Culcheth Chess Club Blog

One of the largest weekend British chess weekend events is held annually at Scarborough towards the last weekend of October. This year Culcheth were represented at the event as Andy Bak, Damian McCarthy, Andy Coe, Nick Burriss and Shlok Maheshwari all made their way across the country to take part.

After the event some of the players share their experiences playing at this year’s event.

Andy Bak & Damian finished just outside of the prizes in the Major section. on 3.5/5 and 3/5 respectively.

Most of the fun was had in the Intermediate however where Andy Coe, Nick Burriss and rising star Shlok Maheshwari were competing.

First off Nick gives the following report of his progress;

“My scores in each round of Scarborough were as follows:

         1. 0 (White)

       2. 0.5 (White)

       3. 1 (Black)

       4. 1 (Black)

       5. 0.5 (White)

In Round 1 I lost having been a piece to 2 pawns up following an unsound sacrifice by my opponent. But in a chaotic position I mistakenly exchanged Queens giving Black a dangerous phalanx of advanced pawns which ultimately overwhelmed me.

Round 2 saw me playing over-cautiously against a Scandinavian Defence in which Black obtained easy equality. I incorrectly ignored opportunities to instigate a K-side attack at the cost of a pawn and handed the initiative to my opponent. But in a rooks and pawn ending the game fizzled out into a draw.

My Round 3 game was littered with inaccuracies but hopefully they are instructive: Pearce V Burriss – Large screen

Round 4 saw me adopting my favoured Kings Indian set up with c6 against the Fianchetto variation. My results have been mixed at best and after 18 moves I was decidedly worse. Fortunately White lost his way and overlooked that I could trap his rook and win the exchange. Thereafter it was fairly plain sailing to secure the win.

As White in Round 5 I played the opening very badly against the Alekhine Defence and was fortunate to survive relatively unscathed. To my surprise, and relief, my young opponent offered me a draw on move 14 which I was more than happy to accept.

To paraphrase Meatloaf, 3 out of 5 ain’t bad. – Nick”

Thanks to Nick for that summary of his event, Shlok one of our youngest members also shares his tournament story below along with one of his games:-

From Shlok, “Here’s my summary of the games I played at Scarborough Intermediate tournament.

Round 1: Won with White pieces

It was a sound position on move 20 until I played a tactic to win a pawn but left me with a weak position and I was losing but straight after my opponent made a blunder and left me a pawn up. It was easy to win the game after that.            

Round 2: Draw with Black pieces

I played the Dutch system after 1.d4 but just on move 8, I lost a pawn to a very nice tactic by the opponent and soon they took a second pawn but after a lot of calculation, I managed to get into a drawn rook and pawn endgame.

Round 3: Lost with White pieces

I played the Grand Prix against the Sicilian. On move 15, I got my highest chance of winning at +1.9 (as per evaluation bar) but soon after, I blundered and slowly my opponent dominated the position and I resigned.

Round 4: Draw with Black pieces

This was an interesting game! Here it goes: Jackson V Maheshwari

Round 5: Draw with Black pieces

My opponent played the very interesting Sokolsky opening but ended up to be a draw by mutual agreement.

Thank you,

Shlok”

Last but by no means least we come to Andy Coe who had a terrific event winning three of his first four games! Sadly he was to lose in the last round but finished on an excellent 3/5.

Thanks to all of you for making it to this lovely weekend, a real treat getting an annotated game from Shlok at such a young age, we feel sure he has a bright chess career ahead of him!

Stockton Heath Juniors v Culcheth 2nd Oct 24

Culcheth were drawn to play Junior club side Stockton Heath in round 1 of this years George Davison Shield. Stockton Heath don’t play league matches but have now entered our league’s two cup competitions which gives invaluable match practice to their young players, most of whom have not played competitive long-play chess before.

The George Davison is a grade limited competition so therefore the combined grades of the team must not add up to more then 7000. (Which is a 1400 average per player) This gave an excellent opportunity for some of our newest members to play this fixture.

Stockton Heath fielded a team made up entirely of new players so their combined grade as taken as an estimate 1400 per player. Culcheth put out a team of Ralph Saxon, Phil Dawson, Isaiah Slater, Bill Galashan and one of our own junior players Mark Williams.

The first result came on board 2, Phil Dawson played a Caro Kann against Harry Ducker. Harry playing for Stockton Heath was probably quite confident as he had just last Sunday finished in 1st place at the Warrington Junior Rapidplay, collecting the Warrington Junior Champion 2024 trophy. Despite this Phil seemed to have a few opportunities early on. Once the game settled down however Harry managed to coordinate his pieces along the f-file, winning material and soon-after giving Stockton Heath the lead 0-1.

