get the win! Joe's game went from worse out of the opening to desperate to winning. He'd be better explaining it himself, a very strange turn of events!

Mike

Date:08/04/2025  Honours Even in C Division Derby!

Thornaby Comets 2-2 Thornaby Cadets
Phil Wales 0-1 Ajay Selvan
Stephen Ollis 0-1 Rhys Orton
Alan Stockley 1-0 Faruk Serin
Neil Sotheby 1-0 Eva Harris

Both teams were a little under-strength, but the ratings suggested it should be 4 good competitive games and it was:

-Stephen got a decent position in the opening, but miscalculated and blundered a piece against Rhys.

-Eva got into a bit of a mess in the opening and Neil capitalised with a strong attacking performance.

-Ajay and Phil ended up in a 5 pawns each endgame, but Ajay’s passed pawn on the a-file was decisive. In hindsight, Phil felt he shouldn’t have swapped queens off.

-Alan and Faruk were last finished. Alan got a piece for a pawn up, but said it was still a tough game to eventually finish it off.

A point for the Cadets keeps them 4th and now means they are mathematically safe from relegation from the C division. Especially with Aryan moving up to play in the higher divisions at Christmas, that represents a good solid season for the team. Their highest ever C division finish. The Comets had already sealed promotion to the B division.

Chris

Date:02/04/2025  B52s stay 5th!

Billingham Synthonia Belasis 2-2 Thornaby B52s
Paul Weightman 0-1 Aryan Nalawade
Default 0-1 Iain Mellis
Darren Donnison 1-0 Santiago Palencia
Brian Whitaker 1-0 Ajay Selvan

The Billingham players are all in the 1500’s for rating and all very experienced. There was some confusion with the Billingham team at the start. Their named board 2 did show up, but only to tell Paul that he couldn't play! So that was a good start for us and an easy night for Iain!

Santiago and Ajay found their experienced opponents too tough and fell to defeat. Aryan beat Paul in the plate semi-final recently and another win here made sure of a point for us.

The overall match draw keeps us in 5th place, 1 point ahead of Billingham with 2 games to go.

Chris

Date:01/04/2025  Knights gallop continues!

Thornaby Challengers 1-3 Middlesbrough Knights
Steve Rodgers ½-½ Paul Perrett
James Urwin 0-1 Nikhil Bhandari
Phil Wales ½-½ Brian Myers
Joe McGinnis 0-1 Alfie McMonagle

A 12th win in 12 for the Middlesbrough Knights who are confirmed as the runaway champions of the B division.

Steve "Mine was a solid game from both players game even all the way through. Nothing to see here!"

Phil "Same with our game, we exchanged ourselves down to an even endgame, so I was glad for a draw."

Joe "He blundered late in the opening, giving me a chance to win the exchange, but in keeping with my current form I didn't even see it. I was too passive in the early middle game, allowing him to get his attack going first. He won a pawn, leaving my king more exposed than his, and I was on the defensive from then on. He was able to get all his pieces into the attack, I had to give up my queen for a rook to avoid an immediate checkmate, but it only delayed the inevitable for a few more moves."

A decent effort from the Challengers, but this strong Knights team will take some stopping.

Date:01/04/2025  Juniors Destroyed!

Thornaby Destroyers 4-0 Thornaby Juniors
Alan Stockley 1-0 Jayden Wang
Ifeanyi Madueke 1-0 Josh Fisher
Sachin Saggar 1-0 Tristan Green
Nick Tadd 1-0 Kaira Nalawade

Juniors would have gone top of the League with a win in this one, but unfortunately for them, they came up against a brick wall!

Sachin finished first so I didn't see much of his game. Looked pretty even actually for most of it - then suddenly they were shaking hands - it was all over.

I finished shortly after. Kaira took her time and played a very tight opening. She castled King side but I did have most of my pieces pointing that way. She had an opportunity to exchange a Knight for one of my Bishops, which would have kept equilibrium; Instead moved it backwards. Not a bad move at the time but proved costly in the end. At this stage I hadn't decided which way to castle because I was hoping for an attack on my other Bishop on f4 which she duly obliged by moving a Knight to r4. This allowed me to move the said Bishop to n3 and she took it. I took back with the Rooks Pawn thus opening up that file. I then castled Queens side. That allowed me to have an all out attack on her castled King. This attack could not be repelled - game over !

I was able to catch the end of the other two games. Ike was well ahead in the end game but missed a couple of opportunities to finish it off, and Josh then made some superb moves and made it quite uncomfortable for Ike before he regained his composure to win.

Alan and Jayden both had Rook and 5 Pawns each endgame. I think Alan's greater experience got him to be able to promote first, but it was close!

A first defeat for Thornaby Juniors since the opening day of the season and it was an emphatic one!

Nick (acting Captain on the night for Tim)

Date:01/04/2025  Honourable defeat for Hurricanes!

Thornaby Hurricanes 1-3 Hartlepool D
Sam Stevenson (1345) 1-0 Mark Priest (1486)
Eva Harris (1335) 0-1 Ashton Woodward (1430)
Bertie Mellis (1066) 0-1 John Marsden (1416)
Shanaya Chauhan (901) 0-1 Graham Marshall (1402)

When I saw Graham Marshall was playing on board 4, I knew it was going to be a tough match! All 4 of their players are over 1400 rating which obviously makes it a strong team in a division with a 1500 rating cap!

At about 9pm, the Juniors had already lost 4-0 and the Hurricanes were 3-0 down. My resignation letter as junior coach was half written, but Sam saved the day! Just joking, in truth our team played very well in this one given the rating differences.

Shanaya was first finished. As always, she played a solid opening, but Graham managed to break through on the queenside and gain a big material advantage.

Eva played an excellent game against Ashton. I had a good view of this one from where I was sat playing my Cleveland Individual match. Eva had good momentum for a lot of the game and created more of the threats against a player who is on form (11 wins 3 losses for the season). It went to an endgame with 4 pawns, a rook and a knight each. If anything, I thought Eva was winning at this point due to piece activity, but her pawns were a little less connected. Next time I looked however, it had swung decisively to Ashton. He was 2 pawns up and Eva had lost her rook.

Bertie also gave as good as he got for most of the game against a 1400+ player. John said Bertie had played well and both players said it was the best game they’d played this season. It was complicated with pieces all over the place. The sort of position Iain likes which obviously also suits Bertie! At the end, Bertie had a rook and a knight and pawns against a queen and pawns and it still looked like either player could win, but John managed to find a checkmate involving a pawn blocking Bertie’s escape square.

Sam saved the whitewash! Another good win against a 1400+ player for him. I didn’t actually see or hear how it finished. It looked very even all the times I looked.

So a defeat, but good performances all round against some very solid club players and the team at the top of the league!

Chris

Date:31/03/2025  Dauber defeated!

Darlington A 2½-1½ Thornaby Aces
Steve Dauber 0-1 Francis Batchelor
Kevin Wilson 1-0 Sagar Patil
Matthew Holton ½-½ Chris Swales
Jonathan Sams 1-0 Mike Creaney

Somewhat out graded and under strength it is what it is as they say. I was a late call up and so was their board three, minutes before the start in fact!

Got to start with board one a fine win for Francis against Steve Dauber, someone who seems to never lose against Thornaby! Francis got a pawn up and a strong attack on the queen side including 2 passed pawns. Despite the position being complicated, he finished it off well.

Sagar was doing OK until dropping a piece against Kevin and though soldiering on was never going to be allowed back into it.

Chris' opponent played a knight sacrifice that put him under all sorts of pressure. He found the right moves to defend and it finished with a draw agreed when the 2 players started repeating moves.

There was a time I was the equal of Johnathan, but not recently. Here I had my ideal position as black after 19 moves should I play 19..Nh5 with an attack or 19..h5 preventing counter play, I went with the attacking move Nh5 allowing 20.Ng4 which h5 would have prevented and Ng4 proved to be the decisive move. First loss in 16 after stepping up a division ..I know my place!

Mike

Carl said it was almost a record audience for his live broadcast! Thornaby Aces are clearly still a big TV game draw, maybe we should renegotiate our TV deal and get Sky Sports on board! Amongst the viewers were some of our youngsters including Jayden Wang. When we were looking at the list of who was watching, Carl said "shouldn't he be in bed!"

Chris

Date:29/03/2025  Joseph wins library rapidplay!

Joseph returned to form with a perfect 4/4 to win todays library rapidplay and take the £20 prize. Joseph was a little late and missed the first round, but showed unusual patience once he arrived and was the last finished in 2 of his 4 rounds! A victory over Tashil in the final round secured victory. Early leader Josh who started with 3/3 could have tied, but lost to Ajay in the last round.

The age group chocolate prizes went to Zhuoyi, Jayden and Joseph Hartill. While Freya won the £10 prize for the best girl. Zhuoyi had a good tournament after beating Tashil in the first round. Both he and Jayden could have been joint winners if there had been a decisive result in their clash, but they drew with each other in the 4th round.

Leading finishers:
Joseph Machin 4 (Champion)
Ajay Selvan 3.5
Jayden Wang 3.5 (U11 Champion)
Zhuoyi Lin 3.5 (U14 Champion)
Tashil Lankapura 3
Josh Fisher 3
Sam Stevenson 2.5
Joseph Hartill 2.5 (U9 Champion)
Jordan Broadbent 2
George Butterworth 2
Freya Hind 2 (Girls Champion)
Clair Hartill 2

Date:25/03/2025  Disappointment for Dynasties!

Thornaby Dynasties 1.5-2.5 Redcar A
Iain Mellis 0-1 Oliver Williams
Tashil Lankapura 0.5-0.5 Callum Hodgkiss
James Mann 0-1 Stanley Allan
Sam Stevenson 1-0 Katherine Myers

A disappointing result for the Dynasties who outrated their opponents and looked to have a good chance, at least on paper. Sam won against Katherine on board 4, but that was as good as it got. Tashil couldn't beat Callum this time, but did secure a draw. James said he finds Stanley awkward to play against and this was the 2nd time he's lost to him.

Last finished was Iain who was offered a draw on board 1, but he favoured his own position. 2 moves later, he went for what looked like a good attacking pressing move, but completely missed an unusual mate in 1 for his opponent! An exciting and unpredictable end to the match!

Date:25/03/2025  First trophy win in a decade!

Thornaby Bombers 4-1 Hartlepool B
Steve Rodgers 1-0 Graham Matthews
Aryan Nalawade 1-0 Alex Kalyviotis
Mike Creaney ½-½ Michael Smalley
Sagar Patil ½-½ Dave Kelly
Phil Wales 1-0 Alex Costello

We were runners up in all 6 CCA competitions last season, but this was a first Thornaby trophy win for a decade! A convincing win in the final of the Plate which is for Under 1700 rated players. Our last trophy was when our B team won the C division in 2015.

I consider my decision to omit myself from the team after last week's debacle at Darlington to be fully vindicated (especially after messing up my first game in the rapidplay on move 3 - I played move 4!).

I checked up on the final in between rounds; my first visit showed Aryan in an odd-looking position with his king already on d2. Material was equal but I'd have been happier as Black. Boards 1 and 3 were similar to each other in that nothing at all had been captured in either game; much too complicated to determine if anybody had an advantage. The bottom boards were looking good though; Sagar had a piece for a pawn and Phil was up the exchange, so I was reasonably happy.

