SBCC-News

SOUTH BIRMINGHAM CHESS CLUB News

Older news can be found in the Archive section

28^th August 24

This year’s Annual friendly match took place at Olton over 14 Boards,

Pre-Season-Friendly-Match (southbirminghamchess.club)

27^th August 24

Club Champions

Each Year South Birmingham run Internal Club Tournaments. The club Championship was run as a standard play Swiss over 7 rounds with the winner holding the title as Club Champion

This Year Adithya Vaidyanathan became SBCCs youngest ever Club Champion. The Club Championship Trophy was presented by current SBCC President Mark Drugan at the Annual Friendly match.

SBCC Std Play Champ 23-24 | ECF League Management System (englishchess.org.uk)

This year’s SBCC rapid play Swiss over 7 rounds was won by Cory Hazlehurst and wins the David Dunn Trophy, presented President Mark Drugan at the Annual Friendly match

SBCC Rapid Play Champ 23-24 | ECF League Management System (englishchess.org.uk)

Preesh Gandhi was this year’s winner of the Performance Cup which is awarded to the Player with best score graded under 1600. 8 wins and 4 draws.
Best draw against 1944 at Rapid-play, Best win 1752 at Standard play, these are rated games so no freebees here… Well Played Preesh.

28^th July 2024

Summer League

SBCC Entered 5 teams in the BDCL Rapid Summer League this year, 1 in the Open section, 2 in the7400max and 1 in each of the 6600max 5800max sections.

three titles have been won…. 7400max 6600max and 5800max,

The below first picture is after the final 6600 match at Warley Quinborne

Left to Right: Louis Maciel, Darren Whitmore, Derek Green, Steve Edwards, Rob Glass …… other contributing players not in the picture

Sean Doherty, Sean Ralph, Milenko Walner, Mark Drugan, Sathya Vaidyanathan, Junior Taitt and yours truly…

From the winning 7400max team who have retained the title. With the table showing South Birmingham in 1^st and 2^nd Place

Hello chess friends.

This is the final email from the targets… as you are aware we won the 7400 rapid summer league, for the second year running! It’s way we did it that even surprised me, just look at the team I assembled, basking in their own glory. I’m not sure how we did so well, but the team definitely played for each other, it’s the only way to get these results in a very competitive division. It is incredible, played 14, won 13, drew 1. You could call us the invincible’s? Just look at the final table

We destroyed everyone, no other way to say it. The only team to take us close were our own B team, the Druge with the Vaiders… it was our toughest and closest game of the season, and they were absolutely brilliant and pushed us all the way to the last match.

The players..

Dazzler - my word what’s he been doing ?! Only Magnus Carlsen could have known how he felt, winning 12.5/14 points over the 7 matches. He’s been playing rapid online but sets the board up, it really shows how’s been able to condense his thinking for this time control, and bring his classical game to the rapid board. He played every match, we can only dream of such greatness.

Claudio - after I was forced to play game 1, I knew we needed an extra player. I was able to draft in Romania’s premier chess streamer, and it was so good to have him back in the fold. He beat a GM online over the weekend, as you do, and he played that way all season, just ripped through people. He was a little board rusty at first game leaving a piece en prix for no return, but after that he didn’t lose a game. Just took out trash on board 4 all season long.

Nat - I think Nat is a little like me over the board with regards his emotions, feeling good he is awesome! And he felt good playing summer league, which was nice after he had to miss a chunk of the winter season. If there was one game that told me we had this season, it was when he took out 2111 rated Lambourne, and it wasn’t time trouble or a blunder, he just outplayed him in both games, my season highlight. He looked healthy and happy, he did the business, the man.

Cory - Couldn’t believe it when the classical open champion was available for the team, what a board one. He delivered all season and blunted the other teams attack. So solid, very technical play, I watched fully both his games last match, you can feel the class it’s just a next level thing. Big thank you and congrats on a great season, only loss of the season was to Adithya, he smashed the rest.

Tim - I had to have Tim in the team else we wouldn’t have been the A team, which after 2 seasons as B team meant a lot to me. Tim’s always in the 7400A, and so it had to be. Mr super solid got a respectable 4/8 and made sure we had what we needed, a lot of draws as I recall.. careful play and a great anchor for any team. Another awesome player.

TC - ok so I only played one game, but I beat Sathya who went 10/10 (!!) after our match for the rest of the season, which meant we won the first game against our biggest rivals, the B team. My illness, reactive arthritis, is quite energy sapping, only Samson could know how I feel after losing hair, getting better though pretty sure… the boys carried me and I thank them for it.

Just look at these season stats, unbelievable!

Takeaways

The B team were excellent, and with Singerman on the verge of securing the 6600 title, and Terry already securing the 5800, now we’ve added the 7400 South Birmingham are considered the rapid chess powerhouse of the midlands.

This team has been lovely every game, always buzzing and happy, it’s been a real pleasure.

We win three years running, we call it a dynasty.

If a picture could some up the season, this would be it. Targets 7400 Champions 2024

Left to Right: -Nat Kasifir, Iulian Valduva, Matt Little, Tim Lane, Cory Hazlehurst and Darren Whitmore.

TC and the targets

June 24^th End of Season Curry Night usual venues POW and Diwan

Two people at the Pub above (Patrick and Mike) got replaced at the curry house below, (Junior, Dominic and Kitty…..) Louis was at both, Joe was unusually missing at both …

20^th May 24

Seasons Report.

9 teams were entered into the Birmingham League and one team entered into the Dudley League, the two teams in division one survived to play again next season, with the B team finishing in ninth and the A Team Finishing Joint Top on 20 pts, this led to a playoff which rivals Sutton fielded an international and Grand Master, this ultimately gave them the edge and the League title for the 10^th time. The 1A team also got to the Terrill Final and won over the boards but lost the Match to the 3½ handicap. Overall, a very good season winning 64 and drawing 17 of the 102 boards… Three teams found themselves in Division two, Trying to survive as a third team is always a tough ask in any division, then when two players left at the start the C team found the task to much and were duly relegated, However the A and B teams sat in the top spots for most of the season with the B team looking to be favourites, Missing players in the final three games saw the team slip to third handing the Title to the A team and second spot to Warley Quinborne.

The Division three side managed to finish Joint fourth and reach the Terrill trophy semi final not bad for a team out graded most of the time. Two teams in Division four, the 4A team seem to copy the 2B being in a good place for nine matches then falling away in the run in. 4B were promoted from 5 last season and made their target of surviving in the division. The Fifth Division team were a totally new team with many of the players using clocks and score sheets for the first time, they finished in the top half and have some promising future players…. The Dudley team managed to win their League for the second season running, well not quite, we needed something from the match for the title and we were losing 2 – 1, the last board to finish looked lost for SBCC to everyone… so, when the young lad played on and won…. I should really say Sathya Vaidyanathan won the Dudley League again for South Birmingham… In the League Lightning Tournament SBCC won the open Section for the fourteenth time. There were also some impressive Individual results during the season, Cory Hazlehurst became only the second SBCC Player to win the BDCL Standard Open Individual Title, and Mark Drugan won the Standard 1750max Section, Sathya Vaidyanathan also was a joint winner, in the 1750 section in the David Dunn Memorial Rapid-play, with Elis Dicen wining the Open Section, then finishing second in the Warwickshire Women’s Rapid-play the following day. Adithya Vaidyanathan won the Shropshire Open Std Congress, Elis Dicen won again at the Leamington Open std Congress. The BDCL’s Morry (most promising junior) and Wood (best game) awards had been won by Sathya and Adithya Vaidyanathan respectively All in all, the future looks bright 😊

Dudley Team Left to right, Javier Castells Gill, Sathya Vaidyanathan, $ingerman, Steve Edwards, Mark Drugan, also thanks to Mike Walner who Played Board 1 in most,

Titles won 2023-24

1st Summer League Max 6600

1st League Lightning champions

2nd League Lightning section B (£10 prize)

Joint 1st Division 1 Championship

Terrill Trophy finalist - 1A

1st in Division 2 championship

Birmingham League Individual Open Champion - Cory Hazlehurst

Birmingham League Individual Max 1750 Champion - Mark Drugan

Birmingham League Individual Max 1750 Runner up - Joe Kadar

Winner Baruch Wood Best Game Trophy - Adithya Vaidyanathan

Winner Ritson Morry Junior Trophy - Sathya Vaidyanathan

Dudley League 1800 Max - Champions

SBCC Lightning teams in action

1^st August 23

Today ECF August grades are released, these will ultimately decide the Nine team line ups for the BDCL 2023-24 Season

ECF: South Birmingham (ecfrating.org.uk)

29^th July 23

Olton Memorial Tournament (From Hitman)

South Birmingham arrived at Olton Chess Club for the Memorial Tournament on Saturday with a crack team of chess players...unfortunately they didn't play so Myself, Tim Lane and Derek Green represented the club....

There were 10 teams with teams from Kenilworth, Halesowen, Olton, Shirley, Mutual Circle along with ourselves... There was a good buffet laid on and a big prize fund we later found out...

There was much interest about who we might get in the 1st round which started at 11am...although, the emails had stated 11 and 11.30 as starting times and I had asked for clarification on this the night before. Some players obviously hadn't and arrived after the matches had started.

We were paired against Shirley and Wythall and I was told that Keith Ingram had pulled out so my opponent on board 1 would be Robert Reynolds, he of Olton fame and organiser of the event. 2 moves in to a Scandinavian Defence, in walked Keith Ingram, to which Robert set the pieces up again for Keith to play instead. I asked Robert if he'd conceded the game and I told him I wanted the grading points...he took it well...

I was white and Keith played the Petroff Defense to which I played the 3 Knights which I haven't studied but used Lopez type ideas and I won a very nice miniature in 19 moves...Tim on board 2 drew his game in which he looked better and the star of the tournament on board 3, our very own KITTY, won with a masterclass of the Morra Gambit in the Sicilian...He danced and skipped down the Warwick Road but was back for Round 2.

Round 2 started at about 2.30pm and we were playing the Kenilworth Optimists...Board 1 saw me against Andrew Patterson. I've played him in the 4NCL a few times and our record was level. As black, I played well and equalised quickly and might have been better but I lost the exchange and then the game. Kitty won again and Tim drew his game. We finished with 4 out of 6, equal with one of the Halesowen teams and won a trophy for 6 months and a good amount of money which we've donated to the club.

