News

Date:30/03/2024  Shield for Sam!

It took a while, but Sam has finally received his trophy for being the Durham County Under 1600 champion last season! Sam earned the title after an amazing season in the Durham League for Thornaby with 6 wins and 2 draws in 8 games! This gave him a score of 92% and put him well ahead of his nearest rival Barry Edgar from Hetton Lyons who scored 73%.

Date:29/03/2024  Rapid play win 6 years in the making!

Tuesday was a special day for me. I came 2nd in the club rapid play, but that was nothing to do with it. I was lucky to get 2nd and didn't really play all that well if I'm honest! I was proud that the 1 player ahead of me was Joseph, someone I've worked with for over 4 years.

I first met Joseph in November 2019 when he was still in Primary School. I'd just come back into chess myself 2 months earlier and had decided to start helping Brian Whitaker at Thornaby library. Joseph attended our very first library session back in early 2018 and apart from the covid gap when we were closed, he has been a regular ever since.

Nick tells me that Joseph used to cry when he lost at first! For me, his enthusiasm for chess was obvious from the start. Joseph loved to explore positions, solve puzzles and try unusual moves (especially sacrifices!) just to see what would happen. Nothing has really changed there, but he is a much more mature player now with a greater depth of understanding to his game who knows how to finish off won positions.

This enthusiasm is absolutely key for junior players. Without that enjoyment of the challenge that chess represents whether you win or lose, the resilience is not there to handle set backs. Their enjoyment is heavily linked to the results of their games rather than playing the game itself. All chess players will go through bad spells at some point. In his first season in the league, despite some good draws, Joseph didn't win a single game. I was worried at the time, but it didn't seem to dampen his enthusiasm at all, he just wanted to study the game more and get better.

Last season Joseph had several excellent wins in the league and the Cadets team which he captains in away matches won their last 4 games. He has continued that form this season and his rating continues to climb, up now to the current 1537 which is 200 points higher than it was 2 years ago.

Joseph is doing his GCSE's now, but he continues to attend the library sessions. When he is not playing in (and often winning) the top group, he helps our younger players by explaining why they lost to him! He is someone our juniors look up to and that is why I made him our Junior Captain last year. This season we have had 20 players aged under 18 play for our different teams and 17 of them have won at least one league game. Every single one of the other 19 has played Joseph multiple times over the years and learnt from him.

The message for other clubs, some of whom are just starting out with library sessions or bringing junior players into their clubs, be patient! They will come through and eventually you will be losing to them in competitions just like I am now! It has taken Joseph 6 years to get to the point of winning an internal competition at the club!

And now the real purpose of this post. An excuse to embarrass Joseph with this photo! A young Joseph at the end of one of his first competitions!

Chris

Date:27/03/2024  Durham Defeated!

Thornaby 3½-½ Durham City C
Sam Greig 1-0 Vaughan Davison
Steve Rodgers ½-½ Tony Shires
Mike Creaney 1-0 Thomas Finn
Geoff Mann 1-0 Oliver Belcher

A convincing Durham league win against a team we have failed to beat in any of our previous 3 meetings!

I didn't see the finish of any of the top 2 boards, but i know that Sam declined a draw and proceeded to to show his opponent why he is higher rated!

Steve tried out an experimental opening and although never in any danger, couldn't see that he had enough to decline the draw offer.

My opponent played the right idea against the Hippo to start with although burning a lot of time then castled 0-0-0 which is my signal to get going on that side whilst he continues to try and do the same on the King side. He unadvisedly concentrated on defence which is the equivalent of poking a Hippo with a sharp stick and for all you Hippo detractors (and there are many), you wont like what comes next!

Geoff had a really competitive game for a long time but was winning comfortably towards the end.

The result lifts us up 2 places in the table to 6th with 3 games to go.

Mike

Date:21/03/2024  Debut win for Neil!

Redcar B 2-2 Thornaby Juniors
Joseph Dodds 1-0 Rhys Orton
Xavier Dixon 0-1 Neil Sotheby
Stanley Allan 1-0 Zhuoyi Lin
Alastair Dicken 0-1 George Butterworth

An unusual match in that Black won on all 4 boards.

George got the match off to a good start winning quickly in just 15 moves. George was a piece down, but his opponent missed a mating threat.

Neil made his debut for Thornaby. As Redcar wryly observed, our only Junior player with a beard! We do sometimes play adults in away games! A good win for Neil though as Xavier is a dangerous player and beat Matt Rowett earlier this season.

Zhuoyi was playing Stanley who is in the same year of school and was the Teesside Champion for 11 and under last season, so a good test for him. He held his own for quite a while, but then a skewer on his queen effectively ended the game. Still a good performance from Zhuoyi which bodes well for the future.

Rhys was last finished and turned down a draw which would have won the match. He then blundered in a winning position. All good experience and we'd rather they play their games out at this level.

Chris

Date:21/03/2024  Champs too strong for Thornaby!

Thornaby 1-3 Hetton Lyons
Steve Rodgers 0-1 Nigel Hall
Tom Marwood 0-1 Stephen Hall
Mike Creaney 0-1 Barry Edgar
Jonathan Feasby 1-0 Default

Despite only bringing 3 players, last seasons champions showed they're in no mood to give up their title.

Steve regained is lost pawn and went in to a Knight endgame which should be drawn unfortunately he moved his knight in the wrong direction and it was trapped.

Tom declined a draw offer, if he had realised the strength of his opponent he would probably have accepted but eventually went astray.

You saw my precarious position the exchange down. It came down to Rook v Bishop and equal pawns. I played on because of his inactive Rook, but when it eventually occupied an open file I resigned.

Mike

Date:20/03/2024  Return of the B52s!

Billingham A 3-1 Thornaby B52s
John Garnett 1-0 Iain Mellis
Stephen Roe 0-1 Stephen Ollis
Keith Harrison 1-0 Geoff Mann
Paul Weightman 1-0 Ajay Selvan

The return of the B52s started with Stephen not recognising his on the night captain Geoff! Things got better from there though and there were some good close games with Ajay's going down to a minute on the clock for both players. Iain was +5 against John at one point, but blundered. A great performance from him still against the highest rated player in the bottom half section of the A+B division. A fantastic win for Stephen against 1670 rated Stephen Roe. Geoff's game was even most of the way, but he lost it in the end game. We were outrated by 800 points, but not far off a result in terms of both time and positions! There were certainly no easy games for Billingham.

Geoff's game was very tight throughout. He managed to get a pawn up but after swapping material he had more protected pawns and managed to get one through. Great learning experience though!

Thanks to Stephen for the rest of the report:

From what I could see Ian completely outplayed John in the opening and had a winning position with much better activity, material and king safety, victory just seemed a matter of time but then when I next looked John was suddenly up a knight and was winning, I'd like to see your game Ian, bad luck. I feel like I've had the same game against John multiple times at the Buffs, he is frustratingly resourceful and hard to finish off.

I had prepped a few slightly offbeat French lines knowing E4 was coming. Perhaps as a result my opponent played very slowly although very accurately (1 hour for first 10 moves) versus 20 minutes for me. The game was completely even throughout, then got quite sharp heading into the endgame but I had a 45 minute time advantage. The endgame was unbalanced but also completely even up until his final move according to the engine. To the human eye my passed pawn on the 7th rank looked decisive but according to the engine white could have played on with some fairly tricky to find defensive moves. Stephen was down to 90 seconds at this point and it looked like an inevitable queening and he stopped the clocks and resigned. I have had multiple strong positions against players of a similar rating but that is the first one I have manage to convert so pleased that my hard work (Particularly in time management) is starting to pay off!

Highlight for me however was watching the end of Ajay's game with the match poised at 2-1. Both players were down to about 8 mins when I started watching and Paul was definitely under pressure. Ajay had 2 rooks versus a rook and powerful dark squared bishop with locked up pawns. Ajay had to solve the problem of getting his rooks more active without giving up a pawn which after a bit of shuffling he did beautifully and suddenly had active rooks and a passed pawn (well played Ajay!). Both players had 90 seconds on the clock when it got very frantic and Ajay lost his passed pawn and then Paul managed to get his to the 8th rank to force a win. Bad luck mate, will be a matter of time until you are winning those ones and good experience for you.

Date:19/03/2024  Honours even in D division derby!

Thornaby Destroyers 2-2 Thornaby Dynasties
Jonathan Feasby 1-0 Sam Stevenson
Janos Mehes 1-0 James Mann
Andy Austen 0-1 Tashil Lankapura
Laura Holdforth 0-1 Will Rowett

Honours finished even in this local derby.

Tashil was finished first. A comfortable win by all accounts including Andy's! Jonathan proved to be too strong for Sam on board 1. Will's recent good run continued with a win over Laura.

That left James and Janos. These 2 have played each other a lot in the past and recently James has usually had the upperhand. Perhaps that led to a bit of overconfidence in this one and he blundered a piece quite early on. Janos played well from here to win the game and force the match draw.

The 4 young Dynasties all have at least 3 wins this season and Tashil continues to impress with 9 wins from 10 now! Billingham E's surprise defeat on Wedensday means that the Dynasties are still in the title race with 2 games to go.

Date:19/03/2024  Bombers crash to Great Ayton!

Thornaby Bombers 1-3 Great Ayton B
Joe McGinnis 0-1 Kegan Harrison
Steve Rodgers 0-1 Suresh Keswani
Tom Marwood 0-1 Ray Honeybourne
Mike Creaney 1-0 Jim Rogers

The first game after the mid-season division split and once again we met familiar opponents! I personally have played all of this team many times though never on bottom board which is probably the reason for my positive result!