Half an hour or so later, Aryan's king was still on d2, and his opponent still hadn't castled. I'm not sure if this was by choice - he may have had to move his king, I didn't register whether it was on e8 or d8. I still liked Black. Things had happened in Steve's game but no obvious advantage; Mike and his opponent had had a burst of action as they had now exchanged one pawn each. Sagar had lost his advantage and his king was looking a bit exposed; Phil had added a pawn to his advantage. Not so relaxed after seeing these positions.

After my last rapidplay game, things had swung decisively. Aryan was still level on material but had a superior pawn structure heading to an endgame, and was about an hour up on the clock as well; Steve had 4 pawns for a piece, but importantly had the heavy artillery pointing at the white king; White's other pieces were too cramped to get over and defend. Mike still had only swapped one pawn and was looking like a dead draw. Sagar seemed to be struggling; I thought his best shot was a perpetual check, but it was by no means certain. Phil now had 2 pawns and a rook for a Knight, and his opponent's other Knight was hopelessly stuck on a4. So just about certain to win on 5, likely on 1, probable draw on 3, and we had the 3 blacks so that would do.

Steve finished first; Graham considered his position for about 10 minutes, then resigned. I couldn't quite see why, but Steve says it was mate next move. Sagar then delivered the pleasant surprise of a draw - I didn't see the finish, but with Phil heading for victory the match was in the bag. Phil duly won a few minutes later, Mike agreed a draw, and Aryan won on time after either sacrificing or blundering a bishop to allow his passed pawn to get through. His opponent Alex promoted as well, and was now material ahead, but he'd been playing at one move per second for a while, and the clock inevitably counted him out.

All in all, an excellent evening's work, and good for two of our very good younger players to be part of the first trophy win for the club in a decade! One of them (Aryan) was the player of the tournament, winning all 3 of his games for the team including a vital gruelling win against Billingham in the semi-final over an hour after all the other boards had finished.

Joe

Date:25/03/2025  Cadets pressed by Irons!

Thornaby Cadets 2-2 Billingham Synthonia Irons
Ajay Selvan 1-0 Graham Glass
Joseph Machin 0-1 Dermot O Higgins
Rhys Orton 0-1 Martin Curry
Avanish Batra 1-0 Mick Joynes

Given all 4 of our players were higher rated than all 4 of theirs (admittedly not by much), this felt more like a point dropped than a point gained. Nevertheless all the games were well fought with 3 of the 4 finishing after the plate final was already in the bag!

Avanish was first finished. He had a fairly comfortable victory on board 4 and never really looked in trouble.

Joseph was next to finish. He was initially a pawn up and looking good, but missed a tactic and lost a piece.

Rhys went into the endgame with 5 pawns against 4 pawns, but his didn’t look particularly well connected and it was Martin who played it better to get the win.

That left Ajay to seal the draw. He was a pawn up for quite a while and when it got down to 2 rooks and pawns each, he managed to hoover up several more before Graham resigned.

Chris

Date:24/03/2025  Quickfire win for Comets!

Darlington D 1-3 Thornaby Comets
Richard Kuby 0-1 Maurice Olum
Mark Turner 0-1 Phil Wales
David Martin 0-1 Malcolm Goldspink
Charlie Miller 1-0 Geoff Howsden

After our 4-1 win in the cup last week, I did wonder if Darlington would field a strong team for this one! It's credit to them that they continue to mostly use this team to give newer players a chance.

It was business as usual for Maurice and Phil. They we both heading home by 8.20pm! Phil's opponent was even until Mark took a poisoned pawn which opened the g file against his King, so with doubled rooks and two bishops pointing that way the game went Phil's way.

Geoff and Charlie’s game was even until Charlie got his queen behind Geoff’s defence and followed with a rook check to the king which forced a queen block and capture. Charlie followed up with a queen check, forking Geoff’s final rook and the game was over. I was told Charlie had only played three league games. If that’s the case, he is one to watch!

My game was over in less than 15 minutes. David played h5 on his 4th move and then castled king side. It left him wide open and I piled in with my bishops and a knight. Move 12 saw me check his king with my queen with checkmate on the next move.

So a quickfire win for the Comets, 8:30pm and we were all heading home!

This win pretty much secures 2nd place. It is mathematically possible for the Cadets to catch us, but they need to win all three of their remaining matches, one against the formidable Hartlepool C and another against us, and also overcome our 8 better goal difference in the process!

Malcolm

Date:19/03/2025  First win for Hurricanes!

Billingham Dominators 1.5-2.5 Thornaby Hurricanes
Dave Elsdon 0.5-0.5 Sam Stevenson
Steve Clark 0-1 Amit Chauhan
Nicola Harrington 0-1 Eva Harris
Sean Cooke 1-0 Shanaya Chauhan

The good week for Thornaby teams continued on Wednesday with a first win of the season for the Hurricanes and a first league win for Amit as well!

Eva's game was as good as over after 30 mins with a large material advantage and she finished first.

Amit's game looked close, then when I looked next he was two rooks to a knight up and the game was over quickly after that. A first league win for Amit!

Shanaya was close both times I looked, then it was all over, not sure how it played out but there was plenty of material left, so I assume she was mated somehow.

Sams game was by far the longest, no material differences every time I looked, but early on Sam had been forced to double a couple of pawns, and was on the defensive for a lot of the game. In the end when the draw was agreed his opponent had 2 minutes left to Sam's 1 hour, but Sam said it was obviously a draw by that point.

Richard

A big thank you to Richard for being the on the night non-playing captain, board 1 chauffeur, roaming reporter and travelling reserve! A lot of hats!

Chris

Date:19/03/2025  Night of blunders for Challengers!

Darlington C 3½-½ Thornaby Challengers
Richard Harris 1-0 Steve Rodgers
Stephen Halliday ½-½ Mike Creaney
Jim Garner 1-0 Joe McGinnis
Mark Turner 1-0 Alan Stockley

A night of blunders about covers the whole match, apart from my game of course! Steve blundered a bishop on move 9. Joe blundered the exchange on move 15. For me, it was back to my usual "bore fest" in Steve's words, I do have my own style!

Trust Carl to broadcast these games on Facebook too, I know some of you were watching live. Edge of the seat stuff? Maybe not!

Mike

Date:18/03/2025  Comets into final!

Thornaby Comets 4-1 Darlington C
Phil Wales 1-0 Richard Kuby
Maurice Olum 1-0 John Halliday
Bill March 1-0 Maks Kowzynski
Alan Stockley 0-1 Charlie Miller
Malcolm Goldspink 1-0 Kian Pattison

The Comets booked their place in the finals with a convincing win over Darlington. On paper it looked good for us with Darlington playing three youngsters with ratings from 1000–1200, but they played well, especially Charlie beating Alan.

Phil was first to finish after gaining a massive pawn advantage he swapped off pieces and could have promoted a number of his pawns. Instead, Richard resigned.

I was second to finish which was surprising as I waited 15 minutes for my late-arriving opponent to turn up. He castled early and I delayed my castling and cleared my h pawn to allow an attack along h with my Queen and Rook, supported with a bishop and advanced pawn on g4. The game was over in 17 moves.

Alan’s game ended with a back row checkmate with Alan unable to escape due to his pawn on the 7th row and Charlie’s pawn on the 6th blocking his escape.

Maurice gave us the winning score when his end game saw him advancing pawns down both sides of the board and his opponent resigned.

Bill had to fight to the bitter end for his result. Maks wouldn’t give in even when down to his King against Bill’s Rook and defended pawn. Bill manoeuvred him into a neat checkmate without having to promote the extra pawn.

We're looking forward to playing Geoff’s Dynasties in the final! If both teams can field their strongest line-up, the match will be too close to call. May the best team win!

Malcolm

Date:18/03/2025  Juniors win against nearest rivals!

Thornaby Juniors 2.5-1.5 Redcar B
Faruk Serin 1-0 Matthew Allan
Jayden Wang 0.5-0.5 Joseph Dodds
Josh Fisher 0-1 Stanley Allan
Tristan Green 1-0 Katherine Myers

Since losing to Hartlepool D in the first match of the season, the Juniors have gone unbeaten for 9 matches now. This win took us back above Redcar up to 2nd, only a point behind Hartlepool.

Tristan was first finished. He went a rook up fairly early and played it out well, nullifying early any possible counter-play from Katherine. A fairly ruthless performance!

Josh was ahead initially, but a miscalculation put Stanley on the front foot in terms of piece activity and when the dust settled he finished several pawns up. Josh couldn’t get back into it from there.

Jayden was a pawn up, but the endgame position didn’t give him any real chance and the 2 players agreed a draw. Jayden did have half an eye on the board 1 game, so knew a draw was likely to be enough.

Matthew is Redcar’s top player at the moment and had previously only lost 1 game in 2 seasons in the league. This time however he lost his queen for a bishop within 10 moves! A trap involving a check with the bishop revealed an attack on Matthew’s queen. Possibly a little bit of luck here for Faruk to get ahead so quickly, but nevertheless another great victory!

Promotion looks like a possibility after this result. Redcar are a point behind with a game in hand, but they do have the top 3 other teams in the division still to play.

Chris

Date:18/03/2025  Win for B52s!

Thornaby B52s 3-1 Billingham Synthonia C
Iain Mellis 0.5-0.5 Fraser Craig
Stephen Ollis 1-0 Bernie Callaghan
Rhys Orton 0.5-0.5 Graham Edwards
Zhuoyi Lin 1-0 Graham Bartram

It was an all round good night for the club on Tuesday with all 3 of our teams winning and Ajay drawing with Steve Cole in the Cleveland Individual. The B52s were missing 4 players including the normal top 2 boards for this one, but still managed to come out on top.

Iain and Fraser both seemed to enjoy the game! I'm not exactly sure what happened, but Iain was a little relieved with the draw.

Zhuoyi was playing in his first game at B division level. He went ahead through a fork and Graham resigned later when material down.

Rhys’ game petered out into a fairly closed endgame position and neither player could see a way forward.

Stephen was a pawn ahead, but with queen, 2 rooks and a piece each on the board there was still plenty of play. Stephen managed to create a lot of pressure on his opponents knight which was pinned against his rook. Although that never amounted to anything directly, it did tie up his opponents pieces and then he crashed through on the king side.

A good win for the B52s which keeps us nicely in the middle of the B division table. Considering this is effectively our D/4th team, that is certainly more than we expected at the start of the season.

Chris

Date:17/03/2025  Dragoons hold leaders!

Hartlepool D 2-2 Thornaby Dragoons
Nick Henderson 0-1 Maurice Olum
Ellis Roebuck 1-0 Neil Sotheby
William Greig 1-0 Malcolm Goldspink
Harry Henderson 0-1 Janos Mehes

Some teams prepare for matches days in advance, carefully analyzing openings, planning strategies, and visualizing victory. The Dragoons, however, prefer the thrill of last-minute chaos. I only realized we had a match at lunchtime, which led to a frantic ring-around to assemble a team. Miraculously, we managed to field pretty much our strongest line up, so a big thanks to the team for stepping up with zero prep time.