From correspondent Kitty

Whilst a number of ex and current South Birmingham Chess Club members were busy distinguishing themselves at the British Championships a representative group of three went to represent SBCC at an Olton organised event intended to commemorate the sad passing of several of members over and immediately post the 'covid period'.

The Olton event passed successfully. It was well organised and ran, as usual, by Olton's Reynolds bros. to whom we again offer our grateful thanks.

The free food was not bad - little triangular sandwiches with the crusts cut off, pork pie slices, chicken drumsticks and cocktail sausages etc. as well free do-it-yourself tea & coffee. There were 10 teams each of 3 people of varying grades. Each person played in one of the 3 grade sections against a randomly drawn player in their section. The South Birmingham contingent comprised Kevin Hitman Hurney (open section), Tim Tal Lane (under 1859) and Derek Kitty Green (under 1650).

In round 1 of 2 Hitman was first to finish against Keith Ingram who failed to push a pawn in the center until it was too late and he was forced to resign at move 19. I followed next with my opponent failing to spot a pleasing little combination and he resigned on move 20. Tim had a more difficult game but, while never in any difficulties, was unable to quite break through his opponent's position. A draw ensued. 2½ points to us after round 1 of 2. Only 1 other team amassed this total - Halesowen.

Round 2 of 2 began at 3:00pm. Hitman essayed an aggressive R deep into enemy territory but ended up losing the exchange in the middle game as a consequence and eventually came second. My opponent, Peter Hughes, as nice a gentleman as you could wish to meet, played a number of moves that favoured me and I eventually got a queen winning discovered check in which resulted in his resignation. Tim again had a difficult opponent. One of those who didn't know when to give up. Tim was down on the clock at one stage but later recovered this, but, in the mean-time, in a rooks and pawns endgame, may have overlooked a rook move winning a pawn and later a check - also winning a pawn. At least that was what it looked like from the side of the board and, as we all know, the view from the side of the board sees all the 'obvious' things the players missed in the heat of the moment. Although, in truth, the Jury's still out on this! Anyway Tim had an extra a pawn but could not get it down the board and eventually had to concede a draw.

I was about to go home after my game but was told I might be needed if a play-off ensued between teams finishing on equal points. So I stayed. The final result was that indeed, a play-off was required for first place between us and Halesowen - both on 4 points. However It was getting late and a quick decision to share the trophy was agreed so no play-off required.

25^th July 23

Half Vaida 6600 Champions 2023

Another week, another title, this week SB Team Half Vaida became the 6600 Summer League Champions adding a second trophy to the SBCC pot.

Left to Right: - Sathya Vaidyanathan, Steve Edwards, Adithya Vaidyanathan, Alan Woollaston, Sean Doherty. Also thanks to Matt Little and Daren Whitmore

17^th July 23

Strikes 7400 Champions 2023

Tonight Matt Little’s 7400 Team won to become 7400 Summer League Champions and secure the first Title of the season for SBCC, Well Played Team 7400 Champions.png

Left to Right: -Nat Kasifir, Iulian Valduva, Matt Little, Sebatian Tudor, Martin Smyth and Darren Whitmore.

5^th July 23

Summer Programme 2023

South Birmingham Chess Club is open throughout the summer

A programme of special events has been arranged for Wednesdays as follows:

5 July Blitz tournament (3 minutes + 2 seconds increments per move)

12 July 5-minute tournament (+2 second increments per move)

19 July 10-minute tournament (all-play-all max 8 players per section)

26 July Simultaneous Display by club champion Cory Hazlehurst

2 Aug Lightning tournament (10 seconds per move)

9 Aug Fischer Random chess, kreigspiel, four-handed chess, friendly

16 Aug Blitz tournament (3 minutes + 2 seconds per move)

23 Aug End game competition (test your knowledge, solve set endings)

30 Aug Annual Friendly match home to Olton

6 Sept Opening night of the new season (time to pay your subs!) and play a few friendly games, see which team you will be in and see the fixtures.

Events will start promptly at 7.30 p.m. Please try and be at the club by 7.20 p.m. if you wish to compete.

We will try to accommodate late entries but late arrivals may be unable to complete their games in the available time and unfinished games will have to be defaulted.

If you do not wish to compete in the above programme, there is no problem, just come along and play some friendly games.

Visitors and members from other clubs are welcome to come along on a Wednesday and join in our events or just play friendly games of chess.

The club is fully licenced and drinks are cheap!

11^th June 23

BDCL Rapid Play SBCC can boast 3 winners

Three Sections of the Birmingham District Rapid play tournament were won by South Birmingham

Major: - Won by Adithya Vaidyanathan

Intermediate: - Won by Sean Doherty

Minor: - Won by Chaniru Ranasinghe

May 15^th 23

And their off

The Birmingham District Summer League began second week in May, This is the beginning of the 2023-24 season events, with five teams from us entered into the four sections,

Open, 7400 max (x2), 6600 max, 5800 max. With two teams in the 7400 section rivalry within the club has seen some sharp tactics between the team captains, with each side trying to get the players out they need. We shall see who triumphs.

May 12^th 23

Season Summary,

The main BDCL Season came to an end and 3^rd was the popular finishing place with no less than four SBCC Teams ending in this spot, Division One, Division Two, Division Three and Division Four.

Division Five however showed the way and finished Champions of their Division, The Dudley 1800 max Division was also won by SBCC, We also entered players in the six sections of the BDCL Individual tournament,

Winning three sections, these combined with the 10 second League Lightning sections and the Summer Rapid play divisions, makes a dozen honours amassed making it a very good season.

Full list below

1. Division 5 championship

2. Townshend Trophy

3. Barrington trophy

4. League Lightning Championship

5. Section 2 of the League Lightning competition

6. Winner of 5800 section of summer league

7. Maximum 1900 Individual champion - Robert Glass

8. Maximum1750 Individual champion - Bruno Silva

9. Maximum 1750 Individual Runner-up - Matthew Little

10. Maximum 1300 individual champion - Chaniru Ranasinghe

11. Morry Trophy for best junior - Adithya Vaidyanathan

12. Dudley League 1800 championship

12^th April 23

Good Day Team
Hope the Easter Break has been Okay for you.
Tuesday 11th Mo knights had a big Fence to get over if we are to keep our Promotion race on track, Halesowen are the Opposition and will be waiting for us

A win and we will then have 16pts and a playoff Match against Warley Quinborne will be arranged
Warley Quinborne beat Mercia 3½ - 2½ in their last match, however I was disappointed to find in this crucial match, that even if WQ had lost 6 - 0 they would have still won, as Mercia played out of Board Order...
Our Team for for this Halesowen match was

Adithyan Vs Mark Bethel
Mo Vs Andy Ambrose
Dominic Vs Paul Evans
Joe Vs Tony Staokes
Me Vs Peter Banks
Derek G Vs Marco Hoogenkamp

This was the first time for me at this Townsend Venue, on arrival I thought Spacious and okay, the down side was quite a audible chat can be herd from the room next door for the first hour, My oponent played with fingers in his ears ......
Mo had said on the way he was glad the seasons coming to a end as he was feeling a bit worn out he was at the daventry Easter Congress.... I wondered if he would get tuned in ........
Turns out he never had chance and after 15 minutes came up to me and said he would make his own way home.. ????? I asked the dumb Question ....... well you never know he said he was worn out..... so 15 mins 1 - 0 ...to Mo Knights
now remember that chap who Had a bigger grade than me.... yes that one Kitty ... well after 30 minutes they had Blitz nearly all the piecec off and Kitty had made it 2 - 0 to Mo Knights ..What could possibly go Wrong I said looking at my
cramped Position... I dug in like you do with a plastic spade on a pebble beach, getting nowhere fast.. However Kitty reported back Board 1 Adithya must have the faulty Clock again as his time don't seem to be going down whilst the other chaps was down to 20 odd minutes
Dominic was in a fairly even game whilst Joe Brush was exchange down..... Adithya was next to finish and yes 3 - 0 A really Big thank you to MOM Mona for her time in bringing the Lads, Brother Satya was also here just in case .....any draw would do ......
My digging in had worked and after big Girls came off I was looking okay with a Bishop Pair and Rook Vs NRB + 5P each My opponent offered and in some ways i wanted to play on now
However the draw gets us over the line so Captain does what captain does and the big fence was cleared, Joe went on to finish second while Dom had repetition to prevent a mating attack. 4 - 2 to the Mo Knights
we now have the 16 pts and Regardless of what happens next .... and after loosing the first two matches, we have survived this division with a record of P11 W7 D2 L2 and the Fat lady is still not Singing......

❸	P	W	D	L	Pts
Rushall	11	9	1	1	19
Warley Quinborne	11	8	0	3	16
South Birmingham	11	7	2	2	16
Mercia	11	6	1	4	13

March 2023

The Eight South Birmingham teams in the Birmingham & District League have acquitted themselves quite well over the last six months; none of the teams will be relegated this season while promotion is still possible for four of them.

The top team have played all but one of their games in Division one and may still yet finish in the top three, In Division two all three teams are safe and the B Team currently Joint Second could be in a Promotion play off,

In Division Three Promotion is still a possibility with three games left to play, a remarkable achievement considering they are virtually the lowest graded team. In Division four promotions again is possible with one game left against the top side.

Division five lie in third place and still have a five games left, but have some good players to call upon.