Joe looked to be in serious trouble the few times i glanced at his position. He was happy with his position after 12 moves, but castling on move 13 turned out to be a losing blunder losing a piece after getting forked. Kegan isn't the sort to let go of this kind of advantage.

I detect a little more of the hubris Steve is prone to recently having dispatched Suresh twice already, this time spoiling his position by dropping the exchange and succumbing to the inevitable.

Tom also lost the exchange against Ray and maybe more I'm not sure but again these opponents don't let you recover easily.

Jim played the Budapest gambit against me and I opted for the safer 4.Nf3 line rather than the more popular 4.Bf4 line which includes the infamous Kieninger trap for the unwary (which I am embarrassed to admit I have fallen for twice in the past, my King being mated in the middle of the board). Jim got a little too ambitious in the opening with a Queen on f6 and a Bishop on c5 eyeing f2. This was parried and after his weak pawn on d6 was eventually won followed by another and with two pawns up in the ending I too am not going to let go.

Mike

Date:13/03/2024  Durham Defeat at Delves!

Delves 3-1 Thornaby
Bryan Harkness 1-0 Joe McGinnis
Nathan Ekanem 1-0 Steve Rodgers
Daniel Williams ½-½ Tom Marwood
Owen Temple ½-½ Mike Creaney

Earlier this week, Thornaby travelled to a new club for the Durham league this season in Delves. This is our longest away trip of the season to North Durham. Delves feature 2 of the star players from last seasons B division Champions Hetton Lyons and are currently top of the B division so it was always likely to be a tough game.

Steve and Joe were up against 2000+ rated players and the games ended as expected. Tom and Mike put up a fight on board 3 and 4 and came away with a draw. Overall score 3-1 to Delves.

Thornaby currently lie in 8th out of 9, but with several games in hand. With 5 games to go, mostly against other teams in the lower half of the table, there are plenty of opportunities to climb the table.

Date:12/03/2024  James gets first C division win!

Thornaby Cadets 2-2 Middlesbrough Bishops
Toefl Lankapura 0-1 Jake Pearson
Joseph Machin ½-½ Robbie Brown
Ajay Selvan ½-½ Chris Rumsey
James Mann 1-0 Andrew Salter

A decent result for the Cadets. Both Ajay and Joseph were slightly ahead in their games, but neither could quite find the win to give us the overall match.

Toefl drew the short straw against the impressive looking newcomer Jake Pearson. Jake has a P rating of 1834 based on 8 games! Toefl would have hoped to do a bit better though, it was over in just half an hour!

James finished next. He outplayed his opponent throughout and got a bigger and bigger advantage to end up in a crushing endgame with 2 extra pawns and the exchange up. Well done to James. A first win at C division level and recent results suggest that he should be playing here permanently now.

Joseph was always on top and managed to get a pawn ahead, but couldn't find a way to make a killer advantage and a draw was agreed. In after game analysis, he did find that he missed 1 chance to force a win.

Ajay was in an interesting position. He got a pawn up early on and then he got a rook and a pawn for a knight and bishop. I've found these kind of positions hard with the rook against 2 minor pieces, but Ajay did have a good looking pawn structure. Chris got one of his bishops onto a good diagonal though and there wasn't any obvious way forward for Ajay. A draw was agreed and probably a fair result in the end.

The Cadets lie in 7th place in the table going into the Easter break, but with Ajay, Joseph and Rhys all having good seasons it is again functioning well as a development team for us. Ajay has only missed 1 games and is joint 4th top scorer in the division. Things are looking positive for an end of season flourish for the team!

Chris

Date:11/03/2024  Challengers held at Darlington!

Darlington C 2-2 Thornaby Challengers
Robert Donner ½-½ James Urwin
Chris Sinu 0-1 Stephen Ollis
Richard Kuby ½-½ Jonathan Feasby
Barry Hopkins 1-0 Bill March

The Challengers travelled to Darlington and came back with a point.

On board 4, Bill lost to the up and coming Barry Hopkins. James was held to a draw by the experienced Robert Donner. Jonathan got a solid draw against the always dangerous at this level Richard Kuby.

There was better news on board 2. Stephen played a solid classical Dutch as black, Chris played what he felt was an early e4 with his king in the centre of the board which led to an exchange of pieces in the centre allowing Stephen to put pressure on his position. A trade of pawns, knights and queens led to a pawn advantage for black and more active rooks in a rook pawn ending. Stephen was able to grind into a two pawn advantage and able to trade rooks when Chris resigned.

With 3 games to go, the Challengers lie 2nd in the table. 4 points adrift of leaders Hartlepool B, but still looking good for the 2nd promotion spot.

Date:11/03/2024  Comets lose to champions elect!

Hartlepool B 3-1 Thornaby Comets
Graham Matthews ½-½ Steve Rodgers
David Kelly ½-½ Mike Creaney
Alex Kalyviotis 1-0 Malcolm Goldspink
Kevin Waterman 1-0 Nick Tadd

A decent effort from the Comets against the C division champions elect. Hartlepool are very strong on the lower boards for this level and Malcolm and Nick were hopelessly outgraded. The expected results followed.

On board 2, our club record holder for appearances Mike managed to draw with Dave Kelly. Meanwhile on the top board, Steve held C division leading scorer Graham Matthews to a draw. Hartlepool go to 4 points clear with 3 games to play and look unstoppable now to take the C division title. Well done to them for a very good season!

With 3 games to go, the Comets are still looking for their first win, but lots of experience for our players and Steve has used the team as a springboard to be selected for the Bombers and then the Aces in our recent cup final.

Date:06/03/2024  Cup final agony for Aces!

Great Ayton A 3-2 Thornaby Aces
Virgil Szekely 1-0 Francis Batchelor
David Wise ½-½ Matt Jackman
Richard Hall ½-½ Chris Swales
Martin McLoughlin 1-0 Joe McGinnis
Suresh Keswani 0-1 Steve Rodgers

A first ever cup final for the Aces ended in a narrow defeat. They couldn't get their hands on the silverware in a good contest with Great Ayton. Despite an overall rating difference of over 800 points, the match was reasonably close.

Great Ayton won the toss and took the 3 blacks, meaning the definitive win had to come from us. Finished first at around the same time was Joe and Steve. Joe had an odd looking position were he had 2 pawns for a piece and an open kingside which was either going to turn into an attacking opportunity or a weakness. He then managed to get back the piece for a pawn to be net a pawn up, but that kingside had turned into hanging together by a thread. I didn't see the ending but it must have built up too much pressure to hold.

Steve was also under attack in a dynamic position. His kingside had been blown apart but his king found a surprisingly nice place to hide on d3. He was up a piece for this position and managed to break through on his opponents king and must've made it count for the win.

I fell to defeat against Virgil, he equalised in the opening and I pushed the aggression switch a bit too hard, resulting in too many weaknesses. I tried to give myself as many chances as possible but his pawn pushes were always looking like they'd be enough for victory.

Chris was the most out-rated of all boards and got an excellent draw which looked like he might have been on for from a long way out. Chris said "I could see I was probably going to need to win from quite early and I did get a pawn up, but he managed to get the initiative while my knight was busy taking the pawn on a7. He found a nice set of exchanges to get his rook onto the 7th rank and I had no way of keeping the pawn. Then he had a perpetual check with his knight that I could only get out of by losing another pawn. I looked for about 5-10 minutes, but I had nothing to try to force a win! All I could so was get into an end game a pawn down with no real hope of winning even against a lesser opponent. I decided to just take the draw as for me it's a step up. I've never got a result against anyone over a 2000 rating before. I found out afterwards that Richard is a Correspondence Chess Grand Master! A draw against a Grand Master is something that I can be very happy with which definitely won't be exaggerated at all in the future!"

Matt declined a draw very early to try and play on for a win in the game, but the position seemed equal for a lot of the way. Matt said "Great team effort, I was ready to push and launch a win or loss attack, but he proved to stable as always to get anything out the opening."

Good for the Aces to have their shot at the trophy after a few years of semi-final defeats. We can turn our attention to the league now with us sitting on top by 3 points at the moment.

Francis

Date:06/03/2024  Dynasties Defeat Unbeaten Billingham!

Billingham Synthonia E 1½-2½ Thornaby Dynasties
Stuart McLaughlin 1-0 Toefl Lankapura
Benjamin Dodgson ½-½ Geoff Mann
Derek Simpson 0-1 James Mann
Dermot O'Higgins 0-1 Tashil Lankapura

First in the division played 2nd and the Dynasties inflicted Billingham E's first defeat of the season and postponed their title celebrations!

Thornaby were outranked on all 4 boards especially on the bottom two, but that reckoned without our 2 rapidly improving youngsters and that is where the 2 board wins came from!

First finished was Geoff. After a 4 knights opening, material was swapped off including queens, that left both players with two rooks and a bishop each. After a few pawn advancements both players went defensive and the home team offered a draw that Geoff accepted.

James was next finished. After working hard to get a pawn up all material was swapped off and the king guided the free pawn to the end and his opponent resigned before James promoted.

Toefl was next finished. After a really tight opening, his opponent managed to secure material surrounding his king. Unfortunately Toefl blundered a rook and resigned immediately.

Last was Tashil who bamboozled his opponent by swapping a bishop for a rook and then announcing check mate prematurely. Tashil then swapped off and took the bishop leaving it a rook end game. After what seemed an eternity Tashil got to set the check mate up when his opponent resigned.

Billingham congratulated the Dynasties after two close games between them. Dynasties are setting up what could be a classic encounter with Billingham D on the last game of the season to decide who finishes runner up! Player of the match: Shared between Tashil and James.

A final Thornaby footnote is that this win means the Thornaby Aces are the only unbeaten team in any division of the league!

