Shrewsbury Chess Club

Ian Davies, B Team Captain, reports: “Your illustrious B team climbed into second place in division 2 after it secured a 3½-1½ victory over Telford C on 28th Nov. Mark Smith continued his superb form after a win on top board.  Playing black in a Queen Pawn opening in which White obtained a slight advantage but then went wrong, Mark showed all his experience by winning a King and Pawn end game.  I then made it 2-0 after winning on board 4 against newcomer Rae Roberts.  After I made a right mess of the opening, when my opponent could have simply won a pawn, I couldn’t believe my luck when he…

Team captain Francis Best was unavailable for this match.  David Everington stood in as captain and reports as follows: “Ed never really got going against Richard and ended up with his King surrounded and mate inevitable.  Dan played very well against Brian Whyte but finally lost a tricky double rook ending with both clocks running down.  I got a decent game on the Black side of the Ruy but badly overestimated my chances around move 30 and got punished.  Peter had a very nice miniature – see here or in interesting games – which should be a good morale booster. Mark won on time in a very tense and double…

Only time for a quick update, I’m afraid.  Our most recent match was against Telford A on bonfire night.  There were a few fireworks on the board too, with nice victories from Daniel Lockett against Stuart Ross, and David Everington against Stefan Tennant.  I drew against Dave Gostelow and was able to watch Ivor Salter’s game against Windsor Peck, Peter Kitchen having drawn with Richard Thompson by this stage.  Ivor was a pawn up against Windsor in a rook and pawn ending.  Although “All rook and pawn endings are drawn” is the quip often applied to these endings, this one certainly had winning prospects for Ivor.  After a while, though,…

Ian Davies, B team captain reports: “The B team’s solid start to the new league season continued on Friday night (31st October) as we held a strong Telford B team to a 2½-2½ draw.  This was our “away” fixture to them, but played at our place due to two other matches being played at Telford on the match date.  I decided to treat it as an away match, even though the Telford players thought they were away, as indeed the website states for some reason.  But they weren’t!!  All clear? Good. A slight change to  the team saw Tony Purser coming in on board 5, as “Lethal” Lewis wasn’t feeling…

Francis Best, A team captain, writes: “After the success of our match against Newport, I thought we might have a chance against Telepost A.  However, they managed to field pretty much their strongest team, unlike for the earlier matches in the season (typical!) and we were missing Ed this time. I was soon on the defensive after a dubious opening “innovation” in the Giucco Piano.  Nigel and I have contested this line a few times and it has to be said he has come off better (not always as a result of the opening).  Comes of being a pretty decent player, I suppose!  Anyway, I saw the opportunity for a…

In our second match we were up against last year’s runners up in division 1, Newport.  However, we were able to field our top team, as Ed Goodwin was available for us, so I wasn’t entirely without hope, particularly as Newport were missing two of their big guns, Tom Pym and Gavin Cooper.  I knew I would have a tough fight on my hands, facing the County’s second-highest rated player, Nick Rutter, on board 1, and tough it proved to be! I defended with a Scandinavian, Nick obtained a space advantage and a rook on the seventh rank, as well as control of the open d-file.  Nevertheless, I felt my…

B Team Captain, Ian Davies, writes, “The B team’s second match and first home game of the season ended in a resounding victory over town rivals Telepost B.  I will just give a short resume of what went on as I don’t think I’m expert enough to give a detailed account of each game. This will be the theme of these reports as we go forward into the season. [N.B. if anyone else wants to submit comments on their own games in the B team, please send them to me – Francis] It was the same board order as our opening match with Andrew first to finish, securing a draw against…

Francis Best, A team captain writes: “This season promises to be a tough one with all teams able to hold their own and none by any means being a pushover.  Tough it proved to be, as we lined up against Priorslee Lions A in our opening match of the season.  I was white against Adrian Zdanowski and, for what seemed like the umpteenth time recently, we went down a variation of the Pirc in which Black plays an early …c5.  The books say the particular line is not supposed to be good for Black, but it seems to have served Adrian well and it did on this occasion too, as…

Ian Davies, team captain, writes: “Our season kicked off with an away match against a pretty strong Priorslee Lions B team and what a tense struggle it was. To be honest, I was so wrapped up in my own game against Marvin Carbin, that I didn’t really notice the detail of what was going on on the other four boards! Norman O’Connor was the first to finish after agreeing a draw on board 2 against Munro Morrison, followed by Ivor Salter’s loss to Gary White on board 3, after dropping a piece. Things got worse after Andrew Lewis had a rush of blood and losing a rook, having thought he…

Those of you who regularly read the website will know what a splendid job Matt Best has done over this last year or so at keeping it up to date.  Most of you will also know that he is now at Exeter University and is no longer in a position to manage the club website (or carry out a number of the other roles he has done in recent years).  Thanks Matt, for several splendid jobs well done! Unfortunately, we had NO takers for a number of roles at the club’s AGM and could really do with a few members stepping up to the plate.  Thanks to Ivor Salter for…