21^st March 23

Tonight Match came with transport difficulty mainly due to the Bus Strike, Derek the Domino Stockhall now lives the other side of the city to our club and has to rely on Public Transport result being he could not make this one, reserves were thin on the ground due to the fact Four & Moore (SBCC Division 4) and Five Star (SBCC Division 5), were also playing tonight..... However, looking into his SBCC box of tricks Tricky, otherwise known as Terry Walker, came up with a Greek gift, Sia Kouka
So we lined up as Follows

Horologist Vs Ron Neal
Brush Vs Peter Loach
Dr Dom Vs Les Andrews
Kitty Vs Micky Harrington
$ingerman Vs Mike Darlow
The Greek gift Vs Bill Dixon

I was hoping after the Team drawing the last two matches, we would get the promotion show back on track, however maybe I am Listening to the Kitty Hype a bit too much... You all know it, he has a higher grade than me so as a result I played him higher again, it never went well for him and by 8.15 we were 1 - 0 down to the Bottom of the table Oscott... not too long after Brush was walking round with a pint giving me the thumbs down Crikey 2 - 0 and My game was now looking ropey with mating threats after I castled into trouble ...damn...
Mo grabbed the Match by the B------- and got our first point on the board, I Zombied out of trouble gained a Couple of pawns and My opponent threw in the towel 2 - 2 Dr Dom added us another .....Hooray we are now 3 - 2 UP with Just The New Girl on the Block. The Game was looking even with Q+2R each +4P Bill +3P Sia, the Big Girls came off, and we were down to the following with Black to move
SIa
Sia Proved Cool Under Pressure not only from her opponent but also from the onlookers .... a rook exchange took place and with around 10 minutes left Bill reluctantly agreed a draw ..... The Greek Gift had won us the Match on her League Debut...........
Thank You for Playing From the Mo Knights Team
Tonight we sit in Second Spot but its close and Mutual will be another Battle which may need another dabble in the Trick Bag...
Next Mo Knights match Away to Mutual Circle, Tuesday 28 March
Last Mo Knights match Away to Halesowen Tuesday 11th April........

14^th March 2023

10 second League Lightning Team Tournament

This year’s 10 second League Lightning tournament took place, again at Olton Chess Club; With South Birmingham’s Four teams making a third of the entries, Due to the lack of teams the four teams in each section played a double making 6 rounds in all.

South Birmingham A consisting of Jon Swindells. Richard Mycroft, Patrick Duncan, Pelle Larsen, won Section A for the thirteenth time with 17 out of a possible 18 Points, South Birmingham C Consisting of Matt Little, Claudio Vaduva, Sebastian Tudor, Steve Edwards, won section B with 15 points, the twelfth time a SBCC team has won this, and South Birmingham D, Derek Green, Derek Stockhall, Kacper Sikorski, Paul Heeney. Finished Runners up in Section C on 13½ Points.

Full Section results as follows

Section A

1) South Birmingham A 17 pts (Taking the Championship)

2) Mutual A 14 pts

3) Olton A 9.5 pts

4) South Birmingham B 8 pts

Section B

1) South Birmingham C 15 pts

=2) Mutual B 12 pts

=2) Sutton Coldfield A 12 pts

4) Solihull A 9 pts

Section C

1) Olton B 16 pts

2) South Birmingham D 13.5 pts

3) Solihull B 13 pts

4) Sutton Coldfield B 5.5 pts

2^nd Mar 23

Hello Chess Players,

Last night our division 4 team were playing in an away match at Stourbridge. Our team were in joint second place in the league and a win was needed to maintain our promotion hopes.

Our four regulars were all keen to play but it was difficult getting a fifth player to complete the team. Eventually new member Mark Swanepoel agreed to play and so we had a full team.

The only problem I now had was getting the five players to Stourbridge. I could only take four passengers. A begging phone call to Singerman produced a positive result and transport was sorted out.

I was taking three of the players from the club and Singerman was taking the other two players. About ten minutes after leaving Moseley, I had a text to say that Mark had caught the wrong bus

and had gone in the opposite direction to where he was to get his lift with Singerman. So it looked as though we were a player down.

At the start of the match in Stourbridge we had to default on board 5 and this put the pressure on the four players. The first game to finish was on board two were Chris came second to his opponent. So 2 - 0 to Stourbridge.

The pressure was now on. Playing at his usual rapid play speed, Adithya on board 1 came up with a few tricks and won a piece. Now leaving his opponent with just a queen and a few pawns and resignation followed. 2 - 1 to Stourbridge.

The next game to finish was on board 4 were Paul was playing aggressively and managed to deliver mate. The score was now even 2 - 2. Everything was now in the hands of Sathya on board 3. His opponent had sacrificed a piece on f7 in the opening in order to expose the king and launch an attack. Sathya was defending well but using a lot of time on the clock. Sathya kept trying to swap pieces off so that he could win using the extra piece but his opponent avoided any swaps. Eventually both players had less than 5 minutes on the clock and moves were made quickly. Sathya then noticed that his opponent made an illegal move so according to the rules Sathya gets an extra 2 minutes on his clock which is useful when you are in time trouble.

Amazingly, Sathya picked up the clock and added the extra 2 minutes on to his clock before you can say Ian Nepomniachtchi. A few tricks then followed and Sathya produced a nice finish and an attack on the king won the queen and won the game and the match.

Well done team.

28^th Feb 23

All,

The TAL-ent squad visited West Bromwich on Monday 27 February. Tom-Tom was unavailable so, since we’re a five-person squad, two reserves were needed. Bruno and Muhammed stepped up to fill the available slots, and the teams lined up like this:

Colour	Board	West Bromwich	Grade	27/02/2023	South Birmingham A	Grade
W	1	Ortega, Irvin B	2304		Clarke, Neil	1951
B	2	Walker, Nicholas A	2069		Smyth, Martin D	1932
W	3	Quraishi, Shahab U	1899		Whitmore, Darren H	1879
B	4	Crump, John E	1863		Lane, Tim A	1833
W	5	Davies, Dave M	1742		Dos Santos Silva, Bruno Alexandre	1711
B	6	Pincher, Jonathan P	1729		Isik, Muhammed Oguz	1702

My game against John Crump started 1. b3 e5 2. Bb2 Nc6 3. e3 Be7 4. c4 Bf6 and I soon got a small edge. I’ve always found John a difficult opponent so, when he offered a draw after about twenty moves, I had an attack of cowardice and accepted. Looking at the position I should probably have played on.

Darren, black in a c3 Sicilian, made a slip in the opening which cost him a pawn and castling rights. Some inventive defence enabled him to reach a R+P ending a couple of pawns down, but the position couldn’t be held.

Neil put up a great fight against the 2300-rated Irvin Ortega but eventually fell to an inventive temporary piece sacrifice which converted a pair of doubled pawns into a steamroller that exploited the position of an immobilized rook to win the material back with interest.

Martin drew with Nick Walker, leaving us 3-1 down.

Bruno played the Sicilian (a Dragon, I think) against Dave Davies and sacrificed the exchange for a promising Q-side attack where a black pawn on a3 limited the mobility of white’s king, which was on a1. White returned the exchange to defuse the attack, but Bruno got two passed centre pawns in compensation. White managed to win both of these, but the effort cost him his own a2 pawn, after which the black pawn on a3 became a game-winner. 3-2!

Muhammed met his opponent’s French Defence with the Exchange Variation and launched a K-side attack which looked to be winning. But near the end of the evening a white rook got pinned in the middle of the board, and Muhammed ended up with two pawns for a bishop in an ending. With both sides very short of time, black offered a match-securing draw which Muhammed had no choice but to accept.

Colour	Board	West Bromwich	Grade	27/02/2023	South Birmingham A	Grade
W	1	Ortega, Irvin B	2304	1-0	Clarke, Neil	1951
B	2	Walker, Nicholas A	2069	½-½	Smyth, Martin D	1932
W	3	Quraishi, Shahab U	1899	1-0	Whitmore, Darren H	1879
B	4	Crump, John E	1863	½-½	Lane, Tim A	1833
W	5	Davies, Dave M	1742	0-1	Dos Santos Silva, Bruno Alexandre	1711
B	6	Pincher, Jonathan P	1729	½-½	Isik, Muhammed Oguz	1702
				3½-2½

The TAL-ent squad has two league matches left, at Walsall and Stourbridge.

Cheers,

Tim.

24^th Feb 23

Townshend Trophy Final

Hello Chess Players,

Last night saw our International division 5 team representing Spain, Poland, Sri Lanka, Bearwood and Acocks Green playing against Stourbridge division 4

in the final of the Townshend Trophy. We were playing at a midway venue Warley/Quinborne on the Halesowen Road.

We had a half point start because we we playing against an higher division team.

So if we drew the match, we would win with the extra half point.

The match had to be completed by 10.00 p.m. so a 7.00 p.m. start had to be made with a time of 90 minutes each on the clock and no increments.

After exchanging team lists a representative of each team rolled a dice supplied by me to determine which team would have white on the odd boards

which is a great advantage in a five board match.

I invited the Stourbridge captain to go first and when the dice settled it landed on a 1. Kacper then represented our team and threw a 6. So far , so good.

We now had the three whites. I deny all suggestions that I supplied a loaded dice, and trained Kacper which way to throw the dice.

The teams lined up as follows:

1. Javier Castells Gil 1600E J. Conway-Lees 1833

2. Matthew Smith 1434 R. Evans 1569

3. Luke Lambert 1456 S. Alcock 1513

4. Kacper Sikorski 1400E B. Doran 1333

5. Chaniru Ranasinghe 1418 C. Woodall 1431

We were lucky that two of the Stourbridge regular players Foxall 1753 and Wilkinson 1609 were not available to play.

I was expecting their strongest team and my original strategy was to win on the bottom two boards and get a draw on one of the top three boards.

Play started and we were soon under pressure on the top three boards. Board 4 was strange which started 1.e4, c5 2.e5. Not something that I have seen before and also confused Kacper who took some time to reply after wondering what his opponent was up to. Kacper soon sussed him out and after winning his queen came up with the team's first win.

After being a pawn down, Javier managed to get some counter play and established a killer knight on f6 and a rook on the seventh rank. He won his opponents bishop and then had a mate in one . His opponent then sacrificed his rook which stopped the mate and pushed his only moveable pawn forward. Unfortunately Javier took the pawn without thinking and his opponent now had stalemate.

We now needed half a point to win the match. On board 5. Chaniru was playing well and managed to check his opponents king and rook at the same time and

thus won the rook. After swapping all the pieces off, a win followed. Chaniru's win gave us the match.

This left Luke on board three who was a piece down and under time pressure. The pieces came off leaving Luke with just king and pawns and his opponent with an extra Bishop. We all thought that the end was nigh for Luke. But alas, Luke held the position and his opponent could make no progress in the time left on the clock. A draw was agreed and great result for the team and winners of the Townshend Trophy. Well Done team !