Arriving at the venue with a tired and unoptimistic Janos, we were greeted by the fresh-faced Hartlepool team, who all looked young, energetic, and well-rested. Meanwhile, I was still recovering from my pre-match cardio session of climbing the stairs—an effort that 86-year-old Janos handled better than me. If that was him on a tired day, I’d hate to see him after a good night’s sleep.

Board 4: Janos Mehes vs. Harry Henderson (1-0)
Despite his claims of not being "in the zone," Janos made short work of Harry Henderson. His game finished first, as his young opponent wisely decided that resisting any further was futile. Janos may have been reluctant to play, but he certainly wasn’t reluctant to win. He told me after the match he woke up after sitting down at the board.

Board 3: Malcolm Goldspink vs. William Greig (0-1)
Malcolm started strong and looked to be on his way to victory. Then, as can so often happen, things took a sudden and unfortunate turn. A couple of miscalculations, and before we knew it, he’d been checkmated. A painful one to take, but it happens to the best of us.

Board 2: Neil Sotheby vs. Ellis Roebuck (0-1)
My game was going fine—until it wasn’t. I got a little too excited about my own attacking idea, completely forgetting that my opponent had plans of his own. I was about to execute a clever rook-snatching tactic, only to watch in horror as Ellis executed the exact same tactic on me first. A humbling moment, and another lesson in remembering that chess is, in fact, a two-player game.

Board 1: Maurice Olum vs. Nick Henderson (1-0)
Maurice, as always, brought stability to the team. His game was a rare sight to behold—by move 24, all eight of his pawns were still on the board. While some of us were busy blundering and collapsing under pressure, Maurice had built an unbreakable wall of pawns, slowly but surely advancing them forward. Eventually, Nick resigned, accepting that there was no stopping the inevitable promotion parade. This must have been Maurice's quickest game too finishing in just under an hour.

Final Score: Thornaby Dragoons 2 – 2 Hartlepool D
A draw might not have been the result we were hoping for, but given the last-minute scramble, the lack of preparation, and my personal ability to play against myself, I’d say it’s a respectable outcome. Well played to the team—especially Janos, who proved that experience and determination beat youthful energy (and stairs) every time.

On to the next one!

Neil

Date:13/03/2025  Cadets draw in all junior battle!

Redcar A 2-2 Thornaby Cadets
Oliver Williams 0-1 Joseph Machin
Eddie Curphey 1-0 Rhys Orton
Joseph Dodds 0-1 Zhuoyi Lin
Callum Hodgkiss 1-0 Josh Fisher

A good result for the Cadets against what is probably Redcar’s strongest junior line up. They do sometimes play their only adult player (Matthew Allen) on board 1, but decided to go for an all junior showdown in this one!

As is usually the case for away Cadets matches, Joseph was the on the night captain and you can’t ask for more from your captain than a win on board 1! A nice finishing combination involving a knight sacrifice won him this one.

Callum is a tough player for board 4 and Josh found it too tough a task this time. He had previously won 5 out of 5 games in 2025, so I’m sure this will only be a temporary setback!

With Aryan moving up to the B division, Zhuoyi has now moved up a division to be a regular in this team. An endgame mistake from his opponent Joseph allowed Zhuoyi to win this one in what looked to be heading for a draw. It was a good week all round for Zhuoyi as he also beat Richard in a long battle on Tuesday in the Club Championship. A real sign of his improving resilience and battling qualities.

Rhys was last finished and still playing at half past 10 when it was still close! He made a couple of mistakes towards the end when getting short of time and Eddie won to seal the overall draw for Redcar.

A good competitive C division match which highlighted the depth of junior talent playing in the CCA now! All 8 players involved in this match are under 18!

Date:12/03/2025  Bombers go close at Great Ayton!

Great Ayton B 2½-1½ Thornaby Bombers
Steve Booth 1-0 Steve Rodgers
Royce Parker ½-½ Brian Ellis
Ray Honeybourne ½-½ Mike Creaney
Kegan Harrison ½-½ Phil Wales

A reasonably strong Ayton second string only just prevailed.

Phil was a little apprehensive as a late replacement but was equal to the task and matched his higher rated opponent while Brian never looked to be in danger of defeat.

Ray offered a draw, down forty minutes on the clock, he said he had seen a way to achieve perpetual check in what looked a drawish position anyway, and I accepted.

Steve R had gained two Knights for a Rook and had a promising Kingside attacking position whist Steve B concentrated on a Queenside pawn advance, Steve R thought he had seen the winning play, but alas overlooked the flaw in his calculation and that's all it usually takes at the top end.

Still not a bad team effort against higher rated opposition.

Mike

Date:11/03/2025  Comets take Hartlepool 100% record on night of surprises!

Thornaby Comets 3-1 Hartlepool C
Maurice Olum 0-1 Michael Smalley
Phil Wales 1-0 Ashton Woodward
Stephen Ollis 1-0 John Marsden
Neil Sotheby 1-0 Graham Marshall

I was asked by Malcolm to step in as acting captain for the Thornaby Comets last night, which I assumed would mostly involve keeping score and fulfilling my sacred duties on Board 5 (propping up the bar and eating Janos' biscuits). However, plans changed when our Board 4 player mysteriously vanished. Rumours circulated about where he was. Whatever the reason, he was nowhere to be seen after 15 mins, so I had to swap my pint for a pen and step up to the board.

Board 1: Maurice Olum vs. Michael Smalley (0-1)
Maurice started strong, winning a rook for a piece early on and looking in control. Unfortunately, despite the promising start, Michael found his way back into the game, gradually turning the tables and handing Maurice a rare defeat. A tough loss, but a reminder that even with extra material and the lucky 'Boss' cap, you can't take anything for granted!

Board 2: Phil Wales vs. Ashton Woodward (1-0)
At one point, I glanced over to see Phil sitting comfortably, two passed pawns marching down the board and a clear material advantage. His opponent, who bore an uncanny resemblance to a butcher I know, was staring intensely at the position—though luckily, the only thing on the chopping block was his pieces. Phil converted cleanly, securing a well-earned win.

Board 3: Stephen Ollis vs. John Marsden (1-0)
To my amateur eyes, Stephen’s game looked balanced as I checked in on it. But just as I started to wonder how it would unfold, I went to meet Phil on Board 5 and—boom—he’d won. Apparently, it was a straightforward game for him, even if I didn’t see it coming!

Board 4: Me vs. Graham Marshall (1-0)
Thrown in at the last minute, I found myself a pawn down early on and panicking as the 100 points difference started to get to me but with the help of my earlier ordered cold beer, managed to keep things under control. Then, to my surprise, Graham offered me a rook for a piece and a pawn—an unexpected gift I wasn’t about to refuse. With another pawn just a few squares from promotion, the game quickly turned into a frantic sprint to the other side of the board. Before long, Graham saw the writing on the wall and resigned with mate imminent.

Final Score: Thornaby Comets 3 – 1 Hartlepool C
A great performance from the team to take away Hartlepool's 100% record. Before this match, they were on 9 wins from 9 games in the C division!

Neil

Date:06/03/2025  Tough week for Thornaby teams!

Thornaby Aces 1.5-2.5 Great Ayton A
Francis Batchelor 0-1 David Wise
Matt Jackman 1-0 Steve Booth
Chris Swales 0-1 Richard Hall
Brian Ellis 0.5-0.5 Andrew Smith

Thornaby Dragoons 1-3 Billingham Dominators
Maurice Olum 1-0 Dave Elsdon
Neil Sotheby 0-1 Graham Edwards
Ollie Walton 0-1 Paul Scott
George Butterworth 0-1 Nicola Britton

Great Ayton C 4-0 Thornaby B52s
Jim Rogers 1-0 Santiago Palencia
Andrew French 1-0 Maurice Olum
Connor Wilson 1-0 Iain Mellis
Peter Archer 1-0 Faruk Serin

Redcar B 4-0 Thornaby Destroyers
Eddie Curphey 1-0 Alan Stockley
Oliver Williams 1-0 Tim Hind
Callum Hodgkiss 1-0 Sachin Saggar
Katherine Myers 1-0 Charles Hind

Most of our teams had a tough week this week! Maurice was ever reliable for the Dragoons, but was the only scorer across 12 boards for the Dragoons, B52s and Destroyers.

Redcar's talented group of new youngsters continue to impress and went back to 2nd in the D division with an emphatic win over the Destroyers.

The B52s were actually close on rating to Great Ayton C, but Great Ayton's vastly more experienced team showed there is no substitute for experience with a crushing victory. Santiago played a couple of moves too fast when his opponent was low on time. Faruk made his debut at this level and took Peter to an endgame. Maurice lost on time after a 63 move marathon and Iain was "gutted" to lose after getting a substantial lead in the opening.

The Aces took on the champions Great Ayton A and their rock solid duo of David Wise and Richard Hall helped them take the points. The silver-lining for Thornaby was that Matt managed to beat our regular nemesis Steve Booth. Steve has won something like his last 1,000,000 games against Thornaby players! At least it feels like that anyway!

Date:04/03/2025  Comfortable win for Challengers!

Thornaby Challengers 4-0 Billingham Synthonia Chemics
Steve Rodgers 1-0 Derek Simpson
Mike Creaney 1-0 Bernie Callaghan
Phil Wales 1-0 Steve Clark
Joe McGinnis 1-0 Graham Bartram

Joe finished first not sure how it ended, but it sounded like a comfortable win. Steve was always in control and mindful of recent events made no mistake checkmating from a vastly superior position. Phil just had too much for his young opponent.

Bernie surprisingly (to me at least!) won against me last time, but I then went unbeaten for 14 games, so just the gee-up I needed! this time I was never in trouble, always forcing the pace and inevitably forcing resignation.

The Challengers remain in 2nd with Hartlepool B and Darlington C just behind.

Mike

Date:04/03/2025  Hurricanes hold Juniors!

Thornaby Hurricanes 2-2 Thornaby Juniors
Sam Stevenson 0-1 Jayden Wang
Jordan Broadbent 1-0 Kaira Nalawade
Eva Harris 1-0 Tristan Green
Shanaya Chauhan 0-1 Josh Fisher

As captain of both teams, I knew who everyone would be playing beforehand and I shuffled the Juniors board order a bit to avoid recent opponents for everyone. In Jordan and Josh’s case, it was literally last week that they played!

Josh was finished first. He had a very strong looking attack going on the queenside the first time I looked and then the next time, Shanaya’s queenside had disappeared and she was well down on material! Checkmate followed shortly afterwards.

Eva is a strong player for the lower boards, her only defeats so far have come on board 2 or in the C division. Tristan is one of the in-form players on the Juniors team though and I wasn’t sure how this one would go. It was another very solid performance from Eva, she got a pawn up and then a piece up and then at the end Tristan completely missed a mating threat.

Kaira started well and had a good position out of the opening, but her failure to castle looked costly in the end. Jordan came crashing through the centre to get a rook up and then chased Kaira’s king around and checkmated. A first league win for Jordan!

Jayden made sure of a draw for the Juniors with another win. Sam miscalculated and went the exchange down. The endgame looked like an eventual win which would still take a while for Jayden, but they both came through to the bar area about 5 minutes later. Sam had missed a mating tactic. This is the first time Jayden has played on board 1, but he continues to lead the D division top scorer list along with Maurice. This took him to 7 wins from 9.