Geoff

Date:05/03/2024  Aces go clear!

Thornaby Bombers ½-3½ Thornaby Aces
Joe McGinnis 0-1 Matt Jackman
Steve Rodgers 0-1 Francis Batchelor
Tom Marwood 0-1 Chris Swales
Mike Creaney ½-½ James Urwin

The local derby went pretty much as expected!

For once Francis was first finished in a game! Steve managed to create a complicated position and surprised Francis by sacrificing his queen for a rook and piece. Unforunately Steve blundered a piece a few moves later and immediately resigned with the position looking hopeless. Like last season, Francis leads the A division scoring with 9 points from 10 games.

Joe described himself as "cannon fodder" in the board 1 game, but put up a decent fight before bowing to the inevitable.

Chris wrapped up the points. He got a pawn up and turned it into a connected passed pawn. Once the position started to simplify, that proved to be the decisive advantage.

Mike managed to salvage something out of the game for the Bombers. He did have 2 passed pawns, but James played the endgame well enough to secure a draw.

The result puts the Aces 3 points clear at the top of the A division and leaves the Bombers in 6th place, still with a possibility of finishing in the top half before the season split.

Date:05/03/2024  Destroyers defeat Redcar!

Thornaby Destroyers 3-1 Redcar B
Jonathan Feasby 1-0 Joseph Dodds
Alan Stockley 1-0 Callum Hodgkiss
Janos Mehes 0-1 Oliver Williams
Andy Austen 1-0 Katherine Myers

After a slow start to the season, the Destroyers have climbed to mid-table and this win took them to 7 points from the last 10. Jonathan and Alan proved to be a strong top board combination against their young opponents. Alan leads the score charts for the Destroyers with 5 points from 7 games. Andy managed to defeat Katherine Myers on board 4 to give Thornaby the win. A 3rd win this season for Andy. There was a bright spot for Redcar with Oliver Williams getting his 2nd win against a Thornaby player this season!

Date:05/03/2024  Debut win for Zhuoyi!

Thornaby Juniors 2-2 Darlington D
Ollie Walton 0-1 Mark Turner
Tristan Green 0-1 John Halliday
Zhuoyi Lin 1-0 Maksymillian Konczynski
Jayden Wang Def Elliott Inkster

Unfortunately Jayden's opponent didn't turn up. A shame for a 7 year old who was looking forward to his second match for the team. We understand that things go wrong though and have occassionally had problems ourselves for away games. Jayden was watching the other games and waited the full half an hour just in case!

Tristan blundered early, but put up a good fight from that point onwards. Ollie was well behind at the end against a strong opponent in Mark Turner.

Zhuoyi was having a bit of trouble recording his game on his league debut. However, it didn't stop him winning an interesting end game. A great debut for Zhuoyi!

Final score 2-2. Surprisingly it was the first draw all season for the Junior team!

Date:02/03/2024  Joseph wins library Rapidplay!

1st) Joseph Machin 4.5
2nd) Ajay Selvan 3.5
3rd) James Mann 3 (Best under 14)
=) Clair Hartill 3
Best Under 11) Fletcher Hoyland
Best girl) Paulina Roy Choudhury

A slightly depleted field compared to previous months due to a bug going around local schools and a clash with the Yarm School Championship. Nevertheless there were some high quality matches from the 15 player field.

Joseph and Ajay were the favourites going into the event and their second round draw looked like it might mean a shared winner for the first time. That reckoned without Dynasties star Tashil arriving late! Chris decided to put him on a dummy score to give everyone better games. A classic match with Ajay followed where Tashil turned down a draw offer when he was a pawn down. Then made several mate threats before a mistake from Ajay in time pressure allowed Tashil to queen a pawn. Great match from both players!

That meant Joseph only needed a draw with Tashil in the last round to guarantee victory. A blunder from Tashil meant Joseph got the win though.

Another Dynasties star, James Mann has started attending the library recently and he took a share of 3rd places along with the Under 14 title. James only lost to Ajay and Joseph on the day. The rapidly improving Clair also finished on 3 for a share of 3rd place.

Meanwhile Fletcher was the Under 11 champion and Paulina the girls champion.

Joseph takes the £20 first prize which has kindly been donated by former Thornaby member and former chair of the Cleveland Chess Association Ernie Lazenby. Ernie has been doing a bit of coaching for us at the library recently and has been impressed with the level of play of some of our juniors. He was particularly impressed with the Tashil Vs Ajay match today!

Date:02/03/2024  School Championship for Jayden!

Earlier today, Jayden won his School Championship. In the Year 3 category he won all 7 of his games to take the title!

This result follows his league debut for Thornaby Juniors last month. Jayden has been testing himself against older players at the library and club recently and this takes resilience for someone so young, but it is a good way to improve. This result will be great for his confidence. Well done to Jayden from everyone in Thornaby club!

Date:29/02/2024  Durham League Defeat!

Thornaby ½-3½ Hartlepool
Joe McGinnis 0-1 Bernie Price
Pete Townson 0-1 Graham Matthews
Toefl Lankapura 0-1 David Kelly
Stephen Ollis ½-½ Michael Smalley

A convincing loss in our latest Durham league outing. Hartlepool outgraded us on every board and we weren't able to do much about it this time! Pete lost his queen after a dozen or so moves; don't know exactly what happened to Toefl, except that when the game finished he said he'd been playing on in hope of a stalemate, so it was probably a fairly convincing win. Steve prevented the whitewash with a draw on board 4.

I played rubbish for a couple of hours till I was 2 pawns down, got one back, could have got another but realised he would have an unstoppable mate threat and found the only way to avoid it instead. I did get the 2nd pawn back a few moves later, but either that move or the one after it was a bad mistake; he set up a further mate threat and the only way to avoid it was to give up my queen for a rook. I was going to resign, but decided to play on a bit as I had a passed pawn with my rook behind it. I got the pawn all the way to c2, and he put his queen on c1, rendering it almost useless. I was down to one minute though, while he still had 6, and I resigned when it looked like he was getting his king in among my pawns. The position was in fact drawn; if I had played one more move I would have seen that I had a check that would protect the f7 pawn, and there was nothing else he could do about it. He pointed this out afterwards, and the engine confirmed it. I would probably have lost on time anyway, unless he was willing to allow a repeated position draw. I haven't analysed it in full yet; I am actually quite pleased that I managed to get a drawn position with rook and 3 pawns against queen and 3, even though I didn't actually get the draw!

Joe

Date:28/02/2024  Bombers secure draw at Great Ayton!

Great Ayton B 2-2 Thornaby Bombers
Adam Young ½-½ Joe McGinnis
Suresh Keswani 0-1 Steve Rodgers
Ray Honeybourne 1-0 Mike Creaney
Jim Rogers ½-½ Tom Marwood

Excellent result considering we were significantly outgraded on every board!

I have just analysed my game with Adam Young. According to the Chess.com engine, he played with 92.9% accuracy; I was at 94%, and there were no mistakes, misses or blunders by either of us. It ended with a mass exchange of all the major pieces in 4 moves, leading to an endgame which I don't think I've ever had before - knight and 6 pawns each. I thought I might have an edge as my king was in the centre of the board (the engine had me +1.1 after the exchanges), but my last 2 moves were not the best, I couldn't see a way through and was happy to offer the draw.

I thought Tom might be in with a chance against Jim Rogers as he had a good half-hour advantage on the clock, but they also got to a knight & pawns endgame (5 pawns each this time), and there was no way for Tom to apply enough pressure to induce a hurried mistake.

I left not long after; the other two games were equal on material at this point, but I didn't like the look of Mike's position and am not surprised that it ended in defeat. I couldn't see any obvious advantage either way in Steve's game; I'd like to see how that one went, it's a great result against the highest rated player in the other team.

Joe

After Joe & Tom got creditable draws it was up to Steve to salvage the point which he did against the guest appearance of Suresh 'home' for a holiday from France I was always on the back foot against Ray who had strong looking attack for a long period but it came down to opposite coloured Bishops which gave brief hope for a draw a pawn down however the position was such that he was able snatch a couple more almost immediately after which the writing was on the wall.

Mike

Date:27/02/2024  Billingham close in on title!

Thornaby Destroyers 1-3 Billingham Synthonia E
Alan Stockley 0-1 Stuart McLaughlin
Malcolm Goldspink ½-½ Derek Simpson
Nick Tadd ½-½ Andrew Herrity
Janos Mehes 0-1 Sean Cooke

Another win for Billingham E saw them move to 19 points out of a possible 20 and they only need 1 win from their last 4 games to take the title!

Stuart McLaughlin has proved to be an excellent board 1 D division player and he defeated our in form Alan Stockley on board 1 to go to 6.5 out of 7 for the season. To me the game looked complicated with passed pawns for both players, but Alan said he was always behind after an early blunder.

Sean Cooke has improved a lot over the last year or 2 and again made a mockery of his 970 rating with a confident win over Janos. This took Sean to 4 out of 5 for the season, only Tashil has beaten him.

The other games went better from a Thornaby perspective. Malcolm was a pawn up in the end game, but couldn't find a way to convert. Nick has found a bit of form recently and put in a good solid performance to draw with Andrew Herrity.

All credit to Billingham E and their new captain, the former Marsh's Angel, Nicky Britton. On paper they don't look like they should have been so dominant in the D division this season, but they have managed to keep getting the results all season. I'm guessing Billingham club themselves are slightly surprised given that defending champions Billingham D are one of the teams trailing in their wake! Unless they lettered the teams this way to confuse everyone!

Chris

Date:27/02/2024  C Division woe for Thornaby!