Terry

22^nd Feb 23

Jim Barrington Final

Tuesday Night our SBCC 4 Played Shirley 4A in the cup final at Olton,
I was diverted on route due to Road closure at Reddings Road, the normal three minutes left to the Olton club took over 15 minutes partly because of the Traffic and Partly because I was not where I thought I would be after the Diversion… any roads, we got there with only two Players
for Shirley, funnily enough, both ex SBCC Fred and Chris Pitt we filled the cards and their Chris and our Chris Rolled the Dice for White on Odds we got a three they got a Six and selected White on Odds as a five board Match three whites may favour. With all now in attendance, they lined up as follows

Shirley & Wythall A				South Birmingham
Purcell, Robert J	W	1727	1	Vaidyanathan, Adithya B		1713
Dickson, Fred S	B	1646	2	Moore, Chris	W	1521
Pitt, Chris W	W	1627	3	Vaidyanathan, Sathya B		1516
Jimenez, Frank C	B	1583	4	Heeney, Paul	W	1497
Asbury, Jon A	W	1568	5	Swanpoel, Mark	B	1350E

and they started as follows ......Wow, some Chess moves.....
Board 1 Queens gambit Declined 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. Bf4 Be7

Board 2 1. d4 Nf6 2. g3 d5 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. Bg2

Bd 3 Scotch 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4

Bd 4 French defence 1. e4 e6 2. Nf3 d5 3. exd5 Qxd5

Bd 5 Old Benoni Defence 1. d4 c5 2. d5 d6 3. c4 b5

I went to the Bar as you would and on my return had a little walk round the boards Bd 3 for us Sathya, was in Big trouble... castling was denied and his king is on the move white Bishop Queen Rook looking to kill lets say Chris P was in a good place,
Our Bd 5 Mark also ran into trouble with his opponent now forking both Rook's the Big girls have already taken an early Bath. Mark has a bishop Pair but Pressure is mounting, Bd 2 Very even moving along slow but sure, Bd 4, also even but moving
rapid as Nurse's games usually do.... Adithya, Board 1 the Smallest player in the league seems to be matching Rob Purcell, except for time... Adithya 58 mins Rob 32mins... ..... nearly two hours gone chatting on Bd 5 ....its over Shirley lead 1-0.
Bd 3 has dropped the ball Sathya has some play however a draw is agreed... Shirley Still lead, and smiling Bd 2 Chris and Fred now also agree a draw Shirley still lead ... Down to Paul the Nurse.. Paul has N+3P Frank has B+4P the Pawns are locked and although Paul has an Advanced one it's all blockaded and reluctantly another Draw is agreed Shirley still lead .and very happy... 2½ - 1½ just The little guy left and has the South Birmingham World of Chess on His Shoulders Rob B+3P Adithya B+3P same colour Bishops...... tic toc tic toc tic toc a pawn each comes off, Robs dashing about to make the move's under time pressure then it happened.... Another light green Square with number 1 on appeared on the Adithya chess records next to the other 6...

only this one is special, it made the match score all Square and won us the Trophy on board count. Well played team you have won SBCC the Jim Barrington trophy which now makes it four times and not since 5A in 2002...
Come on Div 5 Thursday you can Match them.... I thinks
$

18^th Feb 23

Happy Saturday chess friends..

Monday saw us travel to Sutton B, this was it…the season on the line… winner looked 99% chance of staying up, loser was heavy favourite to go down.

Firstly as captain I was in a strange position, I had 7, yes 7 team members all wanting to play. Someone had to be dropped, I spoke with my number 2 Milenko, it was difficult, I decided the best chance to win was to drop the player who had won more points for the team than any other this season… so I dropped myself! The teams lined up as follows;

Milenko vs Marks

Seb vs Windows

Steve vs Dhesi

Bruno vs Hayden

Ciarán vs Ajimal

Claudio vs Oliver

I picked Seb, Claudio and Ciarán up from the club, Steve jumped in with Bruno, and Milenko arrived solo. For the first and only time this season, we outnumbered and outgunned our opponents.

Once the match started I popped for some food, upon my return about 8:10pm board one was chatting. How could it be over so quickly? Milenko knowing how important the game was played into his prep, and managed to blunder a whole piece without compensation on move 7. He was horrified. How he got Marks to agree a draw just 8 moves later a piece up and a cpu evaluation of +7.1 no one will ever know…. I still don’t understand it, I guess Marks panicked… 0.5-0.5

Seb our superstar was doing the business on board 2, Windows couldn’t keep up, Seb had the better position, had an extra 30 minutes on the clock, and simply squeezed him on both the position and the clock.. finally the chance came and Seb sacked his bishop… Windows took it as I recall and resigned a move or two later under the vail of checkmate... 0.5-1.5

Steve was next to finish.. he’d been working on different lines and played into a closed position. Dhesi looked confused.. he couldn’t understand the position.. Steve could and knew which pawns needed pushing (push em baby). He one a pawn, then another, then another.. Dhesi fell apart with Steve in a rampant won position, job done. 0.5-2.5.

If you would like to know some of the lines Steve plays, please visit his website chessatedgbaston.co.uk and grab yourself some knowledge!

It was starting to look all too easy… But Ciarán was facing the tricky Ajimal, who has taken some decent scalps this year.. With black he lost a tempo in the opening and got his g file opened early, he played what he could to survive but was positionally busted really… he fought hard however till gone 10pm… he nearly held it but Ajimal always had that slight advantage.. 1.5-2.5

Bruno was busy on board 4, in a typical Bruno game, awkward for both sides and searching for moves that may help… he lost a pawn but wasn’t suffering for it, he had the better position for sure… after a lot of huffing and puffing it looked tight still, Bruno checked the match card and offered a draw knowing it was what we needed and Claudio looked good on 6 still… the draw was accepted. 2-3

Claudio was down on board 6, I bet he beats most of us online.. but you know he has struggled OTB this season. He had to work for three hours, scraped a win off a player he should have swatted away really.. but OTB chess is a different animal to online. Anyway, he did the business and we romped home 2-4.

So proud of us staying up this season, let’s hope Terry won’t begrudge us the victory over 2A now, as we have made good use of those points and secured a fifth team in the top two divisions for SB.

Only one game to go.. match card attached…

Sutton Coldfield B	Jan	2	4	South Birmingham C	Jan
Marks, Robert	1717	½	½	Walner, Milenko	1760
Windows, Glenn F	1712	0	1	Tudor, Sebastian	1783
Dhesi, Iqbal S	1671	0	1	Edwards, Steve A	1739
Hayden, Lawrence F	1661	½	½	Dos Santos Silva, Bruno A	1711
Ajimal, Jettender	1655	1	0	Morris, Ciaran	1712X
Oliver, Peter J R	1602	0	1	Vaduva, Iulian	1693

TC 🚗🚗

17^th Feb 23

Good Morning Club,
get the coffee
Wednesday saw Mo Knights travelling to Coleshill for the scheduled Div 3 Fixture, a venue I had not had the privilege of seeing before, the route was either across many "A" roads in rush hour or round the M42 from J2 Hopwood,
M42 was supposed to be the fastest, however I know going to Redditch each day (Work) extensive delays are happening at road works on Hopwood hill, so I planned joining M42 at J3 Maypole, Now the team.... I was made aware
at an early stage that Dr Dom was on call and could not make this one, Then Kitty (You Know the one who has a higher grade than me) decided to again mess with his Jeep...??? (When will he ever learn?) as a result, the hour
job replacing a cable turned into the usual kitty Pantomime spread over three days which he could not resolve in time for the match, living in the land time forgot made him ineligible for this match, so two reserves were needed.
I had offered two reserves a chance to play for the best Social Club team against University last week, however Uni's withdrawal from the League on the day of the Match dashed that one, so I re-offered for this. The saint could not
make this one due to a pre-planned club individual game..... so my reliable reserve Nurse was brought in.... The other reserve from the week before is New Guy Sean Doherty, and from now on will be known as... DB7... no, he does not have one,
but works for them, in fact for this Match he got a train to Grand Central (Brummies know this as New street station) and an Uber to Coleshill... now that's commitment..... over the years the Nurse's Spot Cotteridge has proved very handy
to pick...players up, and I was able to find Mo, Nurse and Domino at the said location. We got to Coleshill by 7.15 with Brush and DB7 already there, now any chess, err oh yes, but I did not see it. LOL ...... After 4 straight wins, we are safe
and now playing for pleasure, I thought it would be the tail wagging if we win this one. Bd5 Domino had agreed a draw by 8.15 against Paul Barrett seemed a long way from Hampstead hill for 35 minutes of chess by the time we started.....
10 minutes later ...... The Brush had agreed a draw on board 2 against ex land time forgot Lichfield John Smith 1 - 1 Me as Black was in trouble again, however a lot of Knight moves by me in a very cramped position swung the game back round
and now I had some threats, my opponent Graham Barrett (no relation to Paul) was ex Handsworth, East Birmingham West Warwickshire Solihull Div 1 Player at one point and a very nice gentleman. I huffed and Puffed chasing the Win but
had to settle for the draw... i had a game 9.50 .... 1½ each.. DB7 on Board 5 had R+4P Vs R+4P, But his opponent looked to have the better with not much in the way of three connected, it was looking lost or drawn at best.... on the other hand
Nurse looked to be in command of his end game with a win or at least a draw.... Well, you know how it goes... Nurse ended up loosing while DB7 somehow Won.... 2½ each, It's all on Board 1 Horologist 1702 Vs Peter Thompson 2020 ....
The Coleshill man knew how to handle the Time smith and was up on time.... the game was even but it was looking over as 008 appeared on our man's clock ..... Thompson quickly looked at the clock and held his hand out and said … Draw?...
What a Sport didn't give a toss for the grade (or Coleshill table position for that matter) and based it on the Board position. 3 - 3 Man of the Match ...... Everyone... the only sour note was as we are driving back on the M42 they closed it.......
And we had to double back on ourselves, which added at least 20 more minutes (10 mile to the journey) ... For anyone who has not been, Their venue is Very, very smart, but they have been told they need to now pay £20 per night grand a year....
Next match Mo Knights Home Monday Night 6th March Mercia
Next Dudley Boyz Home Monday 20th February Wolverhampton
Staffy Miles, Trucker, Horologist, stand by your beds
$

Coleshill	Jan	3	3	South Birmingham	Jan
Thompson, Peter I	2020	½	½	Isik, Muhammed Oguz	1702
Smith, John	1749	½	½	Kadar, Joe	1682
Barrett, Graham	1617	½	½	Woollaston, Alan T	1622
Barrett, Paul	1553	½	½	Stockhall, Derek A	1553
Vanes, Thomas	1562	0	1	Doherty, Sean	1503E
Phipps, Malcolm J	1539	1	0	Heeney, Paul	1497

2^nd Feb 23

Chessplayers,

Having narrowly defeated Redditch in the quarter-finals of the Terrill Trophy a couple of weeks ago, the TAL-ent squad narrowly lost to them in Division 2 last night.