The Juniors are up there challenging at the top end of the table in 2nd. For the Hurricanes this was a 2nd point and it’s all about experience now. During the season Sam has become the Thornaby Junior Open Champion and Shanaya the CCA ladies quickplay champion, so despite the lowly league position, it's hard to argue that the team wasn’t worth running!

Chris

Date:25/02/2025  Bombers into plate final!

Thornaby Bombers 2½-2½ Billingham Belasis
Steve Rodgers 0-1 Keith Harrison
Aryan Nalawade 1-0 Paul Weightman
Mike Creaney 1-0 Brian Whitaker
Phil Wales ½-½ Darren Donnison
Joseph Machin 0-1 Graham Edwards
* Bombers win on the three blacks rule

Bd5- Joseph was a pawn up, but blundered a knight for nothing and couldn't get back in the game from there.

Bd3- In form Mike got another good win with another uncharacteristic attacking game, this time against former Thornaby stalwart Brian.

Bd4- Phil had a solid even looking position and agreed a draw because he thought the other 2 were winning.

Bd1- Steve was ahead initially, but thought he had a combination to win his opponent's queen, but ended up getting his own trapped instead! Defeat from the jaws of victory!

Bd2- That left Aryan knowing he needed a win to put the Bombers through. He was a pawn down at one stage, but managed to get into an endgame with a bishop and 5 pawns against 6 pawns. There was still plenty of work to do though as Paul had 2 passed pawns and all of his pawns on the opposite colour square to the bishop. Aryan got there in the end though, a great battling performance from him. It was to the relief of Steve who thought he'd blown the match! He even asked Kaira what sweets he should buy for Aryan!

So a great win for the team which means a 2nd plate final in a row for the Bombers. They will play Hartlepool B who knocked out tournament favourite Great Ayton in the semi final. Neither club have won the plate for 15 years, since it switched to a rating cap format, so it should be a brilliant final!

Date:25/02/2025  Cadets draw with Dynasties!

Cadets draw with Dynasties
Thornaby Cadets 2-2 Thornaby Dynasties
Rhys Orton 1-0 Iain Mellis
Avanish Batra 0-1 Tashil Lankapura
Zhuoyi Lin 0-1 Toefl Lankapura
Josh Fisher 1-0 Jordan Broadbent

The Cadets were a little depleted due to half term and Joseph’s call up to the plate semi-final, but we still had a very competitive team of C division standard players.

Toefl finished first. A fairly routine win, he said he felt he was getting better with his positional pawn play and starting to see the effect some of his pawn moves will have later in the game.

It was a league debut for Jordan who has impressed at Ingleby library and in the club enough to go straight in at C division level. Josh is a good player who is right in form now and I wouldn’t have been surprised either way on this one. Josh was making his C division debut and in the end his extra league experience probably told. Jordan said it was a different game with that amount of time and recording the moves etc. It went to a rook and 3 pawns against a knight and 3 pawns and I’d always back Josh to win in that kind of position, he plays the endgames well and makes very few outright blunders.

A good win for Rhys on board 1 in what was a long game by Iain’s standards. Iain played an unusual gambit line, but Rhys played it well to keep the pawn advantage and gradually increase his lead. In the end Iain was 3 pawns down when Rhys found a check to get the queens off and Iain resigned in a hopeless endgame position. Iain had some particularly difficult and tiresome customers (my 2 children!) as his last appointment at his opticians, so that’s probably what swung it for Rhys!

Tashil established a big material advantage after an unorthodox aggressive opening. He got a bit overconfident and lost his queen for a rook and a piece and then lost a bishop to a pin. The endgame was 2 pawns each with Avanish having a queen and Tashil a rook and a knight. It looked good for Avanish, but he missed a tactic where Tashil appeared to leave a rook hanging, but it led to a knight fork. A long game and good practice for both players at keeping going in long matches until the end.

Overall, a good point for both teams. Especially good for Rhys to get a quality win in a long battle.

Chris

Date:24/02/2025  Bombers hold Hartlepool!

Hartlepool A 2-2 Thornaby Bombers
Ray Stonehouse 1-0 Chris Swales
Peter Harker 0-1 Steve Rodgers
Dave Kelly 0-1 Mike Creaney
Alex Kalyviotis 1-0 Maurice Olum

A good competitive match with all boards close for a long time finished with honours even and a point for the Bombers.

Mike finished first. In his words "it was in my usual attacking style (no sniggering please) more space more pieces than defenders around his king, a Rook lift a Rook sacrifice two Bishops and a Queen against two Knights, say goodnight Gracie".

Chris hung on under pressure to force a queen exchange and get to a rook and 5 pawns each endgame with a slightly more active rook, but played a passive move which gave his opponent the initiative and then made a mistake which lost a pawn. He fought on looking for stalemate or a drawn position, but Ray converted the endgame.

Maurice started OK and was material up for a while with Alex having doubled pawns as well. Unfortunately he hadn't castled and his rooks were not in the game and Alex capitalised with a devastating attack down the middle. When the dust settled, Alex was 3 pawns and a queen for a rook ahead and he found a nice checkmate in the middle of the board to win.

Steve obtained a small edge out of the opening which he wasted by a move order innaccuracy which tied his queen side up for a bit. He eventually freed himself and gained the initiative and lots of space on the Queen side. After the queens went off, Steve proceeded with his queenside advantage and swapped his two knights for a rook on the king side which enabled him to force a pawn home on the other flank. Both players were down to less than 5 minutes and the interesting position drew in a crowd of spectators! It was a great tactical finish from Steve to force his pawn home.

Date:22/02/2025  Nalawade's dominate library quickplay!

In our 2nd library quickplay of the year, it was a good day for the Nalawade family! Kaira was joint girls champion while Aryan had a flawless tournament to win the overall title. There were some tough looking matches including facing Steve and Tashil in the last 2 rounds, but both made big blunders against him and he scooped the £20 prize.

Jayden had another good tournament finishing in 3rd on 3.5 and winning the U9 category while Tashil was U11 champion again with 3 points. The U14 category was very close, but Charles won his last match to overtake several players to be outright winner. That meant it was also a good day for the Hind family with Freya joining Kaira on 2 points and they split the girls £10 prize.

Leading Finishers:
Aryan Nalawade 5
Joseph Machin 4
Jayden Wang 3.5 (U9 Champion)
Tashil Lankapura 3 (U11 Champion)
Steve Rodgers 3
Clair Hartill 3
Charles Hind 3 (U14 Champion)
Rhys Orton 2.5
Sam Stevenson 2.5
Nate Broadbent 2.5
Josh Fisher 2
Zhuoyi Lin 2
Isaac Machin 2
Kaira Nalawade 2 (Joint Girls Champion)
Freya Hind 2 (Joint Girls Champion)
Shadrach Moukoko 2
Matthew Hartill 2

Date:19/02/2025  Aces make top half split!

Great Ayton B 2-2 Thornaby Aces
Steve Booth 1-0 Francis Batchelor
Martin McLaughlin 0.5-0.5 Matt Jackman
Royce Parker 0.5-0.5 Chris Swales
Kegan Harrison 0-1 Steve Rodgers

After a poor season so far, a pressure game for the Aces saw them pretty much fall over the line to finish in the top half! This draw was just enough to put us ahead of Billingham on goal difference and finish in the top 4 for the second set of fixtures.

Matt came straight from work and we knew in advance that he would be starting a little bit late after his clock had started. The game looked fairly even from where I was. Matt offered a draw after about an hour which Martin accepted. I didn’t hear exactly what they said, but it sounded like Matt had seen a problem in his position and missed a tactic, so was happy to get away with an early draw.

Soon after that Kegan said something along the lines of “Oh dear” after moving his rook to where Steve’s knight could take it. This was before Steve played the move and Kegan resigned immediately when he did. He was only the exchange down, but I think his heart had gone from the game! He said afterwards it was one of those where he played the 2nd move in his analysis before the 1st! We've all done it!

I managed to get a pawn up against Royce and in the process isolate one of his other pawns. It all looked good, but I could see Francis was in a complicated game that could go either way, so I offered a draw to make sure of the match result. Royce had just played an innocuous looking pawn move. I missed that this set up a clever queen sacrifice to get his pawn back where if I took it he had mate in 3! That put him on the front foot and he should possibly have won from there. A few moves earlier, the computer found that he had a chance to get an even bigger advantage with a rook sacrifice leading to a similar problem for me. I could have easily countered all of these threats by castling, but I got obsessed with my rook on the open h file and totally missed these tactics. I also played one bad king move in the endgame where I failed to use distant opposition correctly, but Royce missed the winning move. It was a draw if I’d played it right, so a draw was probably a fair result as we both made a mistake in the endgame! It was certainly a struggle after I lost my pawn advantage, but in the end it was the draw we needed to finish in the top half.

I thought Francis was 2 pieces for a pawn up at this point, but apparently that was never the case. The position was wild with pieces spread everywhere and hardly any pawns. So all pieces had many possible moves with the kings in the open making it very complicated. Both players had about 10 minutes at this point, but Steve’s moves were a little bit more routine and Francis ended up getting shorter on time and making the crucial mistake.

For me, Francis and Matt it is fair to say that it has not been our best set of 8 matches ever, but we’ve muddled through to finish in the top half! Steve has been the main 4th player and his 4 points from 5 games certainly helped us qualify including his win in this one! Chris Ross has got 1.5 from 2 on the top board as well.

Chris

Date:18/02/2025  Comets close in on promotion!

Thornaby Comets 3-1 Redcar A
Phil Wales ½-½ Matthew Allen
Maurice Olum 1-0 Eddie Curphey
Pete Townson 1-0 Joseph Dodds
Bill March ½-½ Callum Hodgkiss

Pete was first to finish and it was quick so I didn’t see any of his game!

Maurice managed to pin Eddie’s King and Queen and Eddie had to sacrifice a knight to save the queen. Shortly after Eddie blundered a rook and Maurice won within a few moves.

Bill’s game was very even and went into the endgame with a rook, knight and 5 pawns against rook, bishop and 4 pawns. Callum offered a draw and after confirming we were two wins up, Bill accepted the draw to win us the match.

Phil and Matthew’s game was a close one between two evenly matched players. Neither gave an inch and the positions and pieces were still even going into the endgame. They were one of only three games still playing in the whole of the room when they shook hands with honours even and a draw.

With only four matches left, this was an important win for the Comets which has increased our gap from the chasing pack to four points. Redcar A were the nearest challengers and a win for them would have put them in second place.

Malcolm

Date:18/02/2025  Derby win for Challengers!

Thornaby Challengers 3-1 Thornaby B52s
Steve Rodgers 1-0 Aryan Nalawade
Mike Creaney 1-0 Iain Mellis
James Urwin 1-0 Santiago Palencia
Joe McGinnis 0-1 Stephen Ollis

The B division local derby ended in the expected win for the Challengers, but some good games nonetheless.

James and Santiago had a complex open position with both kings looking exposed. Santiago made the crucial error! He described his performance as "shameful" which I felt was a bit strong!

Iain was a piece down against Mike the first time I looked and Mike is not the sort of player you want top give tjhat kind of advantage!

Stephen allowed Joe to go a pawn up thinking he had enough compensation. He was right and was able to stop Joe castling and also chase his queen around to gain a development edge. He pushed the advantage home and ended up with a good win in 21 moves.