Thornaby Cadets 1½-2½ Darlington C
Joseph Machin ½-½ Robert Donner
Ajay Selvan 1-0 Barry Hopkins
Ollie Walton 0-1 Mark Turner
James Mann 0-1 Rhys Dakin

Thornaby Challengers ½-3½ Billingham Synthonia C
James Urwin 0-1 Harry Tennant
Iain Mellis ½-½ Brian Whitaker
Pete Townson 0-1 Gary Leighton
Bill March 0-1 Bernie Callaghan

Middlesbrough Bishops 4-0 Thornaby Comets
Jake Pearson 1-0 Steve Rodgers
Robert Brown Bye-0 Tim Hind
Ammar Alghasra 1-0 Malcolm Goldspink
Christopher Rumsey 1-0 Nick Tadd

A poor week in the C division for Thornaby teams will all 3 losing. The Comets lost 4-0 with Steve finding Jake a tough nut to crack for a 2nd time this season. A draw from Iain against former Thornaby stalwart Brian Whitaker was the only thing that stopped the Challengers getting whitewashed. James lost on board 1 to the now regular Thornaby nemesis in rising Billingham star Harry Tennant! A poor run since Christmas means the Challengers title hopes have all but gone now.

The Cadets match had some better news. Darlington C were fielding 3 relatively new adult players, but all 3 have started well in the league so this was a tough match.

Ollie got into a mess and on the back foot quite early on. It looked like someone had forgotten to put his queenside on the board at the start of the game the last time I looked at his position! He lost soon after that.

James blundered a piece quite early and although he played well from that point on, there was no way back once the queens were forced off.

Joseph got a draw against the very solid 1673 rated Robert Donner. Joseph seemed to be dictating the play every time I looked, but it ended in an opposite coloured bishops endgame with 6 pawns each. I thought he would be happy with a draw against a significantly higher rated opponent, but Joseph declined the first offer and played on to see if he could make something happen. A few moves later a draw was agreed. Still another good result for Joseph against a solid B division level player.

A very good win for Ajay. Barry was 8 wins, 1 draw, 1 loss before this game! The position was complicated with both players having passed pawns and Barry having a queen and rook against Ajay's 2 rooks and a bishop. Ajay has always impressed me in endgames since he first came to the library, but this was different to some of his previous good results, a cleverly calculated win in a complex position.

It was good experience for Ollie and James. Both Joseph and Ajay have had excellents seasons and look ready to step up to the B division regularly soon!

Chris

Date:21/02/2024  Junior school from Champions!

Billingham Synthonia D 4-0 Thornaby Juniors
Harry Tennant 1-0 Rhys Orton
Bernie Callaghan 1-0 Charles Hind
Martin Curry 1-0 George Butterworth
Paul Scott 1-0 Freya Hind

A tough night for the juniors against last seasons D division champions!

First finished was George who lost to Martin Curry. I didn't get to see any of his game due to playing a game against Brian Whittaker (I lost as well!).

Second was an unusual loss for Rhys against Harry Tennant on board 1. An uncharacteristic mistake through touching the wrong piece and having to move it, removing it from guarding another piece. He resigned as a knight threatened a fork to win his rook. A first defeat in the league for Rhys, but Harry is a very strong player for this level who has only lost to 1800+ rated players Bernie Price and John Garnett this season! Harry moves to 7.5 out of 8 in the D division to go back ahead of Tashil in the top scorer race!

Third was Charles with a loss to Bernie Callaghan. A reasonably even game until Bernie got his queen down to the second rank and it was only a matter of time until the rook and queen mate.

Last was Freya against Paul Scott in a very competitive and tightly fought game. Despite a bad start, she managed to isolate Paul's king but couldn't find the killer blow. A blunder left her rook open which proved to be the turning point in the game. After Paul captured Freya's rook the counter attack began and despite Freya's attempts to get a stalemate, Paul saw through them and mated with his rook. A good effort from Freya against last seasons D division top scorer.

Acting Captain Tim

Date:21/02/2024  Chris' chess obsession reaches new heights!

It would be fair to say that Chris spends a lot of time on chess. Chess in 3 different schools on 3 different week day afternoons. Chess in Thornaby library on Saturday morning and Chess on Tuesday in the club. He's also the league grader and club secretary and is sometimes playing in away matches on other days!

That's a lot of chess, but he has now he has found a way to bring Chess into other pass times as well! This is a photo of him playing crazy golf at Holey Moleys in Skelton earlier today!

Date:20/02/2024  Aces top in top of the table clash!

Thornaby Aces 3-1 Darlington A
Chris Ross ½-½ Steve Dauber
Matt Jackman 1-0 Kevin Wilson
Francis Batchelor 1-0 Nick Webb
Chris Swales ½-½ Jonathan Sams

The Aces came out on top in the top of the table clash between 1st and 2nd to inflict a first defeat of the season on Darlington A. We take the lead in the A division by a point with a game in hand!

Chris R finished first on top board, looked a tight game throughout with neither player finding an advantage.

Matt took an early 1 pawn advantage, and managed to gradually take all the pieces off favourably. A nice swap on his last pieces left him with 5 pawns vs bishop and 2 pawns, and was calmly delivered to victory.

Chris S swapped all the minor pieces pretty quickly in closed game, and after a bit of repositioning and manoeuvring there was no advantage to be found from either player.

I again ended up the last person playing in the room, with a complicated game that I ended up in a more unconventional position than my opponent. I had to resort to some unusual defences, but then a critical mistake allowed me to trap a forward bishop with my pawns, forcing it off for only 1 of them. The pieces came off quickly after that and with no counter for white he resigned.

Another fantastic win for the Aces! Our last match before the league splits in 2 is our local derby match against the Bombers.

Francis

Date:20/02/2024  Top scorer Tashil inspires victory!

Thornaby Dynasties 2½-1½ Hartlepool C
Geoff Mann 1-0 Ed Lightfoot
Tashil Lankapura 1-0 John Marsden
Rosie Irwin ½-½ David Berry
Will Rowett 0-1 Ashton Woodward

Another good win for the Dynasties, this time over Hartlpeool C.

Will was first finished. He was several points ahead well into the game after winning a rook for a knight with a fork. However a blunder lost him a rook for nothing and he couldn't get back into the game from there. Will continues to get into good positions and that's half the battle! The other half of finishing more of them off will come with experience! Ashton was very complimentary of Will's opening play when I was chatting to him after the game.

Tashil was next finished. He was up against John Marsden who beat him in just 6 moves a few weeks ago! There were no scoresheet problems for Tashil this time though and he found an excellent combination to win his opponents rook and queen for just his rook. John resigned striaght away. This result means that Tahsil is the outright top scorer in the D division with 7 wins from 8 games. A real achievement for someone who has only recently turned 9 years old! Tashil standing over the board (which he tends to do when he is about to win) is becoming a frequent and scary sight for opponents!

Geoff put in a captains performance on board 1. The game looked even for a long time, but a mistake from his opponent allowed Geoff to take a rook with check and force the queens off. His opponent Ed resigned immediately.

That left the match score at 2-1 with Rosie to finish. She was 2 pawns up, but with the rooks and queens still on the board there were potential complications. A few moves later, Rosie offered a draw to secure the match result which was accepted.

A good result for the Dynasties and they close the gap on the leaders Billingham E, but remain 2nd in the table.

Date:17/02/2024  Thornaby reach 3 score and 10!

We can reveal that earlier this week Thornaby Chess Club reached the milestone of 70 members!

Our 70th is Neil Sotheby, a friend of George's father who has been visiting the club with them over the last couple of months. He has been watching with more and more interest for the last few weeks and has decided to take the plunge into club chess. Sorry Neil, there is no prize!

The growth in membership has come from new people coming through the door almost weekly and also from our successful library group which is full of exciting junior players who have transitioned to the club. Our best, Sagar, is already playing regularly for our league leading Aces team at the age of just 13.

Our membership is very wide-ranging. We have an age range from 7 to 91 and players in every decade in between. In terms of skill, our top rated player is a candidate master, all the way down to novice players in the 700's. There really is a good opponent for everyone to have a fun game! If you haven't before, come down to meet us at the iconic Don bar and help us to reach 80 soon!

Date:15/02/2024  Durham League Disappointment!

Thornaby ½-3½ Bishop Auckland
Joe McGinnis 0-1 Paul McGuigan
Steve Rodgers 0-1 Deborah Edmundson
Jonathan Feasby 0-1 Ryan Coates
Rhys Orton ½-½ Mark Edmundson

Bishop Auckland must love visiting Thornaby! Despite winning at their venue last season, we surprisingly lost 4-0 in this fixture. Things didn't go a lot better this time!

Despite the ratings looking to be in our favour, only Rhys managed to avoid another whitewash, by managing to draw on his Durham League debut! Joe, Steve and Jonathan all lost to their opponents. Well done to Rhys who remains unbeaten after 6 games for Thornaby. Another excellent young prospect from our library system!

Date:14/02/2024  Experience counts for Billingham!

Billingham Synthonia C 3-1 Thornaby Cadets
Sean Cassidy ½-½ Rhys Orton
Derek Simpson 1-0 Toefl Lankapura
Fraser Craig 1-0 Joseph Machin
Geoff Garnett ½-½ Ajay Selvan

The Cadets slightly outgraded their opponents in this match, but unfortunately the more experienced team came out on top.

Joseph lost out to Fraser Craig who is a player very much on the up for Billingham. Toefl lost out to former Buff Derek Simpson.

There were 2 very creditable draws in the other 2 games for Thornaby. It was Rhys' first game on board 1 for the Cadets and he looked like he belonged there up against CSC tutor and Stockton library host Sean Cassidy. Meanwhile Ajay also managed to get a draw against another veteran, Geoff Garnett. Another trademark solid performance from Ajay!