Colour	Board	South Birmingham A	Grade	2023-02-01	Redditch	Grade
W	1	Clarke, Neil	1951	½ - ½	Lambourne, Daniel M	2072
B	2	Smyth, Martin D	1932	0 - 1	Hosken, Nigel K	2054
W	3	Whitmore, Darren H	1879	0 - 1	Vaughan, Jonathon	2051
B	4	Lane, Tim A	1833	½ - ½	Towers, Nigel S	1821
W	5	Glass, Robert	1806	½ - ½	Russell, Scott	1798
B	6	Edwards, Steve A	1739	1 - 0	Whitten, Andrew S	1673

On Board 4 Nigel Towers played the Exchange Variation against my French Defence and offered a draw after fifteen moves. The position was dead level, so I took the half-point, and we went down to the bar for 45 minutes. When we returned, Rob and Darren had also finished. Rob’s game saw the Open Defence to the Ruy Lopez (3. … a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Nxe4), a fairly rare bird at club level (Rob said it was only the second time he had faced it). Darren’s game had started 1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bg5 and was starting to get tactical when I left the room. Judging by the (final?) position on the board when I returned, Darren had lost a piece in the tactics.

Neil, having drawn a heavyweight encounter with Dan Lambourne in the Terrill Trophy match, ventured down the same path again. A strategically complex game was agreed drawn when both players were down to their last few minutes.

Steve Edwards, Black on Board 6, played 1. e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 c6 (known to some as the Pribyl Variation) and eventually won a piece and the game.

Martin’s game on Board 2 was wild, even by Martin’s extreme standards. It started off sedately enough (QGD Exchange Variation) but soon livened up when Martin played … g5, … g4 and … h5. White achieved a preponderance of central pawns and broke through against Martin’s uncastled king, but Martin had access to the open h-file as compensation. In severe time trouble and faced with an array of tactical possibilities, Martin may have missed an opportunity to push White back with … Bf6xd4+ followed by a Q move to the h-file, but in the chaos it was hard to be sure. Anyway, at the end of the evening White found a knight sacrifice that forced mate, so we ended up losing a close match 2½-3½.

Cheers Tim.

1^st Feb 23

Hello again chess enthusiasts.. Monday night saw
⛄2 Cool⛄ vs Oscott, the lads travel out Ciarán was partying somewhere so I happily team tied Steve (Trucker) Edwards to ⛄2 Cool⛄ here was the teams… this match couldn’t be lost…
Milenko vs Hickey
Seb vs Lake
TC vs Thomas
Bruno vs Biddle
Steve vs Spillane
Claudio vs Harrington
On the way over Claudio was chatting in the car, how nervous he was, on a way to match having played 7 lost 7… imagine how you’d feel… he cares as well.. anyway, I gave him white on 6, just smash him I thought I know how good he is… and finally, the man delivered in the truest of styles.. a Russian game was on the board and Claudio didn’t take e5, defended with Nc3 and just smashed him. Harrington didn’t last more than 20 moves… devastation. 0-1. I gave Claudio a hug as he stood from the board.
I was next, and had played two boards higher than I should.. I wasn’t well prepared, that’s being calm and fed, this hadn’t happened and playing Keith my old friend.. (we even stopped the clock and went out for a joke and a smoke) I just didn’t have the fight in me. Tired from a long day, little sleep watching the climax of the NFL.. I just rushed one move and lost, brain wasn’t working though.. 1-1. I was glad I played high, as the bottom board could have took me out that night…
Steve, played a very cagey game. Spillane had the Pirc defence on the board.. Steve went about getting active and it looked tight, but Steve had it all worked out.. he set up a knight fork and won the piece, Spillane fell apart and should have resigned sooner… 1-2 to us 😀
The others board looked very evenish… with Bruno a pawn up, and Milenko a pawn down.. Seb was super even… eventually Seb and got into a double rook endgame, all four rooks were active, looked like someone could get mated at any moment, but you know what they say.. all rook endgames are drawn (it’s not true btw), but a draw was agreed with neither player able to find an answer, great hold on board 2 against Lake. 1.5-2.5.
Bruno and Biddle looked really good for us, I would even say Bruno was winning. He had opened with d4, Biddle played a kings Indian set up… Both players took a long time placing their pieces on good squares, and Bruno took control using his heavy pieces to own the open file after winning the pawn… alas trying to rush Biddle Bruno blundered his pawn advantage.. a draw was quickly agreed… the one that got away but at least Bruno guaranteed we hadn’t lost.. 2-3.
Milenko was last, as he usually is… all season he has had to play the board one monsters.. and he’s done very well. Hickey got a pawn however, and although Milenko soldiered on for as long as he possibly could, Hickey was going to queen.., his Herculean effort didn’t yield anything that night, but it will surely stand him in good stead moving forward.. 3-3 on the night.
So happy we didn’t lose… so happy to see Claudio win… all the team were great ( but me lol..) anyway, a win from our last two games and we’re safe, and we have played all the top teams… we may be safe now as I can’t realistically see Oscott or Stourbridge getting another point.. but we all know live sport throws up strange results sometimes.. so we can’t be complacent.
Match card attached

Oscott	Jan	3	3	South Birmingham C	Jan
Hickey, AJ (Tony)	1890	1	0	Walner, Milenko	1760
Lake, Andrew N	1797	½	½	Tudor, Sebastian	1783
Thomas, Keith	1775	1	0	Little, Matthew	1668
Biddle, Mike A	1720	½	½	Dos Santos Silva, Bruno A	1711
Spillane, Kevin J	1673	0	1	Edwards, Steve A	1739
Harrington, Michael J	1641	0	1	Vaduva, Iulian	1693

TC 🚗🚗

27^th Jan 23
Hi All,

The TAL-ent squad travelled to Longbridge last night. We’re a five-person squad and Neil was unavailable, so Mark and Bruno stepped up to play on Board 5 and 6:

Colour	Board	Longbridge	Grade	South Birmingham A	Grade
W	1	Woodhouse, Stephen V	1891	Smyth, Martin D	1932
B	2	Cartwright, Gavin	1889	Whitmore, Darren H	1879
W	3	Maddocks, Phil	1751	Thomson, David	1857
B	4	Davies, Robert	1738	Lane, Tim A	1833
W	5	Crees, Steve	1681	Drugan, Mark A	1806
B	6	Cleak, David	1571	Dos Santos Silva, Bruno Alexandre	1711

We outgraded our opponents by, on average, roughly 100 points per board – would it be enough?

The evening started promisingly with my opponent quickly getting into a mess against 1. b3 and succumbing to an attack that pretty much played itself (game below). On Board 6, Bruno established a pair of raking bishops against his opponent’s Pirc Defence and, having picked up the exchange on a8 (or maybe b8), won further material with a passed a-pawn. By 8.40 we were ahead 2-0!

On Board 3, Tom-Tom played the Najdorf against Phil Maddocks, who had beaten John Emanuel last week in the Terrill Trophy. I didn’t see much of this, but Tom-Tom lost a pawn and the right to castle, and was on the back foot after that. Dave manufactured a passed h-pawn and tried to go into (what looked like) a holdable K+P ending, but there was a tactical flaw – 2-1.

Dazzler (white) vs Gavin Cartwright started 1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nc6 and the players castled on opposite sides of the board. Dazzler was on top throughout, but his opponent steered the game into a R+P ending that was harder (for me, at least) to evaluate. However, Dazzler had everything under control and bagged the point – 3-1.

Mark (black) vs Steve Crees was a main-line Ruy Lopez where white omitted 9. h3 and ended up with doubled f-pawns. This didn’t seem to cause him any difficulty, and the forward pawn soon got to f6, where it remained a thorn in Mark’s side for the rest of the evening. Mark had trouble getting the a5 knight back into play and, when he eventually managed it, the position unravelled – 3-2.

Martin vs Steve Woodhouse (a university-days friend of mine) was a 2. c3 Sicilian which, after Martin channelled the spirit of Sean Ralph with an early … g5, quickly became unfathomable. Martin was walking a knife-edge for the entire evening but managed to survive into a RBB vs RBB ending a pawn down. Sadly, the balancing act had cost Martin an enormous amount of time, and he eventually lost the exchange, and the game, in time-trouble – 3-3.

We play Longbridge again in a few weeks’ time, in the semi-final of the Terrill Trophy. With Neil back we ought to be favourites but, after last night’s match, we know they’re going to be a tricky proposition!

My game: 1. b3 d5 2. Bb2 Nf6 3. e3 Bf5 4. f4 Nc6 5. Bb5 a6 6. Bxc6+ bxc6 7. Nf3 e6 8. O-O c5 9. Ne5 d4 10. Na3 dxe3 11. dxe3 Nd5 (not a good square for the N as I can threaten e4) 12. Qf3 Nf6 (12. … h5 would have avoided the worst) 13. Qc6+ Ke7 14. Rad1 Qc8 15. Qxc5+ Ke8 16. Qc6+ Ke7 17. Nac4 (threatening 18. Ba3+) 17. … Nd5 18. Rxd5! 1-0 18. … exd5 19. Ba3+ Kd8 20. Nxf7 is mate.

Cheers, Tim.