Aryan went a pawn down when he missed a tactic straight after the queens went off. Steve said he made it tough for him from there, but Steve won in the end.

The Challengers are in a tight race for 2nd with only 1 point separating 2nd-4th. The B52s look set for a mid-table finish.

Chris

Date:18/02/2025  Juniors go 3rd!

Thornaby Juniors 3-1 Thornaby Dragoons
Faruk Serin 1-0 Neil Sotheby
Jayden Wang 1-0 Malcolm Goldspink
Kaira Nalawade 0-1 Janos Mehes
Tristan Green 1-0 Joe Vera-Sanso

First thing to say is that all the games went on for a good length of time which is what I like to see from our youngsters!

Jayden found a nice checkmate in the middle of the board against Malcolm. He is now joint top scorer in the division along with Maurice.

Neil was material up against Faruk, but missed a fork and lost a rook. It was plain sailing from there for Faruk. It is 2 wins in 2 for him on board 2 and 1, so a great start for him to league chess!

Kaira had an even looking position for a long time, but Janos managed to get a strong attack going in the middle of the board and eventually came out on top after 50 moves.

Tristan took the juniors over the line. At the point Kaira finished he was ahead on material, but Joe had a dangerous looking queen and knight circling around Tristan’s king and I was far from sure of the win. Tristan has missed the last 3 games for various reasons, but there were no signs of rust and he came out on top in a complex position.

With several players in form now and the addition of Faruk, the Juniors have beaten 2 of the top 3 3-1 in their last 2 games and are looking good for a strong finish. This win lifts them to 3rd and only 1 point behind the leaders.

Chris

Date:18/02/2025  Daylight for Destroyers!

Thornaby Destroyers 3-1 Thornaby Hurricanes
Alan Stockley 1-0 Sam Stevenson
Ik Madueke 1-0 Eva Harris
Tim Hind 1-0 Bertie Mellis
Charles Hind 0-1 Shanaya Chauhan

It was another packed night in our venue on Tuesday with 7 teams in action! It’s the point in the year where we start the return fixtures and that means a lot of Thornaby vs Thornaby matches! The league like games involving 2 teams from the same club to be played early to try to avoid any possible accusations of match fixing later in the season!

New CCA ladies quickplay champion Shanaya was first finished. A very solid performance against Charles which showed a massive improvement since the start of the season. I went through the game with her afterwards and couldn’t find a single mistake other than 1 possible wasted tempo and even that was debatable. She played the opening well, martialled all her pieces pointing at the same side of the board and got a good attack going. She then exploited one bad move from Charles to get a knight fork, but he was under a lot of pressure anyway. She pushed on from there and found a checkmate with a nice combination. Charles is the leading scorer this season for the Destroyers and one of the leading scorers in the division, so no pushover. All in all, it was clear to see why she won the competition last week!

The other 3 games all finished fairly close together. I’m not sure of the order:

Alan went the exchange up against Sam and the endgame always looked likely to go his way with a rook and 5 pawns against a knight and 5 pawns.

Tim was well on top against Bertie the first time I looked. Material up and several pieces in dangerous looking positions on Bertie’s side of the board!

I didn’t see exactly what happened in Eva’s game, but Ik came out of it with a big sigh of relief saying it was a really tough game and Eva played well!

The Destroyers put some daylight between themselves and the Hurricanes at the bottom end of the D division, but the Hurricanes continue to get better and will blow stronger and stronger as the season goes on!

Chris

Date:15/02/2025  School Championship win for Jayden!

On Saturday Jayden played in his school championships. The way Jayden is playing in the league at the moment, I do feel a bit sorry for his classmates! Nevertheless, there are some very good players in his school and it was still a great performance from him to win all 7 of his games in the year 4 category and take the title. Well done Jayden, a dominant performance!

Date:12/02/2025  Surprise defeat for Comets!

Billingham Irons 3-1 Thornaby Comets
Graham Glass 1-0 Maurice Olum
Dermot O’Higgins 1-0 Phil Wales
Martin Curry ½-½ Pete Townson
Graham Edwards ½-½ Alan Stockley

The Comets suffered a shock defeat to Billingham last night. I played a couple of friendlies, so I didn’t catch all of the action, but all the games were tight with pawn advantages making the difference.

Alan was first to finish. Both players played a cautious and defensive game that tied up all the pieces.

Pete finished next in an endgame with him two pawns to one up. Martin’s king was better positioned and he was able to capture both of Pete’s pawns, but Pete was able to get his king to the 1st rank and force the draw.

Phil thought he had a fancy tactic in the middlegame which backfired and he lost a piece! He was one move away from checkmate at the end, but so was his opponent and he got there first!

I watched the end of Maurice’s game. I wouldn’t describe it as an endgame as both players still had a queen and rook, Maurice with three pawns and Graham with six. Graham managed to get his queen and rook behind Maurice’s defence forcing the king into the centre of the board. The end came with a complicated checkmate involving a queen, rook and two pawns.

This loss means catching Hartlepool C will be difficult, but we are still in second place.

Malcolm

Date:11/02/2025  8th time lucky for Dynasties!

Thornaby Dynasties 2.5-1.5 Darlington D
James Mann 0-1 Stephen Halliday
Geoff Mann ½-½ Mark Turner
Richard Stevenson 1-0 John Halliday
George Butterworth 1-0 Maksymilian Konczynski

After 7 previous attempts, this was the Dynasties first win of the season!

George was finished first. His opponent was late and sat down for what seemed like five minutes and he was gone. Sorry George, I didn’t see your game it was that quick!

Next finished was James. Unfortunately he was 200 points down on his opponent and in the end it showed. It looked topsy turvy with James winning at one point, but unfortunately a blunder moving a pawn cost him his rook and it was game over.

I finished third. Very uneventful game which got stuck with everything protected and pawns all blocking any paths. Draw was a fair result.

Then after what seemed like an eternity Richard finished. I saw that he got a piece up midway through the game and held well after multiple attacks. Swapping rooks won the game and that was followed by an almighty blunder from his opponent losing the queen to the sniper bishop.

Thanks Richard and George stepping up and getting your first C division wins of the season!

Geoff

Date:11/02/2025  Shanaya wins inaugural CCA Ladies Quickplay Championship!

Earlier this evening, Thornaby hosted a first ever CCA Ladies Quickplay Championship. With 16 ladies and girls playing in the league now (compared to just 1 2 years ago!), we felt the time was right to try this event. We have several talented girls doing well at the club now and we wanted something extra for them to aim at. All ladies and girls registered to CCA clubs were invited to take part. It was a great success and unpredictable from the start! It really did feel like any player could beat any player and there were some great combination finishes and last minute swings in several of the games.

Middlesbrough's Yasmin Pallister played some of the best chess and got into good positions in all her games, but hadn't played in a speed event before and found the time control difficult, losing several of her games on time.

Shanaya was the lowest rated player in the field, but made a mockery of that by winning all 5 of her games! What turned out to be the crucial game was against Omi in round 3. Omi castled queenside, but shortly after that Shanaya's Queen came down to a2 and she found a nice combination to finish the match off. Her hardest game was the last one, where Paulina was 1 move off checkmate, but she ran out of time before she could find the move.

Omi won her other 4 games including her decisive final game against Redcar's Thornaby Junior Chess Under 14 girls champion Katherine Myers. Both were on 3 going into the last round and the winner was guaranteed to be at least Runner Up. Katherine's consolation was to share joint 3rd. It was very close for the final places. As noted above, Paulina missed out on joint 3rd by just 1 move! Clair Hartill came out of the pack to also finish on 3 points for a share of 3rd place. Clair also won a bronze medal as part of the Thornaby library team on Saturday, so a good week for her!

Thank you to everyone who took part, it's a fantastic testament to the growth of the ladies game in the CCA that we were able to run something like this and hopefully it will become a regular event.

Full Results:
1) Shanaya Chauhan (Thornaby) 5pts
2) Omi Sibanda (Thornaby) 4pts
3) Katherine Myers (Redcar) 3pts
=) Clair Hartill (Thornaby) 3pts
5) Nicola Harrington (Billingham) 2.5pts
=) Kaira Nalawade (Thornaby) 2.5pts
7) Freya Hind (Thornaby) 2pts
=) Paulina Roychoudhury (Thornaby) 2pts
9) Yasmin Pallister (Middlesbrough) 1pt

Chris

Date:09/02/2025  Congress win for Mike!

The Blackpool Chess Congress was played over the weekend and 6 Thornaby players made the journey west.

In the Minor (Under 1700) section Mike took the title and he was the only player of the 81 to finish on 5 out of 5! Brian was well up the standings on 3.5 while Jonathan and Tom finished on a respectable 2.5.

In the Standard (Under 1550) section Tashil only lost to the eventual winner John McKenna and finished on an excellent 3.5 from his 5 games. Toefl was just behind on 3 points.

A great effort from our players to all finish on 50% or more, but especially well done to "Club Legend" Mike! Mike has been in our club since it started in 2007 and is the epitome of practice makes perfect. He's at the club every week and for the last 3 seasons, he's played more league games for the club than anyone else! There's life in the old dog yet!

Thornaby Results....
Minor (Under 1700)
1st) Mike Creaney 5/5
Brian Ellis 3.5/5
Jonathan Feasby 2.5/5
Tom Marwood 2.5/5

Standard (Under 1550)
Tashil Lankapura 3.5/5
Toefl Lankapura 3/5

Date:08/02/2025  Ingleby win Inter-Library Challenge!

The first ever Teesside Inter-Library Challenge took place at Stockton library yesterday and all of the local CSC backed libraries sent a team. The emphasis of the event was on fun and friendship, so we didn't select any of our top B and C division junior players to make the event more competitive for everyone. Our 2 teams had a real family feel emphasising the "chess for all" ethos and our family friendly club. Ingleby Barwick library used 3 families for their 6 players:
Board 1) Jordan Broadbent
Board 2) Volodymyr Kryzhanovskyi
Board 3) Nate Broadbent
Board 4) Henry Bishop
Board 5) Sarah Bishop
Board 6) Dmytro Kryzhanovskyi

Thornaby were even more tight knit with just 2 families making up the team!
Board 1) Tim Hind
Board 2) Charles Hind
Board 3) Clair Hartill
Board 4) Freya Hind
Board 5) Joseph Hartill
Board 6) Matthew Hartill

The hosting Stockton team looked strong and included 2 well known top local junior players in Alice Sturman and Dara Jafari. The event was played on the jamboree format and it was all credit to Joe McGinnis' Ingelby Barwick team who managed to finish on the same score as Stockton to share the title. The young Thornaby team took home bronze medals after finishing in 3rd with Billingham in 4th place.

Top scorer for our 2 teams was the Thornaby Junior Chess Open Under 9 winner Henry Bishop who finished on 3/3 on board 4. Freya and Joseph both finished on 2/3 for the Thornaby team who found the top 3 boards tough going scoring just 2 points from a possible 9.