The Cadets lie in 7th place, but Rhys, Joseph and Ajay are all having good seasons and the Cadets are once again proving to be an excellent development team for us!

Date:13/02/2024  Best win for Joe!

Thornaby Bombers 1½-2½ Middlesbrough Rooks
Sam Greig 0-1 Giuseppe Magazzu
Joe McGinnis 1-0 Stephen Cole
Sagar Patil 0-1 Peter Ridsdale
Joseph Machin ½-½ Brian Myers

Outgraded by at least 200 on every board, this had 0-4 written all over it, so the narrowest of defeats is commendable - but it was literally seconds away from an upset win.

Looking to my right after an hour or so, I could see Sagar was up the exchange for two pawns, but Peter got it back in short order, maintaining his 2-pawn advantage. Joe was level on material judging by the captured pieces (unless there were others on the far side of the table). I was holding my own but the initiative was definitely with Stephen Cole. Having lost twice in the previous 6 days by letting Black establish a knight on g4, I made sure it didn't happen this time, but he got his other knight on f5 which proved nearly as annoying. He kept me very restricted, even in an open position (I think I only made one move into his half of the board, and that was instantly recaptured). Eventually a few suboptimal moves gave him an advantage (+2.5 at one point). He didn't quite make the most of it but was still up 1.2 at move 30. I was temporarily up the exchange, but he was going to get it back. He had his queen on g7 and bishop on f6, pinning my rook on c3 against my queen on b2. My other rook was defending on c2. He attacked the defending rook with his other bishop, failing to notice that doing so allowed Qb3 check, breaking the pin with tempo, winning the bishop and leaving me a rook up. He resigned as soon as I played the check.

Sagar resigned about the same time, the 2 extra pawns proving decisive in the endgame. Joseph had offerred a draw earlier on, which was declined, but did so again ten or fifteen minutes later, and this time it was accepted. Bryan Myers beat me comfortably the only time we've played, so this was an excellent result - better than mine, since I needed a blunder to turn a likely defeat into a fortunate win. Joseph held his own throughout a lengthy game against a strong and experienced opponent.

So it came down to the top board, where Sam was also holding his own against Guiseppe Magazzu. Both had about 25 minutes left at this stage, with material level and all major pieces still on the board, plus a bishop for Sam and a Knight for Guiseppe. Sam gradually built up a time advantage, but Guiseppe was able to win a pawn. However he was down to 6 minutes to Sam's 11, then 4 to 8, then 3 to 6, as everything got exchanged till it was rook and pawn v rook. Sam had offered a draw, which Guiseppe, knowing the match situation, had declined. Now he produced a clever bit of psychology. He offerred an exchange of rooks, knowing that the resulting king and pawn v king endgame was a draw (Sam's king was in front of the pawn, Guiseppe's was behind it). Sam thought for a bit, and moved his rook away, effectively telling Guiseppe that he didn't know how to secure the draw if the rooks came off. Guiseppe delivered something of an endgame masterclass in 3 minutes, getting his King forward and driving Sam's back. He even offerred the rook exchange again, confident that Sam wouldn't take it. (I was feeling a bit like the football manager wanting to substitute his goalkeeper in the last minute of extra time, because the guy on the bench has the better record of saving penalties! Steve Rodgers, standing beside me, also knew how to get the draw - but substitutes aren't allowed in chess matches.) Sam might still have held on, or even won on time, but Guiseppe was good enough deliver checkmate with four seconds left on his clock; Sam had 10 seconds. Tough on Sam - you don't get a 1900 player down to 4 seconds without playing a very good game yourself.

Looking at it from a different perspective, it was Josephs 2.5, Rest of the World 1.5, and I claimed a new highest-rated-opponent win for the third time in 4 months. Definitely fortunate to do so though - I had played better against both Nikhil Bhandari and Nick Webb. The game against Nikhil is still my best performance - I played well against Nick but he missed a chance to win, and here Steve Cole was in control before blundering to give me the win.

Joe

Date:13/02/2024  Comets come up short!

Thornaby Comets 1-3 Great Ayton C
Steve Rodgers 0-1 Tom Brough
Mike Creaney 1-0 Gordon Dickinson
Matt Rowett 0-1 Peter Archer
Andy Austen 0-1 Stephen Gatenby

Andy was able to beat Stephen in the reverse fixture earlier in the season, but couldn't repeat the feat this time. Mike was level on material for a long time, but seemed to have a lead in activity and development for most of the game. He eventually got his rook onto the 7th rank and finished off the end game from there.

Steve was playing Great Ayton's rising young star Tom Brough. Steve went a pawn down after a mistake in his opening and Tom kept the advantage throughout, playing a mature game to eventually get into a winning endgame position with 3 pawns against 2.

That left Matt who was level for a long time against his experienced opponent. Matt had 2 dangerous looking central pawns advancing up the middle in the endgame, but walked into a knight fork and lost his rook. Matt is getting into good positions against solid C division players and it tends to be just one misplaced move that loses him games. We're sure he'll start winning more games soon!

A defeat for the Comets, but the individual games were all close and there are more winnable matches to come!

Date:13/02/2024  Club Championship B division launched!

The Club Championship B division has been launched with 10 players taking part. This is for players who have joined the club since the club championship started or were on zero after 2 rounds of the main one. The favourite for the competition is probably Matt Rowett who has put in some good performances in the C and D division this season, but hasn't always got the results he deserves.

His biggest challenger could be his own son Will who has found a new level of confidence since his first league win a few weeks ago. Tristan is also expected to do well at this level. There are lots of other new young players looking to make their mark including the brother and sister pairing of Charles and Freya Hind and Jiu Jitsu George who is on 2/3 in the D division so far this season. All in all it looks like it could be a very open and exciting competition!

Full details are here:
http://www.thornabychessclub.co.uk/ClubChampionshipBDivision.htm

Date:12/02/2024  Hartlepool go top!

Hartlepool B 3-1 Thornaby Challengers
Peter Harker 1-0 Joe McGinnis
Dave Kelly ½-½ James Urwin
Graham Matthews Bye-0 Iain Mellis
Alex Kalyviotis ½-½ Stephen Ollis

The top 2 teams in the C division faced off and Thornaby got off to a bad start when Iain was unable to make it to the match.

A draw for James on board 2 against Dave Kelly was enough to put him back on top of the C division top scorer list.

Stephen got a good solid draw against Alex. It was a fairly symmetrical position for most of the game and once the queens were traded and the board became gridlocked, both players were happy with a draw.

That meant Joe needed to beat Hartlepool supremo Peter Harker on board 1. It didn't go for him this time though and Hartlepool finished as 3-1 winners.

With all of Hartlepools players around the 1600 rating mark, they are a very strong team for the C division and this result means they have overtaken the Challengers to go top of the division. Well done to them!

Date:08/02/2024  Club Championship 4th Round Draw!

The draw for the 4th round of the Club Championship has been made. There haven't been too many shocks so far and the top 2 rated players in the competition (Francis and Chris) are the only players on 3 points out of 3. They play each other in a 4th round showdown! James Urwin and Thornaby Cadets star Ajay lie in joint 3rd place on 2.5. There are a several players currently in joint 5th on 2 points including another junior star Ollie and the in form Joe McGinnis.

The latest results and full 4th round draw are here

Date:07/02/2024  University drubbing!

Durham University C 4-0 Thornaby
Alex Potter 1-0 Joe McGinnis
Tom Berry 1-0 Steve Rodgers
Elliott Maitland-Davies 1-0 Mike Creaney
Bill Hallidie-Smith 1-0 Tom Marwood

The official result shows three unrated young players and we lose 4-0! However their performance statistics are as follows: Potter 1952, Berry 1880, Maitland-Davies 1667. Hallidie-Smith 1850. A better representation of their true strength I think.

I was doing OK against Alex Potter, helped by him arriving nearly 15 minutes late, an advantage which I extended to 20+ minutes by rattling off my first seven or eight moves inside 2 minutes. I had a decent position and was planning to exchange off his fianchettoed bishop, but miscalculated slightly and changed my mind to avoid getting my queen stuck on h6. Not trapped, but I thought it would be troublesome to get it out and useful again. My second plan was to swap off the other bishops. I played h4 preparing Bh3, forgetting that I'd played h3 to drive his knight away from g4. He immediately put it back on g4, forking my king and dark-square bishop. It was "just" a minor piece exchange, but it cost me a tempo or two and messed up my position pretty thoroughly. I then walked in to a queen/rook fork a few moves later, after which I was just shoving pieces around and waiting to see if Steve was going to finish before me. Annoying really, as I'm sure I'd have had at least a draw if I'd played safe and let the clocks run down.

Mike's opponent played the Benko and the game lasted 24 moves and was equal for 21 of them, but Mike's 22nd was inaccurate and his 24th hung a piece. Mike resigned instantly as the way his opponent was playing told him that he wasn't going to be let off the hook!

There was nearly an issue with the caretakers chucking us out at 9.30 on the dot, but Steve resigned just beforehand. Alex Potter was puzzled that this game still had about 15 minutes total left on the clocks; they had started about 7.05 with 1h15min each, so should not have been able to go past 9.35. Alex had asked if I could bring a couple of our clocks "just in case", but I didn't have time to get down to the Don Bar before I set off. One clock stopped and needed rewinding five minutes in - I think it was Mike's game. In Steve's game I think the clocks were just running a bit slow. Something similar happened when we played the D team - I ended up using my phone after our clock stopped and would not rewind. How a (presumably long-established) chess club with 30+ (presumably paid-up!) members can't rustle up 8 working clocks beats me!

