Battling performance!
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!
Quality win!
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!
Attacking style?
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.
Champion!
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!
Crucial win!
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!
Quick finish!
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!
Board 3 win!
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!
Over the line!
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!
Board 3 win!
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!
Champion!
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!
Endgame draw!
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!
Eternal Game!
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!
Medallists!
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.
Champion!
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
Champions!
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.
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!
Baffled?
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!
Milestone Victory!
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!
Board 1 win!
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!
Good game!
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!
Solid game!
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.
Winning run!
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!
Good Technique!
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!
Shockwaves!
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!
Quick win!
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!
First C division win!
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!
C division debut!
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!
Joint Champ!
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!
Debut win!
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!
League Debut!
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!
Board 1 win!
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!
Draw secured!
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!
First win!
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!
Great Board 1 debut!
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!
First win!
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!
Strong Opening!
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!
Board 3 win!
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!
Great Result!
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!
Demolition Man!
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!
Comeback win!
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!
Fantastic win!
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!
Debut win!
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!