Final Result)
1st=) Ingleby Barwick Library 12.5
1st=) Stockton Library 12.5
3rd) Thornaby Library 7.5
4th) Billingham Library 3.5

Well done to Sean Marsh for organising the event and as always putting the emphasis on fun, meeting new people and making new friends. It was a lovely relaxed and enjoyable event to be involved in which highlighted how much chess is played in Teesside libraries every weekend. There were plenty of other people not involved in the event playing chess as part of the normal Stockton afternoon session and I counted over 50 people in attendance.

Chris

Date:05/02/2025  Champions defeat Bombers!

Great Ayton A 3-1 Thornaby Bombers
Virgil Szekely 1-0 Steve Rodgers
Richard Hall 1-0 Sagar Patil
Andrew Smith ½-½ Mike Creaney
Kegan Harrison ½-½ Joe McGinnis

No one will be surprised by this result against the league champions, but nothing comes easy and they had to work to make their superior technique count especially on the top two boards. Steve enjoyed his game which was a hard fought positional battle with Virgil 0.3 up until move 27 when he sacced exchange to get what he thought was a good drawing opportunity. It wasn’t!

I thought I was going to deliver a smothered mate after sacrificing a Bishop for two pawns, but of course I overlooked something and ended up with two Rooks and two pawns for two pieces and a Rook and accepted Andrews draw offer. Just as well as stockfish subsequently has him +2 in the final position, these assessments baffle me sometimes in the case of chess.com all of the time!

Overall, a good effort from the Bombers!

Mike

Date:04/02/2025  First league win for Joe!

Thornaby Dragoons 2-2 Thornaby Destroyers
Neil Sotheby 0-1 Alan Stockley
Ollie Walton 0-1 Ike Madueke
George Butterworth 1-0 Tim Hind
Joe Vera-Sanso 1-0 Sachin Saggar

With the Dragoons in a strong position in the table, I decided to shake things up for this match, giving our usual board 1, Maurice, a well-earned night off. That meant I took on the top board myself—a bold decision that, in hindsight, may have been a little too ambitious!

Board 4: Joe’s First League Win!
The highlight of the night was undoubtedly Joe securing his first-ever league win! Facing Sachin on board 4, Joe held his nerve and played a solid game to claim victory. A well-deserved milestone and hopefully the first of many—well done, Joe!

Board 3: George’s Confidence vs. Tim’s Apprehension
Tim, understandably, seemed a little apprehensive about facing George, who was brimming with confidence before the game. Whether that confidence translated into over-the-board dominance, I can’t say for sure, as it finished so quickly but George certainly backed it up, securing another point for the Dragoons. A great result for him, keeping up his strong run of form. Also a step up from his usual board 4. Well done G!

Board 2: Ollie Falls to Ike
Ollie had a tough challenge against Ike, and unfortunately, it wasn’t his night. A hard-fought game which saw him lose a rook early on helping Ike came out on top. These matches are all part of the learning process, though—Ollie will bounce back stronger next time. Ollie was also playing a board up from his usual board.

Board 1: A Second Defeat to Alan Stockley
Taking on Alan Stockley on board 1 was always going to be a challenge, and despite my best efforts, I wasn’t able to get the win. That’s now two games against Alan and two losses—clearly, I’ll need to go back to the drawing board before our next encounter! If I remember correctly in our first game I played the London which I was later told was one of his favourite openings so I thought I may have just got unlucky. This game as black I tried the Scandi which he seemed to easily handle helped by me losing a rook due to a miscalculation.

Final Score: 2–2 Draw
Without our usual ‘boss’ leading the charge, it was always going to be a tricky night, and taking on board 1 proved to be a tall order for me. That said, a 2–2 draw is still a respectable result, ensuring we stay competitive in the table. Well done to the team, and especially to Joe for his milestone victory!

Neil

Date:04/02/2025  Aces draw to Hartlepool!

Thornaby Aces 2-2 Hartlepool A
Francis Batchelor 1-0 Bill Wilson
Sam Greig 0.5-0.5 Peter Harker
Chris Swales 0-1 David Kelly
Steve Rodgers 0.5-0.5 Michael Smalley

Steve felt it was a case of snatching a draw from the jaws of victory! He was up a pawn early on and built on it to a point where the engine had him 3.3 up at one point. The game petered out into a locked position.

Chris didn't feel he played the opening well and was already behind when he massively under-estimated the downsides of taking a pawn. The subsequent queen move onto the open f-file was catastrophic and he was 2 pieces down shortly afterwards where he resigned.

Francis equalised the match soon afterwards. It was a complicated middle-game position and Bill missed a rook move which left him down with no real counterplay, so he resigned.

Sam played a solid positional game against Hartlepool captain Peter Harker. Neither player ever established much of a lead and a draw was agreed.

The Aces are in 4th in the table with 1 game to go until the mid-season split. A win in the last game will ensure Thornaby finish in the top half.

Date:04/02/2025  B52s lose to leaders!

Thornaby B52s 1-3 Middlesbrough Knights
Aryan Nalawade 0.5-0.5 Jake Pearson
Santiago Palencia 0-1 Nikhil Bhandari
Iain Mellis 0-1 Brian Myers
Stephen Ollis 0.5-0.5 Ray Pallister

Thornaby B52s took on the runaway B division leaders Middlesbrough Knights on Tuesday. I was playing in the Aces match and the setup of the room made it hard for me to get round to see these games. All of them took quite a while, so we were at least competitive. Iain finished first, he sounded like he’d enjoyed the game. Santiago was away for part of January and this was his first game of the calendar year, so probably needed a game to get back into it! Nikhil is a dangerous aggressive player though. I didn’t see what happened in either of these 2.

Aryan was a pawn up in an endgame, but missed a tactic. It was still a rook and 2 connected pawns against a rook and 1 pawn at the end, but Jake had pushed his pawn more quickly and Aryan was forced to abandon his 2 pawns to force the draw.

Stephen and Ray had a wild looking position with pieces scattered all over. Ray was the exchange up, but still had both rooks on their starting squares and his king on d8 well into the game with Stephen’s pieces looking nicely co-ordinated in comparison. It finished a draw, but both players said to me afterwards what a good game it was!

Chris

Date:04/02/2025  Sam saves whitewash!

Thornaby Hurricanes 0.5-3.5 Redcar B
Sam Stevenson 0.5-0.5 Oliver Williams
Eva Harris 0-1 Callum Hodgkiss
Bertie Mellis 0-1 Stanley Allan
Shanaya Chauhan 0-1 Katherine Myers

A tough match for the Hurricanes. Redcar have the best set of junior players outside of us and all of last night’s team have enough league experience for full ratings now as well as plenty of pedigree in local junior events.

Bertie was disappointed with his game. He said it wasn’t that he lost, but he didn’t ever feel his head was in the right place during the game. Like he wasn’t actually playing a league match. I sort of know what he means by this, you do need to get yourself in the zone a bit to play your best.

Shanaya played the opening well and managed to get a skewer with a bishop on Katherine’s queen and rook, but when Katherine replied by attacking her queen with a knight she made a mistake moving her queen back. That allowed Katherine to take the bishop with her queen as Shanaya’s queen was the only piece protecting it. It went downhill fast from there as Katherine got on the front foot and mated with a quick attack on the queenside.

Sam played another solid game on board 1, it looked like quite a locked position and there was never any point where either player looked to have much of an advantage the times I looked.

Eva was level for a long time, but blundered a rook in the middlegame and it was over quickly from there. Still a good performance against one of the best players in the area of her age.

The Hurricanes are struggling a bit in the league, but they were a last minute addition and were always 100% a development team for us. This experience will be invaluable for these 4 young players. Sam getting board 1 games is what we needed for him and the other 3 have obvious talent and will only get better with more games.

Chris

Date:03/02/2025  Juniors smash Hartlepool unbeaten record!

Hartlepool D 1-3 Thornaby Juniors
John Marsden 1-0 Zhuoyi Lin
Nick Henderson 0-1 Faruk Serin
Ellis Roebuck 0-1 Jayden Wang
Harry Henderson 0-1 Josh Fisher

A great result for the Juniors beating the high flying Hartlepool D who were previously unbeaten on 11 points from a possible 12.

It was a strong debut for Faruk on board 2 who has impressed in friendly matches at the club. It’s different in real games of course and we’ve seen with a lot of players that it can take a while to get going, so great for him to hit the ground running!

Jayden and Josh are both currently on long winning runs and playing 1 board lower than usual this time, so these were 2 very strong board 3 and 4 players for us! Jayden was a rook up, but blundered when his opponent was very short on time. In the end it didn't matter as he queened first and his opponent ran out of time after a check by Jayden.

Zhuoyi is finding board 1 a little tough, but he has got a win and a draw in his 6 games and it is good experience for him to play at this level. The experience is starting to show in his library results, he won group 1 for the first time last week. It is also allowing the others to play 1 board lower and he’s happy to keep challenging himself which is the right attitude to have!

That takes the Juniors up to 3rd in the table and still in with a chance of a run at the title this season.

Date:03/02/2025  Toefl saves Challengers!

Hartlepool B v Challengers 2-2
Graham Matthews ½-½ Mike Creaney
Alex Kalyviotis ½-½ Phil Wales
Alex Costello 1-0 Tashil Lankapura
Ashton Woodward 0-1 Toefl Lankapura

That's three consecutive draws against Graham now, I was sure I was going to win this one at one point but failed to find the correct procedure it only takes one wrong move order sometimes to throw away an advantage.

Phil was doing Ok with black and had a space advantage, but his opponent had good counterplay and a position arose where both could be said to be on the verge of losing so being risk averse a draw was considered prudent.

Tashil unfortunately dropped a piece and although fighting to the last couldn't turn it around. Toefl won a piece for two pawns and showed the required technique to grind out the win thus saving us from defeat!

Mike

Date:29/01/2025  Thornaby players shine in Cleveland Individual!

The 2nd round of the prestigious Cleveland Individual championship is well under way. So far the only 2 players on 2 out of 2 are from Thornaby! Matt Jackman beat me with a trademark win, slowly gaining space and position and forcing me back. Aryan sent shockwaves through the tournament with a victory over Billingham's experienced Steve Cole. It was a quick 24 move victory after Steve missed a tactic in a complex position. A best ever win (on rating anyway) for Aryan who continues to progress at a phenomenal rate in his first season in the league.

The only players who can join them on 2/2 are the league grader Darlington's Dominic Leigh and the 5 times former winner and tournament favourite Middlesbrough's Nic Tavoularis. They play each other in round 2 in February.

The Cleveland Individual has been around for over 100 years and has been won by many of the great names in local chess. Including Sean Marsh, Mike Closs, David Baillie, David Wise, Tom Wise, Norman Stephenson, Richard Hall, Steve Dauber, Paul Gregory and many others I know less well. It would be great to see another Thornaby name on the trophy. The legendary Mike Closs is the only player in our club's history to have won the event.

Chris

Date:28/01/2025  Dynasties into final!

Thornaby Dynasties 2.5-2.5 Redcar A
Toefl Lankapura 0-1 Matthew Allan
Tashil Lankapura 1-0 Oliver Williams
Geoff Mann 0.5-0.5 Callum Hodgkiss
James Mann 0-1 Stanley Allan
Sam Stevenson 1-0 Katherine Myers

The Dynasties made it into the final of the Under 1500 cup by the narrowest possible margin!

Sam was first finished, playing out a relatively quick win over Katherine. He got a piece up fairly early on and never looked likely to lose the advantage.