In the end, despite 7 of the players in the match being different (Mike the exception) it was a repeat of our 4-0 drubbing at Durham University last season! Well done to our young opponents!

Joe

Date:06/02/2024  Club record for Jayden!

Thornaby Juniors 1-3 Thornaby Dynasties
Ollie Walton 0-1 Sam Stevenson
Harris Wilson 1-0 James Mann
Tristan Green 0-1 Tashil Lankapura
Jayden Wang 0-1 Will Rowett

A win for the Dynasties, but a real milestone for Jayden who set a new club record. At just 7 years old, he is the youngest player ever to play in a match for the club! Tashil the previous record holder did make up for it with a good quickfire win over Tristan though!

After almost a year out of competitive chess, it was great to see Harris back playing for a team. Harris was a peer of Sagar and Joseph at the library 2 years ago and won the top group several times with both present. He's played a few internal rapid plays since coming back to library and club in January and it was obvious he was back in form. Before this match, James had won every league game he'd played this season, so a very good start to playing for the teams again for Harris!

Sam and Ollie met earlier in the season and nothing changed in this one with Sam coming out on top again!

Despite losing on his debut, Jayden put in a good performance. He took his time, recorded his moves correctly and put up a good fight. He was last finished of the 4 games and took Will to over 40 moves before eventually losing! Well done Will, Jayden has already shown in internal club rapid plays that despite his age he is no push over! Jayden is the first junior player who started at our Ingleby sessions to play for the club. It took a lot longer for the Thornaby sessions to produce team players, so Joe McGinnis is undoubtedly proud. Our Ingleby library session runs on Friday from 4pm-6pm. Jayden also comes to the Thornaby library sessions now and I know him as "the legendary Jayden Wang"! This is on account of him being the only player who has ever walked into the library where I already knew of his ability just from his name alone! Jayden was the Teesside Under 7 Champion last year.

The oldest players in this match are only 14 years old, so the match was largely about experience. Nevertheless it was another good win for the 4 young Dynasties who remain 2nd in the D division, but the headlines still have to go to Jayden!

Chris

Date:06/02/2024  40 Children in Thornaby-Billingham inter-school match!

20 children from Billingham South Primary School visited Thornaby Village Primary School for 4 chess matches. There were 5 children from each KS2 year group and they played 2 games each against 2 different players from the other school. The Y3 match finished as a 5-5 draw, but Thornaby Village managed to win the other 3 matches. The games were all played in a good spirit, well done to the children from both schools for representing their schools so well. Mr Swales said, "I was very proud of all the children today. Having 20 children who can take part in something like this and play a good standard of game is something that both schools can be proud of. There were no tears or arguments and it was a great advert for chess in schools!"

The event was well received by both schools. The headteacher of Village said "Thanks for organising. The kids loved it!" The visiting teacher from Billingham South said "Thank you so much for inviting us, we all had an amazing time! Can't wait for the next match!" Our very own Pete Townson assisted Chris and said "It was fun for me and great that everyone enjoyed it so much!"

Some future stars were involved in this match for sure. Our own Fletcher Hoyland was part of the winning Village Y6 team and some of the others involved will hopefully be following him to the Saturday morning library sessions in both Thornaby and Billingham!

A gallery from the event is below.

Date:05/02/2024  Destroyers Draw!

Hartlepool C 2-2 Thornaby Destroyers
Graham Marshall 0-1 Jonathan Feasby
Matthew Tyson 0-1 Nick Tadd
David Berry 1-0 Janos Mehes
Hayden Thompson 1-0 Andy Austen

A good result away at Hartlepool but we really snatched a draw from the jaws of victory!

I didn't see much of what was happening on the other boards as I was the last to finish after a 74 move marathon before Matthew resigned!

Jonathan finished very quickly. A good win against an expereinced player on board 1. 1-0 Destroyers.

Andy was next to finish. He lost to a relatively new Hartlepool player in Hayden Thompson. I didn't see what happened as he was sat over the other side of the room. 1-1

Janos sat to my left seemed to be winning easily - several pawns up and also an exchange. I was also 3 pawns up and comfortable. If Janos had offered Dave Berry a draw at that stage he would probably have took it and we would have won the match! Unfortunately things went wrong and Janos somehow went on to lose!

A 2-2 draw keeps the Destroyers in mid-table!

Nick

Date:03/02/2024  Rapidplay win for Ajay!

The February monthly rapid play at the library attracted a high quality field of 22 players. The field was of such quality that some of our club players were still on zero after 3 rounds!

Ajay navigated some tough games and came home with the £20 first prize (which has been donated by a former member of the club) after a flawless 5 points out of 5. Tristan, Tashil and Isaac won their respective age groups with all 3 finishing amongst 5 players in joint 2nd on 3 points. Omi finished as the girls champion. All 4 of these children won chocolate based prizes!

Junior coach Chris said, "Ajay has shown you all how to use your time well in a 15 minute competition. He was frequently down to less than a minute on his clock". In the last round Isaac was within 6 seconds of sharing the £20, but Ajay found the mate just in time! Still a great performance on the day from Isaac though. He setup a final round showdown with Ajay after a victory over dangerous looking newcomer Josh Evans in the 4th round.

1 Ajay Selvan 5
2 Harris Wilson 3
= Isaac Machin 3 (under 11 champion)
= Tristan Green 3 (under 14 champion
= Josh Evans 3
= Tashil Lankapura 3 (under 9 champion)
7 Omhle Lulama Sibanda 2 (girls champion)
= George Butterworth 2
= Clair Hartill 2
= Sam Stevenson 2
= Charles Hind 2
= Zhuoyi Lin 2
= Jayden Wang 2

Date:31/01/2024  Aces drop point at Great Ayton!

Great Ayton B 2-2 Thornaby Aces
Steve Booth 1-0 Matt Jackman
Adam Young ½-½ Francis Batchelor
Ray Honeybourne ½-½ Chris Swales
Jim Rogers 0-1 Patil, Sagar

Once again the Aces lost pace in the title race against the so called B-teams!

Sagar was taking no prisoners, and bashed out the moves to quickly get a win on the scoresheet. He exploited a backward pawn on the c file and then went up an exchange and brought it down to an easily won endgame.

Chris told me before the match that he always draws with Ray, and the offer of a draw after about 15 moves was heard by me next door to them. I think there was a repetition for a moment, but they decided to make more of their evening than that and played another 10 or so before bowing to the inevitable (although queens and pieces where still on the board, let's call it a tactical retreat with aircraft intact).

I then had a bit of a get out on jail on board 2. I went for an early queen swap, liking the look of how the board would develop and shape up for me in the endgame. However, I was always that 1 move away from reaching real comfort and being able to expand, and made a mistake which dropped a pawn. While often terminal in an endgame, it went to opposite bishops and rooks left and I managed to wrestle into a better position and swap off more to leave it in a tough game to try and win. A temptation offered of a draw that was initially declined but offered back 1 move later was enough to bring a guaranteed draw for the match.

Going down to under 5mins left each was board 1. Another game with queens off early, it looked like Matt had the better pawn structure but the opponent knights vs his bishops got better traction on a closed board. As time got lower and lower white made the mistake first which dropped a piece, but with so little time and awkwardly placed knights it was always going to be difficult. In the attempt to make it tricky to use up the time or get a stalemate, Matt got his king into a bit of a hole, but Steve eventually found the mating combination with 11 seconds left on his clock.

Despite this setback, the Aces are still unbeaten at the top of the league. Let's hope we have all slip ups due out of the way for the big top of the table 4-pointer next up against the only other unbeaten team, Darlington A, on the 20th February!

Francis

Date:30/01/2024  Derby win for Challengers!

Thornaby Challengers 3-1 Thornaby Comets
James Urwin 0-1 Steve Rodgers
Pete Townson 1-0 Mike Creaney
Stephen Ollis 1-0 David Pizzi
Alan Stockley 1-0 Malcolm Goldspink

The Challengers came out on top in a keenly contested local derby match!

David's English opening which was met by the anglo dutch defence from Stephen. Stephen had a space and activity advantage out of the opening and in attempting to develop his bishop and untangle matters David made a mistake which allowed two potential tactical ideas that would win material and create a powerful outpost for Stephen's knight. David attempted some counter-play but resigned on move 19 after losing more material.

Alan managed a fork on Malcolm's queen and a rook which put him on the back foot from near the start. It was quite tight through the middle game but as they entered the end game Alan had two rooks against a rook and bishop. Malcolm thought he'd manoeuvred a bishop/rook swap which would have left it even, but Alan's decades of experience told and he got out of it with only the loss of a pawn. Shortly afterwards Alan pinned bishop to the king and Malcolm resigned.

Steve played his familiar system with white, known by Mike as "the sleep inducer"! Steve did win a piece early on and looekd to be heading for a quick win, however James fought on and won the piece back and then went a pawn up. Steve fought back this time and material was level again with 3 pawns each and Steve showed the superior endgame technique to claim the win.

Pete's game against Mike was last to finish after a long battle! Mike was on the defensive throughout, but still in contention until the late middlegame when Pete proceeded to outplay him gaining a two pawn advantage and a won endgame. Mike played on for a while, but when he realised that Pete wasn't going to make a mistake he threw in the towel.

Some good games that once again showed the strength in depth of the club. The Challengers continue to set the pace in the C division!

Date:30/01/2024  Toefl beats top scorer!

Thornaby Cadets 1½-2½ Hartlepool B
Toefl Lankapura 1-0 Graham Matthews
Ajay Selvan ½-½ Alex Kalyviotis
Tristan Green 0-1 Michael Smalley
Tashil Lankapura 0-1 John Marsden

A great performance from the top 2 boards was not enough to upset the high flying Hartlepool B team.

