The last two A team fixtures were important, on the basis that a good showing would more or less guarantee our survival in the first division.  Of course, this was looking pretty likely anyway, as one relegation slot had been filled by Church Stretton’s demise and Newport B have been struggling this season, and look more than likely to occupy the other place at the bottom of the table. First of all, we had the away fixture against Oswestry A.  Oswestry are a tough team; we had held the draw at the home fixture, although Oswestry had been missing Brian Whyte on that occasion and I suspected that this would…

Shrewsbury B team had their work cut out against Telford A last Friday.  Although Telford were missing a couple of their stronger players in Mark Keady and Munroe Morrison, George Kolbusz was available, which he hadn’t been in the reverse fixture.  The evening began with some hilarity over whether or not Wellington A were already promoted or not.  Apparently not, strictly speaking, as they could in theory default points, or, as Dave Gostelow pointed out, there could be an earthquake! Anyway onto the chess!  In light of my recent performances and trying to take a rational view of my play, I have come to the conclusion that I am spending…

There was no shortage of incident and excitement in Telford last week as two division 2 games took place on the same evening.  It’s not my place to comment on Telford A vs Telepost C, other than to say that it ended all square.  Telford B vs Shrewsbury B was an interesting one, to say the least. It started with a bit of a panic as Ile had not arrived yet. His opponent on board 2, Richard Thompson, was quite sporting but at 7.45 I felt I had to instruct him to start Ile’s clock.  This done, I excused myself to my opponent on board 3, Roger Brown, and went…

Prior to this division 1 encounter, a number of club members had gathered for a presentation to Fred Harris, in recognition of his services to Shrewsbury Chess Club over the years.  Fred stood down as club President at the last AGM.  Formerly, he had been Secretary, as well as performing various services at County level.  Fred was presented with a painting by Tony Purser, appropriately chess-themed. It would have been nice to have reported a match victory to round off the evening; alas, it was not to be.  The first piece of drama occurred when Shrewsbury appeared to be a player short, Ile having failed to show. It later transpired…

I’m afraid it’s my sad duty to report a defeat for our B team, the first one since the opening game of the season against the same opponents. Wellington put out a strong team with board 3 graded 167, which would be a strong board 3 in division 1, let alone division 2. First, I have to report my shocker against Toby Neil. Toby surprised me slightly by playing one of the main lines in the Exchange Gruenfeld with 7.Bc4 and 8.Ne2. We were following theory till move 13 and by move 20, I was busted! I thought for a long time over my 15th move; the choice was an…

After being thwarted on several occasions when trying to play the Club Championship play-off from last season, Ile and Francis managed to battle it out on 16 December 2016.  Francis has annotated the game here.  

Shrewsbury B faced a tricky task against Newport Juniors as most of their players were unavailable for one reason or another.  Indeed, with just 3 players we were only just able to field a legal team.  I am indebted to Ivor Salter, both for acting as team captain and for providing the content that follows. Ile played the Orang Utan on top board against Edinson Xu.  Xu made a bad mistake in the opening (we’ve all been there) and lost quickly.  Ivor drew in a tight battle with Simon Maydew, which left Tony needing to beat Lewis Clark for Shrewsbury B to salvage an unlikely point.  This he did, despite…

Having beaten Newport’s B team at our last fixture, we knew that their A team would provide a sterner test on Friday 11th.  We had the services of Ed Goodwin on top board and Matt Best on board 4, so had a pretty reasonable team ourselves.  First of all, here are Matt’s comments about his game: “I was facing Simon Maydew, against whom I always have interesting tussles (and in which Simon invariably runs his clock down to the wire!). He told me afterwards that he’d been told to prepare for 1.e4, so while initially surprised to see me playing, he thought “at least my preparation was useful”. Alas, I…

Alan Bliss, a long standing member of Shrewsbury Chess Club, died recently.  At his funeral, Fred Harris gave the following address: “We at Shrewsbury Chess Club would like to say a few words about Alan Bliss who for a few years was our President. I knew him over a period of about twenty five years. Not only was he a very good chess player but he was also committed to the club which he demonstrated by serving, both as Secretary and as President. On a personal level, Alan had a quiet, thoughtful demeanour. I never saw him lose his composure. His actions always seemed reasonable and it was obvious to…

Shrewsbury B team enjoyed a memorable evening in Telford against their A team last Wednesday. Telford fielded a strong side, Richard Thompson being rested, without any detriment to their grading. For a change there were no quick finishes and all of the games held some interest. On board 5, Tony Purser was making his first appearance of the season with white against Munroe Morrison. Opening with 1.Nf3, d6, the position went out of any book very quickly but Tony appeared to be doing quite well. Boards 3 and 4 saw a brace of Scandinavians. Peter Kitchen on board 3 had the white pieces against Richard Szwajkun and the game followed…