Redcar's own "dynasty" the Allan's proved to be a thorn in our sides in this one. James blundered a piece against Stanley and things looked worse when Stanley got a pawn onto the 7th rank. It was over soon after.

Geoff and Callum played out a solid draw on board 3 to make it 1.5-1.5. The endgame looked very level with little obvious threat for either player.

Tashil was a pawn and a rook against a rook, but the king positions looked favourable. This proved irrelevant though as Tashil found a nice tactic doing a discovered check on the king by moving his own king to threaten Oliver's rook. That made the score 2.5-1.5 and made sure the Dynasties progressed.

Toefl was 2 pieces down, but did generate some counter play with threats on the g file and later a passed pawn. Matthew held firm though and got the consolation win.

When the scores finish level, the team who had the black pieces on 3 boards progresses. The Dynasties won their quarter final the same way and seem to be leading a charmed life in this competition! Good luck to whoever plays them in the final, you'll need it!

Date:27/01/2025  First C division win for Eva!

Darlington D 2-2 Thornaby Cadets
Stephen Halliday 1-0 Ajay Selvan
Mark Turner 0-1 Joseph Machin
Maksymilian Konczynski 1-0 Jayden Wang
Charlie Miller 0-1 Eva Harris

The Cadets travelled to Darlington Unusually it was 4 wins for black in this one!

Jayden had a decent attack going at the start, but the game quickly went to an endgame. It looked like a dead draw with 3 pawns each, but a small miscalculation from Jayden allowed Maks to push one of his through and get Jayden's king to the side of the board.

Joseph seems to always play well at Darlington and it was another good performance from him to beat the Darlington captain Mark Turner.

Stephen is rated 1668, so it was a tough board 1 opponent for Ajay. Stephen managed to get the win to make it 2-1.

Eva looked to be in a lot of trouble a major piece down, but battled on and found a mating combination to equalise the match. Well done to her on a first victory in the C division!

With 3 players unavailable, overall it was a good result for us.

Chris

Date:27/01/2025  Dynasty Debuts Defeat!

Hartlepool C 4-0 Thornaby Dynasties
Ashton Woodward 1-0 Tim Hind
John Marshall 1-0 Charles Hind
Dave Berry 1-0 George Butterworth
Ellis Roebuck 1-0 Freya Hind

With the Dynasties having a cup game the following day and Geoff choosing to rest the first team, that made a total of 10 players unavailable for this match! So it was more of a Destroyers looking line up that travelled to Hartlepool to take on the high flying Hartlepool C!

George and Freya were both making their debuts at C division level, a sign of their progress over the last year. We were always likely to be up against it in this one and the league leaders came out with the expected 4-0 win. Still good experience for our team which will only help them in the future!

Date:25/01/2025  4 way tie in Library Rapidplay!

A high quality field assembled to play in our first library Rapidplay of the year. There were 14 age group medallists amongst the 24 players and a lot of high quality games.

Tashil was the only player on 4/4 going into the last round, but a win for Steve allowed him to catch up and Joseph and Ajay also won their last round games to finish on 4. Tashil, Ajay and Joseph split the £20 prize.

Omi had a bit of trouble finishing games off when ahead and lost one on time. She still finished on 2 points to be joint girls champion with Paulina. They split the £10 prize.

There was a strong performance from Fletcher who has only recently returned to the library and made his league debut earlier this week, a 2.5 score boads well for the future. Meanwhile Jayden and Matthew won sweet prizes as the top Primary school age players and Steve was delighted with his chocolate lolly for finishing as the top adult!

Leading finishers:

Tashil Lankapura 4
Steve Rodgers 4
Joseph Machin 4
Ajay Selvan 4
Jordan Broadbent 3.5
Zhuoyi Lin 3
Josh Fisher 3
Sam Stevenson 3
Fletcher Hoyland 2.5
Paulina Roychoudhury 2 (Joint girls champion)
Omi Sibanda 2 (Joint girls champion)
George Butterworth 2
Jayden Wang 2 (Joint Under 11 champion)
Matthew Hartill 2 (Joint Under 11 champion)
Nate Broadbent 2
Clair Hartill 2

Date:22/01/2025  B division debut win for Phil!

Billingham Belasis 2-2 Thornaby Challengers
Paul Frank ½-½ Steve Rodgers
Sean Cassidy ½-½ Mike Creaney
Gary Leighton 1-0 Joe McGinnis
Brian Whitaker 0-1 Phil Wales

A draw for the Challengers on their travels keeps them towards the top of the B division.

On his B division debut, Phil had a comfortable win over former Thornaby stalwart Brian and looks like a useful addition to the Challengers squad.

Steve sacrificed a pawn for an attack, but couldn't find the winning moves and settled for a draw via perpetual check.

Mike played an attacking game, but Sean was solid keeping his attacking attempts at bay. Mike went a pawn up but couldn't find the breakthrough.

Joe felt he had a slight edge for most of the match, but a couple of poor moves towards the end allowed a crushing attack from his opponent which levelled the match overall.

Date:22/01/2025  Fletcher debut ends in draw!

Billingham Dominators 2-2 Thornaby Juniors
Dave Elsdon 1-0 Zhuoyi Lin
Nicola Harrington 0-1 Jayden Wang
Nicky Britton 0-1 Josh Fisher
Graham Bartram 1-0 Fletcher Hoyland

For me, this game was all about one thing! It was Fletcher’s long awaited (at least in my eyes!) debut for the club. He joined my Village school (where my own kids went and where Tristan is also from) chess club in the Spring of 2022 and immediately impressed by lasting the longest of anyone in a simul. He first came to the club in the summer of 2022 when he was 9, before we had any real junior section to speak of. He’s been on and off at the club and library since, but was always a regular in the school club before he went to secondary school in July. Fletcher is a real character, a bit of a Maths genius, a star of my computer club and undoubtedly one of the most memorable children I've ever worked with in Primary school, so I'm delighted he is continuing with chess! The game itself was quite a quick one unfortunately, it’s always tough on your league debut and Graham is a seasoned player. Fletcher is a real natural talent though, so hopefully taking it to this next level will help to spur him on.

On board 1, Zhuoyi had a tough task against Dave who has only lost to Maurice in the league this season and Dave duly converted. The Juniors 2 in form players made sure of an overall draw though. Jayden is now on 4.5 from 5 in his last 5 league games and Josh is also winning regularly now since switching to board 3. Jayden and Josh should be good role models for Fletcher as both took a few games before they started to get some wins!

Chris

Date:21/01/2025  First defeat for Dragoons!

Thornaby Dragoons 1½-2½ Redcar B
Maurice Olum 1-0 Oliver Williams
Malcolm Goldspink 0-1 Callum Hodgkiss
Neil Sotheby ½-½ Stanley Allan
Janos Mehes 0-1 Katherine Myers

A first defeat of the season for the Dragoons saw Redcar climb above them into 2nd place in the D division.

Maurice remains on 100% in the D division and had a fairly quick win on board 1. That was as good as it got for the Dragoons with Malcolm losing to Callum and Janos blundering a rook. Then in the last game to finish, Neil was well ahead and looking set to win to equalise the match, but a bad king move stalemated the position and Redcar took both points!

Date:21/01/2025  Honours very even in Aces clash!

Thornaby Aces 2-2 Darlington A
Francis Batchelor ½-½ Steve Dauber
Matt Jackman ½-½ Kevin Wilson
Chris Swales ½-½ Jonathan Sams
Steve Rodgers ½-½ Matthew Holton

The 2nd and 3rd teams from last season clashed in an important A division match. It doesn't happen very often, but all 4 games in this one finished as draws meaning of course that the points were shared!

Steve was a pawn down, but with the extra pawn doubled, it didn't look too big a problem. Steve missed one chance to go thew exchange up, but otherwise this one was fairly even all the way and an opposite coloured bishop endgame was a certain draw.

Francis was a rook and 1 pawn against a bishop and 3 pawns in the endgame. An interesting looking endgame, but even on points of course and it turned out to be even on the board as well.

Chris had some good threats on the h1-a8 diagonal after forcing Jonathan's bishop away from it. He missed 1 chance to go a pawn up, but otherwise Jonathan defended well and when the queens were off, Chris didn't like the look of his endgame position and was happy to accept a draw offer.

That left Matt who was a pawn down with 2 dangerous looking passed pawns coming down the centre. Matt played it well though and secured the draw which meant the overall match draw.

Date:21/01/2025  Hurricanes friendly draw!

Thornaby Hurricanes Red 2-2 Thornaby Hurricanes Blue
Sam Stevenson 1-0 Amit Chauhan
Clair Hartill 0-1 Jayden Wang
Joseph Hartill 0-1 Shanaya Chauhan
Matthew Hartill 1-0 Daniel Ayre

The Hurricanes team had a bye in the D division this week, so we arranged a squad friendly for practice. I tried to make the teams even, so 2-2 was my ideal result! Unfortunately Eva had to drop out late on Monday. My plan was to find Clair a suitable opponent on the night, but I didn’t realise how many people were playing club championship games! Clair has already played Jayden in the league this season, so ideally we wanted someone else. Still competitive experience for everyone with Joseph, Matthew and Daniel all making their debuts in league style matches.

This one was played in the other room, so I didn’t really see much of any of the games as I was playing for the Aces. A good first standard game win for Shanaya though as Joseph is the joint Teesside champion for her age. Matthew will be very pleased to get a win on his standard game debut, I saw it finished with a back rank mate! Jayden is one of our form players at the moment and it was always likely to be a tough ask for Clair. Amit said it was going OK until he blundered against Sam!

Chris

Date:21/01/2025  Aryan debut board 1 win!

Thornaby B52s 1½-2½ Hartlepool B
Aryan Nalawade 1-0 Dave Kelly
Stephen Ollis 0-1 Alex Kalyviotis
Rhys Orton 0-1 Mike Smalley
Alex Jamieson ½-½ Alex Costello

The fact Hartlepool C top the C division, Hartlepool D top the D division and Hartlepool B are 2nd in the B division shows that they have a lot of in form players who are playing at a higher standard than their current ratings. Between them their 4 players had previously only lost a grand total of 5 league games from 37 so far this season, so this was a tough match for the B52s especially as we were missing 5 players! Fortunately Alex is back from university for a few weeks and was able to step in.

Stephen was first finished. He felt he’d played a poor game and especially the opening phase. Apparently his phone said the same thing! Stephen is overly-hard on himself, Alex (1 loss from 5 this season) is a tough player and a seasoned campaigner at this level! He does play an aggressive game, so if you lose to him it can be quick and you do feel like you played badly. You might be able to tell that I’m talking from personal experience here!

Rhys had a tough match against Michael (11 wins 1 draw 2 losses this season). It looked reasonably even for quite a while, but Michael slowly gained space and got his pieces onto more dangerous squares and forced his way through in the end.

On board 1, Dave Kelly was previously unbeaten in his 11 matches this season. For most of this game, that looked unlikely to change. Dave managed to get a pawn up and looked to have a strong position with a nice chain of connected pawns. That reckoned without Aryan’s endgame skill and he outplayed Dave in a rook and pawn endgame to get the win. A great start to life on board 1 in the B division for Aryan!

