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!