Longbridge-2	Jan	1½	4½	South Birmingham-2	Jan
Woodhouse, Stephen V	1891	0	1	Clarke, Neil	1951
Cartwright, Gavin	1889	0	1	Smyth, Martin D	1932
Maddocks, Phil	1751	½	½	Iskauskas, Alexander	1912
Boyle, Anthony	1605E	0	1	Whitmore, Darren H	1879
Crees, Steve	1703	1	0	Thomson, David	1857
Cleak, David	1571	0	1	Lane, Tim A	1833

25^th Jan 23

Olton 3B Vs Mo-less knights

Tuesday night, a Mini version of the Annual Friendly Match took place at Olton,
Hazel Bees and Mo Less Knights tag teamed against their Div 1 and 3B,,,,
Mo could not make this one due to mock exams Week ... (Good luck Mate)
I was unable to get hold of The Trucker(Steve E) to replace Board 1, so we all had to move up a board...
Joe the Brush played 1
Doctor Dom played 2
$ingerman sat at 3
Kitty was now playing the Dizzy heights of Board 4 (he has been 6 all season)
Domino was on his usual Board 5
As Luck would have it, reserves tell me they are coming along for the ride, so board 6 for us was hands-on Nurse
First to Finish was in very Short time was Kitty Derek, they basted out like it was blitz with a bit of clock thumping thrown in
this obviously works better for Kitty as his opponent Richard Evans gave his queen away and promptly resigned after 15 to 20 minutes   1 to us
Domino Derek was playing a new chap Khan Akbar who has played Leamington for them .... it was not too long before experience told 2 to us
A little time passed before the Nurse injected the Killer solution into his opponent....   Mohammed Gohar another Leamington victim.. 3 to us
$ingerman was playing Warren Archibald and was in an even game for at least 25 moves, however a dancing Knight caused havoc and down hill it went 3 - 1
We were now looking for a draw from the last two Boards. Dominic looked drawn with maybe a repetition at one point and The Brush looked in big trouble a piece down, exchange down and Pawn down against Tom Evans,
Dominic played a few tricks which his opponent saw, and now the game is slipping away........eventually it's over and the most likely outcome is a drawn match... 3 - 2
2R + 5P Evans RK+4 Brush, The Paints out the pictures changing before our eyes Brush gets rook+P for Knight +P then another P each gets swapped R+3 Evans, R+2
Brush has pawn advancing with king his opponent can only marvel at the brush strokes as another queen is born and goes to Reign Supreme We had to drag him out of the room to congratulate him so chuffed we all was
What an Artist...........
Well played team, I'm losing and still loving it Mo Knights now have 8 pts and relegation is more than likely avoided
as for the Bees, that's another Story
Next MK game   HOME Monday 6th February
$

Olton B	Jan	2	4	South Birmingham	Jan
Evans, Thomas	1679	0	1	Kadar, Joe	1682
Hughes, Sam	1605	1	0	Heining, Dominic P	1648
Archibald, Warren	1550	1	0	Woollaston, Alan T	1622
Evans, Richard	1550	0	1	Green, Derek	1603
Khan, Akbar	1375E	0	1	Stockhall, Derek A	1553
Mohammed, Gohar	1375E	0	1	Heeney, Paul	1497

Hello Chess Players

As Alan says, also at Olton Chess Club last night was the 1B's second match of 2023 against Olton. We had reserves mostly made up of 2B - and not 2B - with supersub Matt Little once again stepping in to play on board six with bugger all notice.

First to finish was Nat on board 3, who I was very excited to find played the Caro-Kann. Richard Reynolds violated what I was always was taught was the golden rule of endings: "Never exchange into a King and Pawn ending unless you could safely bet the life of your first-born child on the result". Worse, Richard did so in a position where Nat could develop an outside passed pawn. After doing some counting and realising that he queened in eight moves whilst Nat could queen in six, Richard resigned. 1-0 to us.

On board six was another King and Pawn ending. Matt Little played the Giuoco Piano in a very trendy fashion. With Be3 as well as a4 and ...a5 inserted, I could have been watching some of the games played at Tata Steel over the last few days. The game finished with Matt's opponent two doubled, isolated pawns up but unable to bring his king to seal the deal. A draw was agreed.

On board four, Jack finished next against Robert Reynolds. As you'd expect, Robert played very solidly as black and Jack ended up trying to press in a Fianchetto QID. A draw was a very fair result here.

On top board, I got a bit careless against Alan Lloyd's Catalan and ended up losing a pawn for very little counterplay. After that I was gradually able to get my pieces to better positions whilst Alan overpressed. I managed to win a piece with Alan in time trouble, and he resigned once his Queen had run out of checks. It's the first time I've beaten Alan, and am now unbeaten in five this year. Maybe I should quit while I'm ahead.

This made us 3-1 up with two to go, but Mark on five and Elis on two both had difficult positions. Mark was black in a KID and eventually lost a piece, succumbing to a mating attack in a blocked to finish. Elis was last to finish against Mark Cundy. This was a Leningrad Dutch in which White played d5 and Black played ...b5, meaning it looked like some bastardised Benko Gambit from hell. Mark's pressure meant he picked up some loose pawns, and was able to convert his win in time trouble.

A 3-3 draw then was a very fair result. It puts us on six points, so two more points from our final three should be enough to see us avoid relegation. We next play Wolverhampton on February 15th.

Cory

Olton	Jan	3	3	South Birmingham B	Jan
Lloyd, Alan D	2125	0	1	Hazlehurst, Cory S	2035
Cundy, Mark A	1956	1	0	Dicen, Elis Denele	1963
Reynolds, Richard C	1826	0	1	Kasafir, Nathanael	1869
Reynolds, Robert	1793	½	½	Moss, Jack O	1858
Liszewski, Richard	1773	1	0	Drugan, Mark A	1806
Threlfall, Roger	1676	½	½	Little, Matthew	1668

Good evening chess players..

A quick note on our match ⛄2 Cool⛄ Vs Sutton A, we were out graded by an average of over 150 points upon every board.

We had our full team, no subs, so we lined up as follows…

Milenko vs Mildenhall

Seb vs Gardiner

Bruno vs Escott

TC vs Sosynski

Ciarán vs Lawrence

Claudio vs Pyda

Well, our first match in about 6 weeks, a good warm up for us as we have two crucial matches ahead against teams we have a good chance with. Anyway.. I finished first against Soszinsli, who the teleported had told me has written multiple books on chess theory, all available at Amazon… titles include “the centre game re-examined” and “the Scandinavian defence - winning with 2… Nf6”. All his book theory couldn’t help him, and with the white pieces he played into a very stale position. No colour had advantage and a draw was offered… I accepted.. 0.5-0.5. Ciarán was next to finish, and played aggressively.. alas he had to take two pawns for a piece and it just wasn’t enough… 0.5-1.5 Next was Seb and Claudio.. the dynamic duo played well, however Seb lost the exchange and played the endgame bishop vs rook, it wasn’t enough… and Claudio got into a bad endgame, he was equal but with his pieces on the wrong squares he just didn’t have enough either, so 0.5-3.5, match was gone but we never expected anything from this game. Bruno takes man of the match this week, he outplayed Escott comprehensively winning a piece, he exchanged down to a winning endgame and made no mistakes, a great scalp, 1.5-3.5. It should be noted it looked like Escott had face planted into the floor with half of his face badly bruised… Bruno offered no medical advice though Milenko… o Milenko.. I felt very bad about his game, he was in a great position, had outplayed Mildenhall, and was in a winning position. Even the fella that beat Seb on board 2 said it was completely winning… but Milenko hadn’t been looking at the clock, if he had of done he would have realised that his 10sec increment wasn’t being added on, he only realised with 40 seconds left and just starting blitzing… it was horrible, he just had to make instant moves and Mildenhall lucked out and won. Should he have asked to stop the clock and ask for the captains? I don’t know what the procedure is here, but Milenko lost a won game because the clock wasn’t set properly. Do check your 10 secs is being added on… what a load of *********.

We lost 1.5-4.5.. match card attached. Next two games are crucial.

Match card attached..

TC 🚗🚗

South Birmingham C	Jan	1½	4½	Sutton Coldfield A	Jan
Walner, Milenko	1760	0	1	Mildenhall, John	1914
Tudor, Sebastian	1783	0	1	Gardiner, David	1906
Dos Santos Silva, Bruno A	1711	1	0	Escott, Keith L	1899
Little, Matthew	1668	½	½	Soszynski, Marek J	1881
Morris, Ciaran	1712X	0	1	Lawrence, Roy A	1814
Vaduva, Iulian	1693	0	1	Pyda, Arjun	1780

19^th Jan 23

Chessplayers,

South Birmingham’s 2A side were involved in a tense finish at Redditch last night, where we played the hosts’ Division 2 side in the quarter-final of the Terrill Trophy. Sadly I saw none of it, as I was too wrapped up in my own game to leave the board.

The teams lined up like this:

Colour	Board	Redditch 2	Grade	2023-01-18	South Birmingham 2A	Grade
W	1	Lambourne, Daniel M	2072		Clarke, Neil	1951
B	2	Vaughan, Jonathon	2051		Smyth, Martin D	1932
W	3	Evans, Harry	1894		Whitmore, Darren H	1879
B	4	Towers, Nigel S	1821		Thomson, David	1857
W	5	Smith, David	1818		Lane, Tim A	1833
B	6	Whitten, Andrew S	1673		Glass, Robert	1806

Tom-Tom, white on Board 4 in a Nimzo-Indian, and Rob, white on Board 6 in a Ruy Lopez with the unusual 3. … Bb4, both drew fairly quickly. Next to finish was Darren, who was (I’m told) undone by a nice tactical finish.

The other three games ran on to the end of the evening. Neil and Dan Lambourne slugged it out to a standstill with major pieces on the g-file and h-file, leaving us 1½–2½ down with two games in play.

My own game was symmetrical for the first nine moves (c4, Nc3, g3, Bg2, e4, Nge2, O-O, d3, h3) and remained level until White mistakenly played Bg2xNc6, which handed me the advantage. Short on time, I returned the favour by going into an opposite-colour bishop ending (a pawn up) that I could (and should) have avoided. Up to this point my opponent had played confidently, but now he started to lose his way, and the position turned in my favour when I won another pawn and, in due course, the game – 2½–2½.

Martin’s game finished seconds later in unusual circumstances (I didn’t actually see it myself) when his opponent, playing black, played …Bf2 and announced mate, to which Martin (after a few seconds’ thought) replied Kh4xNg5 (the knight might have been on another square). Is it an illegality to say “mate” if there’s no mate on the board? Both players were in desperate time trouble at this stage but, anyway, Martin won to give us the match!

Cheers,

Tim.

18^th Jan 23

Hello Chess Players,

This season we entered both our division 4 and 5 teams in the Townshend trophy but our division 4 team decided that because both teams cannot win it,

they would play what must have been the worst games that I have seen this season which included 2 self mates and resulted in a 5 - 0 defeat.

This was all part of their plan to give our division 5 the better chance of winning the trophy and to place themselves in the Barrington trophy.

The captain of both teams assures me that so far all has gone to plan.

On Monday our division 4 team played in the semi-final of the Barrington trophy and by beating Kynoch 5A by 4 - 1 have guaranteed their place in the final.