That left the battle of the Alexes on board 4. Hartlepool Alex had only lost 2 from 10 before this game. Thornaby Alex was a pawn up, but the position wasn’t looking particularly favourable for doing anything with his extra pawn and with 6 minutes on his clock to his opponent’s 16 they agreed a draw. With after match analysis the computer scored it at exactly even at 0.00, so the right decision for Thornaby Alex and a good result based on rating.

Overall, a decent performance from our players and a great result for Aryan!

Chris

Date:20/01/2025  First league win for Sachin!

Hartlepool D 3-1 Thornaby Destroyers
Ashton Woodward 1-0 Tim Hind
John Marshall 0-1 Sachin Saggar
John Marsden 1-0 Charles Hind
William Greig 1-0 Freya Hind

There was a bit of panic at the start with the last minute withdrawal of Ik, I ended up on Board 1.

On Board 2, Sachin got his first league win after his opponent blundered his rook, and resigned. Sachin has had it tough from mostly playing on board 2 in his first season, so well done to him!

The rest of us lost. Charles said he just didn't play very well. Freya said she had a good game and should have won it if she had planned a little harder. I didn't play too badly, just miscalculated a series of exchanges, going a piece down, and then my opponent just kept chipping away for the win.

Tim

Date:14/01/2025  Comets chasing promotion!

Thornaby Comets 3-1 Thornaby Dynasties
Phil Wales 1-0 Tashil Lankapura
Stephen Ollis 1-0 Toefl Lankapura
Neil Sotheby 0-1 James Mann
Malcolm Goldspink 1-0 Geoff Mann

The Comets cemented their 2nd place and put a bit of daylight between themselves and the chasing pack for the 2nd promotion spot.

James continued his good form this season with a quick win against Neil. That was as good as it got for the Dynasties. Stephen's strong opening play gave him the initiative against Toefl and he never really let it go with a strong attack. Tashil ended up piece down fairly early on and there's unlikely to be any coming back from there against a player of Phil's level. In the battle of the captain's on board 4, Malcolm made sure of all 3 points with a good win against Geoff!

Date:14/01/2025  New look Bombers crash to Great Ayton!

Thornaby Bombers 1½-2½ Great Ayton B
Sagar Patil 0-1 Steve Booth
Aryan Nalawade 0-1 Royce Parker
Mike Creaney 1-0 Suresh Keswani
Joe McGinnis ½-½ Ray Honeybourne

With changes in the January ratings, it was a new look top 2 boards for the Bombers. Aryan came in to play his first ever A division game on board 2. With Sagar on board 1, we had 2 secondary school age players filling the top 2 boards! Experience told in the end, but that won't always be the case!

The bottom two had veterans from both sides where experience should also come into play. Not so much in my case having got the move order wrong, I fell for the old Bxf7+ followed by Nxp and dropping a pawn and forfeiting castling rights. An early finish looking likely, but I managed to untangle and Suresh's extra pawn became an isolated one which I was going to win after playing e5 kicking a Knight. He played c3 defending the pawn forgetting that his piece was en prise, so I had piece for two pawns and managed to grind out the win from there.

A little earlier, Joe was probably behind in his game and happy to accept when Ray offered a draw.

Mike

Date:13/01/2025  Great result for Jayden!

Hartlepool C 3.5-0.5 Thornaby Cadets
Alex Kalyviotis 1-0 Ajay Selvan
Michael Smalley 1-0 Joseph Machin
Alex Costello 0.5-0.5 Jayden Wang
Ashton Woodward 1-0 Eva Harris

Hartlepool club have really stepped up this season with several new players on very good form. Their C team are riding high in the C division and this was their 6th win in 6 matches, so it was a tough match for the Cadets, especially with 4 of the core squad of 6 players missing (partly due to mock exams). Jayden and Eva stepped in for some C division experience.

Eva was finished first. She had a good attack going on the king side, but Ashton defended well and she ended up losing her queen. Still a good effort from Eva in her first ever C division game.

Joseph had a tough game on board 2 against the in form Michael Smalley. Michael managed to get 2 pawns up and was on top anyway when Joseph lost a rook. That made it 10 wins from 13 games for Michael.

Jayden managed one of his best ever results with a draw against 1600 rated Alex Costello. Alex is new to Hartlepool club this season and his 9 wins from 11 games are part of the reason they are top of both the C and D division at the moment. Jayden looked to have a bit of an edge early on, but Alex managed to defend well and get most of the pieces swapped off. From here the game petered out into a draw, but nevertheless a great result for Jayden in only his 2nd C division game.

Ajay was last finished going on until after 10pm. It was a typical Ajay solid positional game, but Alex managed to get a pawn up with a knight manoeuvre and played the endgame well to force the win.

Well done to Hartlepool who are 4 points clear at the top of the table now. The Cadets are still in 4th place and this was good experience against players who are mostly likely going to be playing in a higher division next season!

Chris

Date:08/01/2025  Demolition man inspires Thornaby!

Darlington C 1.5-2.5 Thornaby B52s
Dominic Leigh 1-0 Maurice Olum
Bob Donner 0-1 Iain Mellis
Steven Halliday 0.5-0.5 Joseph Machin
Chris Sinu 0-Bye Nick Tadd

A surprise win for Thornaby! I had 7 players unavailable for various reasons. A big thank you to Nick for stepping in, especially as he travelled to Darlington and didn’t get a game. It turned out to be a crucial board point though!

The night started very well for Thornaby. Darlington board 4 was a no show and as Wednesday isn’t their main club night, there was nobody to step in. Chris’ Dad was ill with flu and had completely forgotten. Then Iain played out a quick win over Bob Donner. An impressive result and an even more impressive performance according to Nick. A “complete demolition” in Nick’s words! That meant we were 2-0 up before 8pm which is very rare in the B division!

Joseph sealed the match points with another excellent result. A draw against 1688 rated Steven Halliday underlines his progress this season and shows he's ready to play regularly at B division level now.

Maurice lost on board 1, but it was still a very good performance with Dominic himself said Maurice was worth at least a draw. He had Dominic under a lot of pressure with a strong attack on the king side. Dominic did manage to get a piece for 2 pawns in the end, but the piece was tied up and it took some skilful defending and exchanging from him to eventually come out with a winning endgame. He delivered a checkmate with just 8 seconds left on his clock to Maurice's 5 minutes. Still a very promising start for Maurice on higher boards now that he has a full rating.

The B52s were meant to be a development team for us, but currently sit on 7 points from 6 games and are only 1 point off the Challengers in 2nd place in the B division.

Chris

Date:07/01/2025  Challengers Victorious!

Thornaby Challengers 3-1 Great Ayton C
Steve Rodgers 0.5-0.5 Jim Rodgers
Mike Creaney 0.5-0.5 Andrew French
Joe McGinnis 1-0 Connor Wilson
Jonathan Feasby 1-0 Peter Archer

A good win for the Challengers. You know you're going to have a hard battle on any board against a Great Ayton team!

Mike was first finished. His own report "I was first to finish in a game which if it had been on match of the day would have occupied last slot reserved for 0-0 draws. The game began 1.d4 ...b6 the English defence Andrew made the early running threatening mate in one with Queen and Rook on the h-file, this was repulsed and the attack was abandoned leaving me with a slight edge +0.98 (hindsight) more space and the Bishop pair. Andrew then offered a draw. I would have been happy to continue never offering draws myself, but I couldn't see a clear way to get an advantage so acquiesced, a bit wimpy? Maybe so, but my calculation skills aren't what they are supposed to be!"

The battle of the Rodgers on Board 1 ended in a draw. The minor pieces went off fairly quickly and it looked like a dead draw at the end.

I beat Connor Wilson on board 3. Connor played an aggressive line against the Caro-Kann, but left his own king a bit exposed in the process.

Jonathan came back from a piece down to what looked a dead draw, only for Peter Archer to leave his queen en prise and gift us the full point on Board 4 as well.

Joe

Date:07/01/2025  Charles wins again!

Thornaby Destroyers 1-3 Billingham Synthonia Dominators
Tim Hind 0-1 Dave Elsdon
Sachin Saggar 0-1 Steven Clark
Charles Hind 1-0 Paul Scott
Freya Hind 0-1 Graham Bartram

This match didn't start well at all with Ike running late, Tim stepped in on board 1 and then both Freya and Tim lost fairly quickly. The other 2 games were a lot closer.

Sachin had a theoretical draw with his opponent having a pawn on the h file, but the wrong coloured square bishop for the queening square, but he misplayed it by chasing the bishop with his king.

So 3-0 down, but the whitewash was avoided by Charles with a fantastic win over the D divisions leading scorer in 22/23 Paul Scott. Paul is a regular Thornaby nemesis at this level, but Charles played a great game to get what I would say is his best ever win in a standard length game.

Charles is now the outright 2nd top scorer in the D division this season (behind Maurice) with 4 wins from 5 games.

Date:07/01/2025  Debut win for Eva!

Thornaby Hurricanes 1-3 Thornaby Dragoons
James Mann 0-1 Maurice Olum
Bertie Mellis 0-1 Neil Sotheby
Eva Harris 1-0 Ollie Walton
Shanaya Chauhan 0-1 George Butterworth

After a couple of weeks away from the board, I was feeling a little apprehensive about Tuesday’s game. I tried to shake off the rust with a few online games, but after a string of blunders and beatings, I wasn't exactly brimming with confidence. Regardless, Tuesday arrived, and it was time to face the Hurricanes.

On paper, we looked good – but as we all know, anything can happen over the board.

Board 4: George the Ruthless

George, as expected, finished first. Playing against Shanaya, he delivered his trademark no-mercy performance, ruthlessly mating her in what felt like record time. George’s efficient play continues to impress – well done, G!

Board 3: Eva’s First Win

Ollie’s game against Eva wrapped up shortly after George’s. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch much of it as it was over quite quickly. I had planned to advise Ollie not to underestimate Eva, even though it was her first league match, but I didn’t get the chance. Eva proved herself no pushover, capitalizing on Ollie’s mistakes and delivering a strong checkmate to level the score at 1–1. Congratulations to Eva on her first league win!

Board 1: Maurice the Boss

I glanced over at Maurice’s board to see his king surrounded by James’ pieces, and for a moment, I thought he might be in trouble. That was until I saw James shake his head in disappointment – clearly, he already knew how this was going to end. Maurice, 'the boss', calmly castled, cleaned up the board, and secured another win for the Dragoons. It’s always a little reassuring knowing Maurice is on our team!

Board 2: A Close Shave

With the score at 2–1 in our favor, it was all down to me. I faced Bertie, and after he overlooked an attack on his queen and castling, I seized the opportunity and thought victory was in the bag. I lined up a bishop and queen mate only to realize, at the very last second, that his rook could just take my queen. A close call!

After narrowly avoiding disaster, I tried to regain control, but Bertie didn’t make it easy. He trapped and took my queen, pressured me with a passed pawn, and even came close to a back-rank mate. I’ll admit, after taking his queen, I thought he might resign – but Bertie kept up the fight and nearly turned the tables. Somehow, I held on and eventually managed to mate, though it was far closer than it needed to be. Well played, Bertie – you kept me sweating until the very end!

Final Score: 3–1

A solid result for the Dragoons, putting us second in the table. Well done team, still unbeaten - let’s keep the momentum going!

Neil