Tashil was on 5 league wins from 6 going into the game, but had a bit of nightmare getting distracted by an error on his scoresheet and he lost in just 6 moves. A checkmate on f7. It involved a pin and wasn't a straight miss, but still disappointing!

Another good game from Tristan against a strong player. He put up a good fight and his opponent told me that Tristan missed a win at one point. Tristan was a last minute replacement after one of our new players got confused with the start time!

Tashil makes most of the family headlines, but this time it was Toefl who produced a great performance against the joint leading C division scorer Graham. Graham was on 5.5/6 before this game along with our own James Urwin. Toefl got the exchange up and then 2 pawns up and pressed home his advantage. I thought his opponent had a winning move at one point when I looked, but looking at the game afterwards I missed that the queen would be covering a key square.

Ajay was last finished and it was another trademark solid performance from him against a very good player. Alex beat me last season! Ajay had a strong looking pawn structure and I think the material was level throughout. A draw was agreed with neither player seeing any obvious advantage or way to progress.

Chris

Date:24/01/2024  Bombers put up good fight against Champions!

Great Ayton A 3-1 Thornaby Bombers
Virgil Szekely 1-0 Joe McGinnis
Andrew Smith 1-0 Steve Rodgers
Martin McLaughlin 0-1 Tom Marwood
Ray Honeybourne 1-0 Jonathan Feasby

A good fight from the Bombers against the league Champions! Joe found the 500 rating gap a bit too big a mountain to climb! The remaining 3 games all went down to the final few minutes of the time control.

Steve lost on time, but was in a tough position. Jonathan had Ray down to his last 2 minutes on board 4 when he got checkmated. That left Tom, who managed to avoid the whitewash with an excellent win against our favourite local chess blogger Martin! Tom went the exchange up after a sacrifice from Martin didn't pan out. Tom defended well and Martin resigned with just 1 minute left on his clock.

The view from Martin and Great Ayton (http://www.aytonchess.co.uk/home.php), "A much needed victory to keep up the chase with the leaders, but you have to be impressed by the way Thornaby are finding some really good new players to their ever expanding squad".

Defeat for the Bombers, but lots of encouraging signs in this one. Our 3 new players all played well and anything better than a 4-0 defeat was considered a bonus before the game!

Date:23/01/2024  Juniors Destroyed!

Thornaby Destroyers 3-1 Thornaby Juniors
Vardhan Bunga 1-0 Ollie Walton
Alan Stockley 1-0 Tristan Green
Tim Hind 1-0 Isaac Machin
Laura Holdforth 0-1 George Butterworth

A perfect reversal of the score earlier in the season.

1st finished, me V Isaac. Isaac had a good opening and was up by a rook within 10 moves. He began to play a bit too fast and make errors as the game went on and blundered his queen. From that point on his head dropped and the game was quickly finished. A good first game for him, and he will definitely improve with more time in the league.

2nd done Vardhan v Ollie. Vardhan was up by two pawns the first time I looked then, the next time I looked it was heading in to the end game with Ollie pushing pawns in the hopes of a promotion. It wasn't to be and Vardhan fended the attack off and finished with a mate with two rooks.

3rd done - Laura v George. Great result for George and a clinical game by him. Laura fought back and managed a nice back rank fork and winning the queen but George was relentless in his attack and proved successful.

Finally, the game of the night. A very hard fought win for Alan against Tristan. A very defensive game initially which opened up as time went on. Alan went a couple of pawns up at the start of the game and this proved to be his winning edge. With Alan beginning to feel time pressure, the end game began with queens, Alan with 4 pawns and Tristan on 2. Tristan made the mistake of blundering his queen and the killer blow was the queen backed up by 2 pawns. With Alan age 91 and Tristan age 11, this must be close to being the biggest age gap in a match between 2 players in the league! It was a great game that showed that chess can be for anyone!

Tim

Date:23/01/2024  Tashil wins again!

Thornaby Dynasties 1½-2½ Darlington D
Toefl Lankapura ½-½ Mark Turner
Sam Stevenson 0-1 Barry Hopkins
Richard Stevenson 0-1 Rhys Dakin
Tashil Lankapura 1-0 Maksymilian Konczynski

A hard fought game for the Dynasties, but they were on the wrong end of a 2.5-1.5 score this time.

Toefl was first finished. He thought he'd gone a piece up in what seemed like the early part of the game, but the move allowed his opponent a perpetual check. The only way Toefl could stop it was to sacrifice his queen, so a draw was agreed.

Sam was finished next. He was up against the in form Barry Hopkins and one mistake was all it took for Barry to come out on top.

Tashil gained a small advantage in his game and it was a mature performance to keep it throughout and force a win in the end game.

That left the score at 1.5-1.5 all with Richard still playing. Richard put up a good fight and the game looked even for a long time. I didn't see how it finished exactly, but an anguished cry from Richard signalled the end!

Still a good match and the Dynasties do still lie in 2nd place in a very closely packed D divsion table!

Date:23/01/2024  Club Championship A2 Division Launched!

At this time of year, we normally launch our Club Championship B division. This is for players who join during the year or are on zero in the main club championship and is coming shortly. However, with several high level players joining over the last few months, we've decided to also have an "A2 Division Club Championship" this season as well rather than have them in the B division. The A2 division will be a round robin between 5 of our new faces who are already playing at a level to be selected for the Aces or Bombers. It will be a chance for all 5 to get some high level games and extra competitive practice in!

Matt Jackman heads the field and will be the hot favourite for the event after moving to us from the Buffs last season. However, Steve Rodgers, Tom Marwood, Richard Aviomoh and Jonathan Feasby have all impressed at the club over the last few months and will all be looking to make an impression in this event!

Full details are here.

Date:18/01/2024  Lyons roar against lost Thornaby!

Hetton Lyons 3-1 Thornaby
Nigel Hall ½-½ Joe McGinnis
Stephen Hall 1-0 Mike Creaney
Barry Edgar ½-½ Steve Rodgers
Jason Robson 1-0 Tom Marwood

Einstein's Theory of Relativity predicts strange things happening to time in the vicinity of a black hole, such as your personal time being frozen in one moment while billions of years pass in the rest of the universe. Something similar seemed to be going on in the vicinity of Hetton-le-BlackHole last night. At 5 to 7 I was 4 minutes away from the Hetton Lyons club, and 20 minutes later I was still 4 minutes away. When you approach a roundabout and the satnav says "continue straight", you sort of assume it doesn't mean take the first exit, that being a road that goes off to the left at a 45 degree angle. Returning to the same roundabout some 10 minutes later, I took the first exit and got to a point where the satnav was telling me to "turn right into Richard Street", despite there being no apparent opening on the right which a car might actually turn in to.. After a further 10 minutes I got back to the same spot but pointing in the opposite direction. I ended up stopping in front of a pizza shop and getting out on foot, to discover that one of the narrow alleys on that side of the road did actually open on to the main road, and was just wide enough to fit a car past the van that was parked at the end. This was Richard Street - invisible from the road unless you knew it was there. Parked the car, went looking for the chess club, was accosted by a shady character asking directions, who turned out to be Mike Creaney. He and Steve had been wandering around Richard Street in search of the venue for a while. The barmaid at the Victory Club had told them to go to the end of the road and turn left; she (or maybe a different one) had told me to turn right, which eventually got us to the right club, which is not really on Richard Street at all. Thinking (correctly) that Tom might be lost as well, I texted him and ended up outside trying to wave him in from one end of the street, only for him to approach from behind me, still in his car when I had assumed he'd be walking. Like me, he had believed that "straight" and "off to the left at an angle" did not mean the same thing. At least he got parked in the right place.

We then got to play some chess. Hetton Lyons have played the same four in every match; we were heavily outgraded on 1 and 2, but at least competitive on 3 and 4. I didn't really get a look at any of the other games. Tom and Steve finished within a few minutes of each other, and though Steve had drawn, Tom had lost. I think his opponent was better than his rating would suggest, like Tom himself. At this point Mike was a pawn down, and I was level on material and was the one dictating the game. The trouble was that I had left my king exposed by pushing forward with all my king's side pawns. He found a way to get his queen out from purely defensive duties, and the initiative swung to him as the clocks dropped below 5 minutes. I avoided a couple of suckere punches - a skewr of Q against K and a threat of mate in the corner - and offered a draw, which he accepted. The engine has the final position more of less dead level, though it seems I had a +2.5 advantage at one point. Given that he was rated over 1900, the chances were that I would be the one to blunder or lose on time, so I was happy enough with the outcome.

We are away to league leaders Durham University C on 7th Feb, after which we have 7 of the remaining 9 matches at home.

Joe

Date:16/01/2024  Unlikely win for Bombers!

Thornaby Bombers 3-1 Billingham Synthonia B
Joe McGinnis ½-½ Sean Cassidy
Sagar Patil ½-½ Gary Leighton
Mike Creaney 1-0 Darren Donnison
Iain Mellis 1-0 Ben Dodgson

A 3-1 win which was looking distinctly unlikely an hour earlier. I got into an endgame against Sean with rook, bishop, knight and 6 pawns each, and no obvious way for either side to create an advantage. I didn't feel I was playing all that well and was happy to accept the draw when he offered. Sagar followed suit more or less immediately. At this point Mike was level on material, and though his opponent had a backward pair of doubled pawns there was no easy way to get at them, and he was about half an hour behind on the clock. Iain looked dead and buried - down a piece and with a pawn on his 2nd rank.