Our team was Adithya Vaidyanathan, Chris Moore, Sathya Vaidyanathan, Paul Heeney and Mark Swanepoel.

We soon went into the lead when Sathya had a quick win on board 3 finishing before his younger brother for a change ! Mark playing his first competitive over the board game played enterprisingly but far too quickly and came off second. Wins quickly followed from Adithya, Chris and Paul.

Well done team.

Kynoch-5A	Jan	1½	4	South Birmingham-4	Jan
Skyrme, Joshua	1528	0	1	Vaidyanathan, Adithya	1713
Norton, Aaron	1522	0	1	Moore, Chris	1521
Chan, Karl L	1504	0	1	Vaidyanathan, Sathya	1516
Rake, Anthony J (Tony)	1477	0	1	Heeney, Paul	1497
Hackett, Bob	1377	1	0	Swanepoel, Mark	1350E

Division 4 will be playing their second game this week when they are visiting Solihull in the league.

Our team are currently in first place and hopefully maintain that position ?

Our division 5 team following their captains plan reached the semi-final of the Townshend trophy and played away against Westminster last night.

To get to the semi-final they had beaten Kynoch 5A and Kynoch 4. We expected a tough match because Westminster had two strong players on the top two boards but we were stronger on the bottom three. We soon went into the lead when Chaniru completely outplayed his opponent. On board one Javier played very enterprisingly but overlooked a finesse which lost a piece. He fought on and gave his opponent a lot of trouble but came off second in the end. Kacper had a fairly even game but got down to a Rooks and Pawns ending rejecting a draw and showing his endgame skill to bring home the win. Luke had an excellent game and was winning pawn after pawn and was soon three pawns up. Then he blundered a knight - oops ! He went on to draw the game.

Perhaps the best game was on board two where Matthew was playing sound stuff and although there was a lot of positional manoeuvring there was a sting in the tail where Matthew offered a queen sacrifice which forced mate. Win for us 3.5 - 1.5.

Well done team.

Westminster-5	Jan	1½	3½	South Birmingham-5	Jan
Maciel, Gavin	1732	1	0	Gil, Javier Castells	1600E
Lawrence, Peter W	1683	0	1	Smith, Matt	1434
Stepanovic, Goran	1321	½	½	Lambert, Luke	1456
Joiner, Paul	1231	0	1	Sikorski, Kacper	1400E
Vuran, Ismail	1084	0	1	Ranasinghe, Chaniru	1418

We now play Stourbridge in the final.

Terry

17^th Jan 23

Good evening All,
Yesterday (Monday), Mo Knights assembled on a cold night at MASC to resume battle in the Terrill Trophy, On the way Derek Green, aka Kitty had some issue with his beloved Jeep,
It seems the four-wheeler got into a sulk outside a chip shop, and refused to start, or to even acknowledge any electrical output at the turn of the key... Luckily for the rest of us ............
After a mess with some dog leads ?? Power was resumed, and the sulky beast got going straight to the club well in time to set the boards in the analysing room and PUT THE HEATERS ON

The Rest of us, Horologist, Brush, Dr Dom, Singerman and Domino all arrived just before clock off...... Our opponents for the evening were Mutual Circle 3, the Understudies of our last round victims MC1 who
we managed to beat with the help of a 3½ handicap... I was First to Finish after e4 e5 nf3 nc6 d4 exd4 bc4 (Scotch) and 29 moves later I blundered a Knight in a losing game... Brush, Dr Dom and Domino
all followed suit, Joe Kadar aka Brush reports after analysing his game he was winning in at least three positions+3.14 followed +4.56 and of course disappointed not to find the move......
Mo Isik aka Horologist. Showed why he is Board one in a very tight affair with the majority of pieces still on found the winning combination against his 166 higher opponent and stopped the rot, A Great win Mo on Board 1
Kitty playing Black on Board 6 1.e4 a6, 2. d4 b5, 3. Be3 Bb7, 4. Nd2 Nf6 his Spike causing a 10-minute think by white for move number 4. No pawns taken until move 27 in an almost locked up position when black wrangled white's a3 pawn. Other than that pawn, all black's wiles were thwarted until a poisonous knight was offered, which white couldn't resist. Black then played Qxd4+ followed by QxR in the Amen Corner (a1) thus gaining an exchange advantage which, together with the extra pawns was pressed home in, perhaps, a less than perfect manner for a black victory. Well done ..... So 2 - 4 knocks us out the trophy and allows us to concentrate on Division 3 survival.....
A message to the Hazel Bees......... (1B) you will not be alone
Next Match Mo Knights are also playing at Olton Tuesday 24th January
Finally, yes all the heaters unplugged and lights turned out when we left, However the equipment cupboard Door is well and truly ------
$ingerman

South Birmingham-3	Jan	2	4	Mutual Circle-3	Jan
Isik, Muhammed Oguz	1702	1	0	Hollier, Mike J	1866
Kadar, Joe	1682	0	1	Hampson, Joshua T	1880E
Heining, Dominic P	1648	0	1	Wells, Phil	1701
Woollaston, Alan T	1622	0	1	Trigg, Matt D	1590
Stockhall, Derek A	1553	0	1	Singhal, Saket	1569
Green, Derek	1603	1	0	Scott, Hamish W	1450E

17^th Jan 23

BEES Vs Lichfield

Hello Chess Players

Last week the 1B side kicked off 2023 by hosting Lichfield. Attentive readers may remember our 2022 matches coincided with extreme weather. The weather was fiercely mild, but the conditions in the back room were fairly Arctic, mainly because your intrepid captain forgot to switch the heater in the room on until 7.28pm. We had four reserves but still had a strong side. Neil, Darren and David have all been regular Bees in the past, while Adithya made his debut for the 1B side. It's great to be able to give our younger players some Division 1 experience.

David Thomson on the fifth board drew his game fairly quickly: it was an Exchange Slav and the position was symmetrical and pretty level. On board six Adithya (who was Black) started like a train. After about an hour he had a pawn on d3 and pieces bearing down menacingly at his opponent's king in the centre. He couldn't quite convert the advantage, and his opponent kept calm, won the exchange and ground Adithya down in the endgame. On board one I was playing Maurice Staples. I was White and my Catalan turned into a Stonewall position after he played ...Ne4 and ...f5. Maurice thought for a very long time to think of a suitable plan. With 21 moves played I had an hour on the clock and he had less than five minutes. I couldn't quite find the plan to convert my advantage and agreed a draw in an ending that could easily have turned sour. Boards 2, 3 and 4 all followed a similar pattern. All were in Queen-Pawn Openings, in each game the South Birmingham Player was slightly level and was way ahead of time, and all of them pressed on and won. Elis was last to finish on board 2, who was black in an Exchange QGD. Neil is playing the Colle-Zuckertort like Carlsen at the moment, and Darren won his game by means of a well-timed ...g5. Neil and Darren have now played their three games for the 1B side. Played 6, won 6: a great effort!

We now have five points from 7 games, having played most of the teams in the top half of the division. Two more wins from our next four games would virtually guarantee safety.

Olton is our next match, a week today.

Cory

South Birmingham B	Jan	4	2	Lichfield	Jan
Hazlehurst, Cory S	2035	½	½	Staples, Maurice J	2027
Dicen, Elis Denele	1963	1	0	Nevett-Farman, Benjamin I	1940
Clarke, Neil	1951	1	0	Green, Anthony J	1977
Whitmore, Darren H	1879	1	0	Hulme, David	1879
Thomson, David	1857	½	½	Idris, Magdi	1823
Vaidyanathan, Adithya	1713	0	1	Routledge, Adam	1786

11^th Jan 23

Alpha Vs SC1

Hi All,

Monday saw us play one of the strongest teams in the league and even though they were without 2500+ Ghasi, they still had a strong looking team.

We were closely matched and the match started with us just waiting for Pelle Larsen. When Pelle did arrive, his game progressed quickly and Henrik Stepanyan had a passed pawn in (I think) a Grunfeld type opening. Henrik was playing quickly and his d-pawn advanced to the 6th rank but Pelle seemed to have it covered. A draw was soon agreed... On 1, John Pitcher was playing S. Okhai in a Bishop'sOpening but neither player achieved an advantage and a draw was agreed... The 1st decisive game occurred on board 4...A sort of Queens Gambit Declined/Slav became very congested with pieces and pawns aplenty around the centre with not much being swapped off. I didn't see what happened but John won to put us 2-1 up... Martin Smyth was involved in a Pirc against Ed Ng...Martin turned down a draw to press for a win but eventually had to settle for the draw... On board 6, Darren Whitmore was playing the young A. Padia and it was a Sicilian...his opponent had a Q-side 3v2 pawn majority and if I remember rightly, Darren had the 2 bishops amongst other pieces...Looked very close but the next thing I heard was that Darren had lost... I was on board 3 and white against M. Mesesan and the score was 21/2 - 21/2...The game was a 4 Knights Opening which I know very little about but I wanted to avoid his theory of the Petroff which can be a bit drawish but his superior knowledge of the opening may have given him the edge. I played a sharp idea with 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nc3 Nc6 4.d4...The game continued with black having the opportunity to win a pawn but I would have had some compensation with development and the initiative. He turned the offer down but he gained control of the e-file and I had to defend stoically. He appeared to misplay it and I gained a passed pawn on a6 and improved my pieces. My time was a problem and I went down to 4 seconds due to all the defending and also losing some time being spoken to by the bar staff regarding a club matter. He was a pawn up but the position was drawn if I held the position. Unfortunately, my first thoughts of being active and not having time for a second thought meant I moved my king forward and allowed his king to use the back rank and my position fell apart. So, a 21/2 - 31/2 defeat....'A bitter pill to swallow'

Kevin Hurney

South Birmingham A	Jan	2½	3½	Sutton Coldfield	Jan
Pitcher, John	2312	½	½	Okhai, Shabir	2294
Larsen, Pelle O	2218	½	½	Stepanyan, Henrik	2267
Hurney, Kevin	2028	0	1	Mesesan, Mircea-Marius	1998
Emanuel, John L	1951	1	0	Ali, Golam S	1924
Smyth, Martin D	1932	½	½	Ng, Edward	1889
Whitmore, Darren H	1879	0	1	Pyda, Arjun	1780

The end of another year means one thing at SBCC……. BEER & CURRY NIGHT

IMG_20221202_203827_745 IMG_20221202_220448_805

Clockwise…. Decimator, Silhillian, Skywalker, Trucker, Druge, Tal, Tricky, Staffy-Miles, Pershore-Mat, 2-Cars. Clockwise… Chopper, Silhillian, Decimator, Skywalker, Kitty, 2-Cars, $Ingerman, Staffy-Miles, Tricky, Trucker, Pershore, Tal, Druge.

