Shrewsbury B faced their first home challenge of the season against Telford B on Friday (7 October). ECF gradings would have made Shrewsbury favourites before play began and the early exchanges seemed to confirm this. On board 1, Ile was engaged in a sharp struggle with Richard Szwajkun, both sides moving quickly. On board 2, Dan obtained a nice edge with the White side of an exchange Lopez. On board 4, Peter put his Nf3 to good use and built up a powerful initiative, while on board 5, Tim Skidmore appeared to get the white side of a Scandinavian horribly wrong to Ivor’s benefit. Best of all, Windsor Peck, after…

Friday 30th September saw the A team’s second clash occur at home against Oswestry A.  Oswestry were missing their usual board 1, Brian Whyte, but Shrewsbury were also missing our usual board 1, Jamie Hopkins.  Both teams were on zero match points prior to this clash; Shrewsbury because we had lost to Ludlow and Oswestry because, although they had narrowly prevailed against Church Stretton, the latter team has recently had to withdraw from the league, having lost a number of players, and so any results including them have been scratched from the table.  Both teams were therefore keen to get something from the match. On top board, I was facing…

Our first fixture of the season was against Ludlow A, newly promoted from Division 2, and we had no illusion that they were a team to be reckoned with.  With the news that the A49 was going to be closed from 8pm, I also knew that we would be looking at a late night, whatever the result.  At least it was early in the season, before the weather had become too bad. Anyway, to the chess.  Things started pretty well as Daniel Lockett progressed quickly against Ray Woodley and reached an ending with two Bishops against two Knights. Admittedly, Bobby Fischer managed to hold such an ending with two Knights…

Shrewsbury B faced a daunting challenge in their season’s opener: Wellington A away!  With the exception of Norman on board 5, everybody was out-graded by some margin. Two of the games were done and dusted quite quickly. On board 3, Peter Kitchen disposed of Toby Neal in swashbuckling style in the space of half an hour!  (see “Interesting Games tab, play through it here). In a Marshall gambit Ruy Lopez, Toby played the old 11…Nf6 instead of the modern 11..c6. Indeed, up until Toby’s 13th move, they were following the original Marshall, Capablanca vs Marshall New York 1918! It wasn’t looking good for Toby anyway (Marshall himself came to the…

Shrewsbury chess club got off to its usual unofficial launch to the season with our traditional (after a break of a couple of years) friendly versus Telepost. As is usual, there were a couple of free transfers to even up the numbers with Peter Crean and Martin Ayres honorary Shrewsbury members for the evening.  As there was an odd number of players, Keith Tabner stood aside, which was very nice of him, as he’d organised the whole thing.  Scores were as follows in board order: Nigel Ferrington 1-0 Francis Best Matthew Clark   ½-½ Mark Smith Steve Kempsell  0-1 Peter Crean John Westhead ½-½ Ivor Salter Quentin Mills.   ½-½…

Shrewsbury B missed out on promotion to the first Division and a possible title against the odds in agonising fashion in the final game of the Division 2 season. Having led the field for almost all the season, Telepost B denied Ian Davies’ side a famous season with a hard-fought win in the final game, the title going instead to a Ludlow side strengthened by several highly-rated players joining from other clubs with Newport B joining them in gaining promotion to the top flight, so congratulations to those two sides and best of luck in the first division next season. With “captain fantastic” Ian running away to Scotland and duo…

The B team has moved towards touching distance of promotion to Division 1 after our 4.5-0.5 win over already relegated Church Stretton B. We are now 3 points clear of our 2 nearest rivals with 2 matches left.  A forgone conclusion you might think, yet it could still all go horribly wrong (forever the optimist!) as we face the very strong Ludlow A and then Telepost B in our last match. The match between Telepost B and Newport B could even see us promoted without even playing, should Telepost win. Even a draw should do it for us because of our superior board count difference but, as every football manager…

The B team remains on top of Division 2 after a narrow victory over Telford B on Friday night by 3-2, but not without  a moment of controversy  even before a pawn was pushed! After a newspaper column stating the supposedly “raised eyebrows” caused by my decision to play Spanish student Celia on board 1 against Telepost B, I was informed by the Telford team that, as far as they were concerned, Dr Ile was ineligible  to play for us, as he had already appeared 6 times for the A team, even though he was officially classed as ungraded until January when he received  a grade of 162.  I therefore  intended…

The B team went back to the top of division 2 this week after a superb 4-1 away victory against leaders Newport B. This brings our total tally against them to 9-1. We are now a point clear of our two nearest rivals and 2 points clear of third place and with a game in hand on all of them. Ludlow A lurks menacingly in the background, 3 points behind (same number of matches as us), so it is still all to play for and the final run to the end of the season promises to be an exciting, nail-biting affair.  Could this be our year? Mark continued  his great…

Your illustrious B team secured its second 5-0 win of the season when we played Priorslee B on Monday 11th January. Priorslee did default two boards in all fairness, but that’s not our problem! Ile secured the 2 points after first winning a piece and later forcing his opponent either to lose his queen or resign. The Priorslee captain chose the latter option.  Mark then neatly checkmated George Viszokai with his heavy pieces on the h-file but all the real action was going on on my board where, after a disappointing Congress, playing stodgy, soulless chess, I decided to “go for it” with the King’s Gambit.  It was like watching…