Ducker V Dawson (Click for large screen)

The second result took some time to arrive, which was somewhat surprising for a match involving juniors. When it did the result was again in Stockton Heath’s favour. On board 4 Bill was playing against Alfie Gardiner-Johnson. Alfie is non other then Ken Johnson’s (from Winwick) grandson so he no doubt has some excellent tuition at home!

In their game Bill tried grabbing a pawn early on, but the result was he lagged behind in development. Alfie regained the pawn a few moves later with a better position. As the middlegame arrived Bill was let off the hook somewhat and he managed to get the game into a drawish looking opposite coloured bishop endgame, however White managed to infiltrate with his king and create a passed pawn. Bill was forced to give up his Bishop to stop the pawn promoting, but down this much material the game became lost 0-2.

Gardiner-Johnson V Galashan (Full Screen Link)

Board 5 saw a game between the two youngest players on the night Mark Williams V Ivan Elisseev-Siuda. The game followed a somewhat theoretical path during the opening phase as the players played down a Scotch Four Knight’s system. On a couple of occasions during the middlegame Mark threw in creative but not quite correct responses to Ivan’s moves. Ivan didn’t manage to punish these moments however and when Mark’s own chance came later in the game he made no mistake in converting. I have a feeling both of these two will play many more games between them in years to come. 1-2

Williams V Elisseev-Siuda (link for full screen)

On top board Ralph Saxon was making his return from a long tour of Australia playing Rugby. He was up against the Stockton Heath captain Hannah Boyall. Hannah while somewhat new to competitive chess had now played 3 longplay games for Stockton Heath before this and won all 3 of them!

Early on it looked very much like this would be the first result of the match as Ralph set about punishing his opponent for an opening error. But with mate in 2 on the board and Hannah’s King stranded on e6 perhaps Ralph played a bit too automatically and decided to trade queens without noticing the checkmate.

From this point Hannah really didn’t put a foot wrong, slowly getting herself back into the game when finally Ralph missed a tactic and the game had swung fully in her favor giving Stockton Heath the match! 1-3.

Saxon V Boyall (link for full screen)

Board 3 was the last game to finish between Isaiah Slater ans Isaac Elwin. Isaiah made a brave decision to castle Queenside in a Sicilian Dragon, Isaac responded accurately and manged to win his opponents dark squared bishop for a Knight.

Both players had chances in the middlegame as first Isaac was better, then Isaiah then Isaac again. As I began watching the game I felt like Isaac might be about to emerge with a winning endgame but despite having one fewer pawns Isaiah pushed his own potential passed pawn with more vigour, whilst Isaac lost a couple of crucial tempo’s which was enough to decide the game in Isaiah’s favour 2-3.

Slater V Elwin (link for full screen)

A lovely match to be involved in, we wish our young opponents the very best in the next round!

“After a few years’ absence from competitive play in the WDCL Wigan chess club is back in action and our Peninsular Cup 2nd team had been drawn to play against them at their venue in the first round of the tournament.

As captain I got off to a bad start by losing the toss, but with our 1 point handicap advantage I remained optimistic that we could pull off an upset, just as we had done at St. Helens last year.

My optimism started to look rather misplaced when James Gladman and Shlok Maheshwari lost their games on Boards 5 and 3 respectively fairly quickly. However, despite having had very little over the board experience last season, Vince Shanahan triumphed in style on Board 4. So, if John Reyes on Board 2 and I on Board 1 could muster just one point the match would officially end at 3-3 and we would win under the tie break rules. Easier said than done, and despite a valiant effort John had to resign leaving yours truly to try to secure the required point.

My opponent, Nathan Talbot had not played competitive over the board chess since 2021 when his ECF rating was a very impressive 2088 and he was undoubtedly a little rusty. Even so, armed with the White pieces he got the better of the opening and early middlegame. I found myself very much on the back foot and consumed far too much time calculating my defensive options – this was to cost me dearly. To my surprise (and relief) Nathan played a sequence of decidedly suboptimal moves in pursuit of a winning attack which simply was not ‘there’ and I found myself in a clearly winning position. But even with the 10 second time increment I failed to move quickly enough and lost on time thus letting both myself and, more importantly, my team down.”

Game below to view from Nick’s annotation of his game v Nathan Talbot.

Talbot V Burriss