13 Dec 22

BEES Vs Sutton Coldfield

Chess Players,
Attentive readers of my reports for the 1B side will recall that we only play matches during periods of extreme weather. So naturally, last night I was stood at Bournville station, waiting for a train to take me to Sutton Coldfield Chess Club in the middle of the fourth ice age.
We were outgraded on the top three boards but had strong reserves in Tim (thanks once again for the lift) Neil and Martin so outgraded our opponents on the bottom three.
I was first to finish on top board, playing Shabir Okhai. Sutton are obviously keeping Ameet Ghasi only for the easy fixtures. It was an advance Caro Kann line - 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. dxc5 e6 5. a3 - which is so fashionable I've bothered to look up some of the theory. As befits a match so close to Christmas, I played all of the right moves but not necessarily in the right order, and ended up in a position where I never quite got the time to co-ordinate my pieces. Put it this way - I only got to move my light squared bishop once, on move 28, and it led to a mate in two.
On board two, Elis was playing Henrik Stepanyan. It should frankly be against the rules for such a top, classy player as Henrik to play anywhere but top board, but I digress. Henrik gave up a pawn for a lead in development and it was also hard for Elis to disentangle her pieces. Henrik's pressure led to an exchange win and he converted the point.
On board three, Imogen was playing Mircea-Marius Mesesan, not a name I recognised. He played e4 and c4 against her Modern setup so it ended up being a sort of Botvinnik structure. In the end Imogen was struggling against Kingside pressure, and her opponent converted it to a winning ending with a passed a-pawn. This will probably be Imogen's last match for a while as she concentrates on her exams. Very best of luck Imogen, and if you want a study break and want to play a match do let us know!
Neil pulled back a point for 3-1 on board 4, playing a very fine win against Gholam Ali. What a season Neil is having, especially when playing Colle/London style d-pawn openings to generate a Kingside attack. He even turned down a forced draw, and ended up mating Gholam's king on d4.
Martin on board 5 looked comfortable against John Mildenhall. John also played a London/Colle style Queens Pawn opening, but without Neil's finesse, and the position got quite stodgy. Martin ended up two pawns up in a Queen ending, played very well to almost convert...then forgot that Queens can capture backwards and hung his queen. If I were an ITV football commentator, which I assuredly am not, I'd call it an early Christmas present. Ah well, these things happen once every season or so.
It meant that Tim's game on board six was moot, apart from for pride. Tim looked to have chances in a Bird/Larsen position. Arjun Pyda did excellently to not only neutralise Tim's edge create a win from a Rook ending in a blocked position. By opening up key lines and creating weaknesses on both sides of the board, Tim's position got overstretched and although Tim fought terrier-like, it wasn't enough to save the game.
A 5-1 defeat feels slightly harsh, and leaves us with three points perilously near to the drop zone. The next match against Lichfield is a true four-pointer.
Season's greetings,
Cory

Sutton Coldfield	Aug	5	1	South Birmingham B	Aug
Okhai, Shabir	2272	1	0	Hazlehurst, Cory S	2068
Stepanyan, Henrik	2270	1	0	Dicen, Elis Denele	1968
Mesesan, Mircea-Marius	2058	1	0	Dicen, Imogen	1874
Ali, Golam S	1930	0	1	Clarke, Neil	1943
Mildenhall, John	1912	1	0	Smyth, Martin D	1928
Pyda, Arjun	1777	1	0	Lane, Tim A	1834

13^th Dec 22

Festive Greetings everyone
Tonight in a very cold Clubroom, that seem to take ages to get any heat going, Mo Knights took on Warley Quin who have Mike Widboar back playing for them .... Tidy player has won Div 1 Individual and WQ have won 5-1 Lichfield and 6 -0 Solihull in the last two games.
We lined as follows Out graded on all boards
1 trucker 1725               Vs   Jon Turner    1869
2 Mo knight         1668 Vs Micky (Amrik) Singh    1828
3 Dr Dom    1637       Vs Mike Wildboar            1815
4 $ingerman        1659           Vs   Florin Valea           1661
5 Domino PTE 1549 Vs    John Fahy    1720
6 Kitty                   1579               Vs    Steve Moxley               1696

Kitty Finished First with twin Big Girls too much for any man...... Won
Domino was next 1. d4. f5. 2. Bg5. d6 3. Nf3. Nd7. at the end K+6P Each ??? Draw
Dr Dom next 1. e4 Nc6. 2. d4. e5. 3. Nf3. exd4. 4.Bc4 Nf6. 5.e5. d5.   Draw
$ingerman 1.d4 d5 2. Bf4 Nf6 3. e3 Nc6 Queen's Pawn... Mason Variation... I was black and spent 15 moves going backwards, however, after I was forced to castle King side on move 21 the pressure lifted ..
I could not do it earlier as he had Queen backed by Bishop aiming at h7 and the Queen side was open ...without sharing the whole game... he ended up taking my Big Girl with Knight, which also turned into a Rook fork
However, I saw this coming and worked out threaten his bishop first with Pawn, if he goes for My Girl I take bishop and now threatening his, big girl if he takes queen I take queen If he takes rook I take Knight he takes Pawn
QRP Vs QBN this left him a rook pair Vs My Bishop Pair and Rook ........... and Finally the Rock has come back to $ingerman Won
so winning 3 - 1 after 4 games....... oh and look our top Guys are still at it................ After a blunder on move 4 Mo still ground out a Draw ..... Ding Dong Santa has landed......and the Points are in the Sack..........
Now for that Trucker on One.... and he was on one,,,,, Q+2R each 40 seconds vs 40 seconds Steve coolly Rampaging around the board not only took Jon's Big Girl but got another one for himself....... Grace under pressure.... Won
So No one Lost, and we all went home Happy......... here's a tip for somebody if you want the heater to work ............ Switch it on at the wall....... it does help.....

South Birmingham	Aug	4½	1½	Warley Quinborne	Aug
Edwards, Steve A	1725	1	0	Turner, Jon	1869
Isik, Muhammed Oguz	1668	½	½	Singh, Amrik J	1828
Heining, Dominic P	1637	½	½	Wildboar, Mike	1815
Woollaston, Alan T	1659	1	0	Valea, Ionut Florin	1661
Stockhall, Derek A	1549	½	½	Fahy, John F	1720
Green, Derek	1579	1	0	Moxley, Stephen	1696

8^th Dec 22

Hello chess players..
Last night our team ventured forth.. a long way in the cold.. to a match where we finally had a good chance. Although we were out-graded in the match, it wasn’t by the 200 plus points a board or worse he had dealt with to date. If we’re going to stay up, we couldn’t lose this one.
On the morning we had our full team, only the second time this season! That didn’t last long though as on the day our star player Seb, caught a bug and wasn't available… this wasn’t good. Steve happily stepped up though and he took Seb’s board on grade merit, which was good as the players played the boards they’d prepared for. The teams lined up as follows..
Milenko vs Julie Wilson
Steve vs Sharratt
Bruno vs Conway-Lees
TC vs Shaw
Ciarán vs Horwill
Claudio vs Foxhall
I arrived with Steve just minutes before the game, Milenko was waiting… but where was car 3 with the other 3? Bruno was driving.. and couldn’t drive fast on a spare tyre, and also had a bad satnav. The message came through at 7:35 were 10 mins away stall the match! I did what I could, and the match started at 7:45. The room was cold, and cloggers were dancing outside the door.. I’ll just leave that thought with you.
Ciarán finished first, with a brilliancy I would suggest. With the black pieces, he saw something and pulled at a thread. Horwill the virtual nonagenarian castled real early, and Ciarán just launched the king side pawns. It looked dangerous, but good at the same time! Horwill couldn’t cope, the kingside attack was just too strong, throwing away pieces couldn’t save white and a move before being mated the resignation came, awesome display.. I was sitting along side on board 4, was very impressed! 0-1 to us, the start we needed.
I finished second.. Shaw played a dodgy line of the CaroKann.. I just got a better position.. be blasted up b4 only to lose it and didn’t recover.. I just found the best replies to his moves and before long I exchanged down to a won endgame. I was the exchange and two passed pawns up… thought he’d resign sooner, but by 9:30 we were 0-2 up. Booming.. I went to get food..
Just before I got back the text came through.. 2-2.. 🥴
Claudio, who doesn’t want to look at a chess board till 2023 played into a bad position. He was on board 6 to get him going.. I still believe in him though… you don’t get 2200 plus blitzer on lichess without being very good… Claudio was positionally busted however.. 1-2.
Bruno played the up and coming Conway-Lees… who only loses to SB players (Walsh, Sia, TC) and has gone from 1680 to 1820 in three months.. he’s young hungry and probably a grading ringer.. I didn’t see the game at all… he just had a little too much against Bruno with white, and took his victory accurately, at least I think.. I’m not sure really what happened but 2-2.
Ciarán and I sat in the bar for probably 40 minutes… what was going on upstairs? I couldn’t look, but this is what happened.. Steve played his signature d3 opening, and a crazy complex game ensued for three hours… I looked at it just gave me a headache… anything could have happened, but Steve missed a trick towards the end and Sharratt found the right moves.. 3-2 to them now.
Milenko battled like a special forces soldier.. a good one.. he was up, then down, playing into a slightly dodgy endgame with a trapped bishop. Julie had played a great game, most thought Milenko would do well to hold on for a draw, but Milenko knows there is more than one way to win a chess game. As he had a time advantage, he just kept playing any complication he could.. Julie got flummoxed… she couldn’t work it out, lost on time. Mike had saved us all…. 3-3 😃
I’m happy with a point, we are still sort of on track to stay up.. long break now till end of jan for us.
Have a happy festive period with your loved ones from 🚗🚗

1^st Dec 22

Good evening / morning everyone
Tonight, Dudley Boyz played Match two Away to Wolves at their old venue, the working men's Club, I never saw much of the other games as I was last to finish,
we lined up as follows

1. Pearson Jones, Peter J vs Staffy Miles aka Mike Walner