I went through to the bar for a short time, and when I came back the dangerous passed pawn was gone, and Iain was harassing the Black king with checks and pushing his h-pawn as well. His opponent blocked a queen check with his rook, failing to notice that the h-pawn could step forward and attack the rook, which was of course pinned. I thought it would finish quickly after that, but Ben Dodgson made it as difficult as possible with a bishop against a rook. As a result, they ended up needing new scoresheets after 80 moves! This turned out to be a bit of a waste of paper though, with Black resigning on move 81 ( or maybe 82).

We still needed something from Mike, and looked good to get it as he was now a pawn up, but getting low on time. I thought he might concede a perpetual check at one point, but he kept going, and found a way to get at his opponent's king. Rather than go backwards in response to a knight check, he came forward, and set himself up for a nasty discovered check with the knight and queen now onthe same diagonal. Mike didn't play it though - he got his rook round the back instead, and there was no way to stop a series of checks leading to mate.

Not a convincing a victory, but they all count and the Bombers remain in the top half of the division as the highest placed B team!

Joe

Date:16/01/2024  Young trio get win for Cadets!

Thornaby Cadets 3-1 Thornaby Comets
Toefl Lankapura 0-1 Steve Rodgers
Joseph Machin 1-0 Tom Marwood
Ajay Selvan 1-0 Malcolm Goldspink
Tashil Lankapura 1-0 Matt Rowett

To be honest, when I saw the lineups, I fully expected a 4-0 or 3-1 to the Comets! These results represent great progress for our young trio, I should have more confidence in them!

Tashil continued his recent good form with a win over Matt. He has definitely taken at least some of his higher level in quick games into his longer games now. He's our top scorer in the D division across the 3 teams and this was his C division debut.

Joseph found a brilliant combination to force a win against Tom. Tom was on 100% before the game, so a very good win. Joseph's rating will go up a lot as this will be classed as a win over a 2005 rated player!

Ajay and Malcolm were close for a long time, but then Ajay managed to get a piece up. Ajay is really solid in end games and he's probably the last person you want to get behind in material against! He duly forced everything off for a win.

Toefl was last finished although he was in trouble well before the end after getting his queen trapped. He did get a bit of compensation for it, but it was always going to be difficult from there.

Chris

Date:16/01/2024  First defeat for Challengers!

Thornaby Challengers 1-3 Great Ayton C
James Urwin ½-½ Gordon Dickinson
Stephen Ollis 0-1 Connor Wilson
Bill March ½-½ Peter Archer
Jonathan Feasby 0-1 Stephen Gatenby

A first defeat of the season for the Challengers as Great Ayton got some revenge for our victories just before Christmas over them!

Bill had a typical reliable draw against Peter Archer. James was disappointed to lose his 100% record in the C division, but it was still a draw and he remains the joint leading scorer in the division.

Stephen was in a complicated looking position, but did seem to be on top. It fell away though and Connor claimed the victory.

Jonathan turned down a draw at one point in his game, but made a couple of mistakes in the endgame that allowed Stephen to promote a pawn.

A setback for the Challengers, but they reamin top of the C division.

Date:13/01/2024  Rhys wins inaugural Library Rapidplay!

Rhys continued his recent excellent league form by winning our first ever ECF rated event at the library! We're going to be trialling running rated events on the first Saturday of each month for the rest of this year to help our young players get more used to competitive environments. Rhys won his first 3 games and then drew with Harris and Ajay in the last 2 rounds. Well done Rhys! Harris finished as runner up in the under 18 category. A very welcome return to action from Harris after a few months off!

The Under 14 Category was won by Sam, but he did actually lose to runner up Zhuoyi in an earlier round. Freya was the girls champion and Jayden was the Under 11 winner.

Results:
Under 18) 1st Rhys Orton, 2nd Harris Wilson
Under 14) 1st Sam Stevenson, 2nd Zhouyi Lin
Under 11) 1st Jayden Wang, 2nd= George Butterworth and Freya Hind
Girls) 1st Freya Hind, 2nd Paulina Rouchoudhury
All the above won chocolate based prizes!

Date:10/01/2024  Leaders too strong for Juniors!

Billingham E 2½-1½ Thornaby Juniors
Ben Dodgson ½-½ Tom Brough
Dermot O Higgins 0-1 Rhys Orton
Andy Herrity 1-0 Ollie Walton
Sean Cooke 1-0 George Butterworth

The current D division leader proved just to strong for our Juniors team. Good performances all round though and another very good result for Rhys. That makes 4 wins out of 4 now. Tom drew with Ben Dodgson on board 1, but Ollie and George found their opponents on the lower boards too strong.

Date:09/01/2024  Aces keep up momentum!

Thornaby Aces 3-1 Middlesbrough Rooks
Matt Jackman ½-½ Paul Gregory
Francis Batchelor 1-0 Brian Myers
Swales, Chris 1-0 Sahil Farooq
Patil, Sagar ½-½ Ammar Alghasra

The Aces keep up their momentum at the top of the table with a win against one of our big challengers the Middlesbrough Rooks.

Sagar finished first in a game that was very double edged with both players queens around the opponents king and not much in defence. I didn't see the end but I would suspect someone forced a perpetual to save themselves.

The other games lasted until late on, but the result from Chris looked certain for a while. A misplaced queen allowed an invasion of rooks onto the 7th rank, everything piled up on a pin to win a knight for Chris and a certain endgame win.

Matt brought in a draw in a close looking position, he might have had the push on the queenside vs the centre but no clear advantage.

I finished last as seems to be a trend. The game was fairly even on a board that looked primed to get exciting any moment, it maybe didn't quite happen but a well timed central queen allowed me to created problems pushing an advanced pawn to the 6th rank, winning a pawn, and compressing all the pieces in awkward spots. The gradual build of pressure was enough for the win.

The rooks were missing a few of their normal faces, but an important win for us nontheless!

Francis

Date:09/01/2024  First league win for Will!

Thornaby Dynasties 2½-1½ Billingham Synthonia D
Toefl Lankapura ½-½ Harry Tennant
Sam Stevenson 0-1 Graham Edwards
Tashil Lankapura 1-0 Michael Joynes
Will Rowett 1-0 Graham Bartram

Sam was first finished. He was even for most of the game, but then went a piece down and it was a quick defeat from there.

Tashil got a very dominating position in his game and finished it off with a nice rook and bishop checkmate. With 4 wins from 5 games, Tashil is Thornaby's leading scorer in the D division across all our 3 teams.

Will managed to get a piece amnd a pawn up, but it was still complicated and despite getting his rook pinned against the king by a bishop, he played well to finish it off and get his first league win for the team! Will has been getting into good positions, but not quite finishing them off. Well done Will!

That left Toefl battling against D division leading scorer and Billingham rising star Harry Tennant. Toefl was a bishop down, but 2 pawns up. He managed to force the bishop off by pushing pawns, but despite being material ahead it was a drawn endgame position due to his king being too far away. A draw was enough to give the team the win though. A great result against last seasons D division champions!

Date:09/01/2024  Destroyers get out of jail!

Thornaby Destroyers 3-1 Darlington D
Vardhan Bunga 1-0 Mark Turner
Alan Stockley 1-0 Barry Hopkins
Tim Hind 0-1 Rhys Dakin
Mehmet Isci 1-0 Maksymillian Konczynski

Mehmet got a pawn up and held the advantage all the way through to eventually win an endgame after exchanging things off.

Vardhan must have played a get out of jail free card because he looekd to be in a completely lost position, but then a few minutes later he'd won!

Alan played a solid game and always had the edge. Barry is new to Darlington, but with 4.5 out of 5 in the league so far he must be a good player, so a great result for Alan!

Unfortunately, Captain Tim couldn't complete the whitewash and he lost to another newcomer for Darlington, Rhys Dakin.

A good win for the Destroyers and especially Vardhan!

Date:03/01/2024  Slow start to Durham League year!

Peterlee 3-1 Thornaby
Daniel Turnbull 1-0 Joe McGinnis
Stephen Carter 1-0 Steve Rodgers
John Reddington 1-0 Toefl Lankapura
Logan Richardson 0-1 Stephen Ollis

My game didn't go well! Blundered a pawn on move 10, blundered another on move 14, blundered the exchange on move 18, resigned on move 19! At this point Steve Rodgers was a pawn up, Steve Ollis was 3 pawns up and Toefl was 3 pawns down.

Toefl started about 30 minutes down on the clock due to forgetting the match was on, but he got that back to 10 mins and the material back to one pawn; it might even have got to level, I'm not sure. However, his rook was entangled among his own pawns, whereas his opponent got his to an open file, from which it got to the 7th rank and started eating pawns. Toefl kept it going for a while, but in the end the rooks were exchanged and the extra pawns were too much.

Steve Ollis seemed to have little difficulty converting his advantage; his time was getting short and his opponent had picked up a couple of pawns with his bishop, but 2 connected passed pawns on the 6th and 7th ranks, supported by a rook, proved decisive.

Steve Rodgers was still a pawn up at this stage, and looked good for at least a draw. The only potential problem was time; when I left he had something like 11 minutes to 25. He managed to create a winning position (+3.7 according to the engine), but unfortunately blundered a rook in time trouble.

The rest of the year can only get better....

Joe

Date:03/01/2024  Brian back!

Brian Ellis made a welcome return to competitive play on Wednesday scoring 1.5 in the Billingham quickplay. Brian was up close to the leaders going into the final round after a win over Graham Edwards and a draw against the up and coming youngster Harry Tennant, but he lost out to Hartlepool captain Peter Harker in the last round.

The joint winners were Bill Wilson (Hartlepool) and John Garnett (Billingham) who both scored 3 out of 3.