An Update

Hello!

Just thought that it had been a little while since i’d posted anything on here so a quick update might be nice. Obviously there isn’t too much going on chess wise at the moment with it being the off season for us, however the club still remains open each Wednesay if anyone would like to play some friendly games. Myself and Steven Jones are getting ready to play in the “Major Open” of the British championships. This will commence July 24th until August 6th. We both entered last year and found it very tough so hopefully we will see if we have improved a little this time around!

We shall also be having our annual “Summer Tournament” which is open to both club members and non club members. Further details of this will be posted on here in the coming weeks. It will likely take place between August 10th and the first week of September.

The Warrington Chess League AGM was held last week I believe, although I wasn’t able to attend myself and I haven’t heard any news from it so I’m assuming nothing particularly exciting occurred! If I’m wrong perhaps someone who was at the meeting might like to fill me in in the comments box below?

Finally you may have noticed the new “Video’s” link next to the blog. I began posting the odd chess video using cam-studio a month or so ago. There aren’t to many on there at the moment but hopefully we will be able to post more vid’s of our club games in the upcoming season!

Please feel free to take a look here www.youtube.com/nigelshortoftime sorry about the name by the way, “Nigel Shortoftime is the chess handle i used to use on a website years ago. Basically Nigel Short used to be my favourite player and I was always running Short on time!

 

Atherton A V Padgate A

The A team’s season finished last night with a very narrow defeat to league runners up Atherton A. Once again we were not at full strength missing both Chris Chadwick and Mitchell Burke, however we still put up a spirited resistance I felt to only lose by one point.

Padgate A	V	Atherton A	WDCL Div 1 13/4/2011
1.Steven Jones (168)	1 – 0	Simon Woodcock (178)
2.John Wordsworth (161)	0.5 – 0.5	Peter Mulleady (170)	“Padgate white on even boards”
3.Damian McCarthy (148)	0.5 – 0.5	Martin Lythgoe (162)
4.George Fortune (136)	0 – 1	Mick Conner (151)
5.Joe Chambers (119)	0.5 – 0.5	Peter Howarth (147)
6.Chris Trugear (UG)	0 – 1	Matthew Fanning (141)
Final Score	2.5 – 3.5	Atherton A Win

New player Chris Trugear stepped in for us on bottom board as my intended board six was held up and arrived a little late for the 7.30 start. It was a bit of a baptism of fire for Chris having to make his first competitive chess debut in division one for the A team! However he played quite well until Matthew managed to win the exchange and then converted the 2 rooks and pawns v rook bishop and pawns ending.

The next result was some time in coming, my own game against Martin Lythgoe was quite interesting and can be found here

Lythgoe V McCarthy

I was surprised afterwards that the game had only lasted nineteen moves as we were both down to about 12 minutes each by the end. The main thing was that i played Kf8 early on which may have been a terrible move i’m not sure. I had a look on chessbase and that position has been played many times before but noone has played Kf8. I didn’t like castling as then h4 looked very scary and i remembered Richard Wood used to tell me he often used to walk his king to the kingside against the closed Sicilian and it worked quite well for him. The advantage i thought was that the rook still being on h8 will stop me having to wory about getting mated. The downside obviously is the difficulty in connecting rooks. However i managed to hold on for a draw in the end.

John grabbed the g7 pawn with his queen early on and managed to hold on to it for most of the game. In return for this though his opponent got lots of play and eventually regained the pawn. John then allowed a second pawn to drop in order to reach a rook ending which he knew was drawn.

Steven Jones on top board was up against Simon Woodcock for the third time this year. when they met in the league back in the autumn Simon came out on top when Steven overstretched against the Scandanavian. Steven got his revenge at Frodsham congress a few months later so they were 1-1 going into this match. After a great deal of complex play an ending of mutual queen bishop and pawns with Steven having an extra (doubled) pawn was reached. Simon offered a draw with a big time advantage however Steven declined and went on to convert the full point and level the match score.

Atherton were soon back in front due to Mick Connor playing a nice game against George Fortune. George was on the defensive for most of the game however for once this year he didn’t manage to hold on an Mick broke through to give Atherton the lead once again.

The last game to finish was board five where Joe Chambers was up against Peter Howarth. I looked at the position in the middle game and was quite amused to see that Joe had placed no fewer then SEVEN of his pawns onto the sixth rank! With a pawn structure of h6, g6, f7, e6, d6, c6, b6, and a6! This “Super Hedgehog” seemed to be quite resilient though as Howarth couldn’t find a way to break things down and a draw was reached with both players only having a few minutes left on the clock.

So that brings this year’s Division one season to a close. We struggled a bit this year as was only to be expected i suppose due to the big step up this year after promotion from division two. Despite this we beat Northwich in the crucial game when it mattered which gives us at least another year in the top flight!

 

Culcheth A V Padgate A

We had a very close match last night against local club Culcheth. The scorecard looked like this:

Culcheth A	V	Padgate A	WDCL Div 1 6/4/11
1.Jonathan Smith (175)	1 – 0	Steven Jones (168)	*padgate white on odd boards*
2.Ian Johnson (171)	0 – 1	Chris Chadwick (166)
3.Andy Coe (148)	0 – 1	Damian McCarthy (148)
4.Mike Rotchell (137)	0 – 1	George Fortune (138)
5.Eric Charters (102)	0.5 – 0.5	Johann Power (71)
6.Nick Cooke (100)	1 – 0	Alex Poyner (93)
Final Score	2.5 – 3.5	Padgate A Win

It was fair to say that both sides were a little below full strength. Culcheth missing regular top players like Tom Vout and Shaun Brogan. Whilst we were also missing Mitchell Burke, John Wordsworth and Joe Chambers. As a result I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the team we selected was the youngest ever to play in division one! With an average age of just 16 years old! Hopefully it bodes well for the future that such a young side managed to win the match for us.

As the match got under way young Johann Power on board five was building up an impressive position against Eric Charters and he soon won the exchange as a result. However Alex seemed to be finding the wily Nick Cooke a little tougher on board six. The other games seemed quite balanced in the early stages.

The first result came from board five where Johann despite being an exchange up early on came up against a stubborn Eric Charters defence, and the game was agreed drawn. My own game on board four was quite interesting, My opponent played an unorthadox opening, a bit like a pirc but without the fianchettoed bishop. We ended up castling on opposite sides which made the position rather unbalanced. However sadly for him he went a little wrong in the complications and ended up dropping his rook and he resigned soon after. Alex had put up a spirited fight from a tough position but in the end he went down on bottom board, which left the match level with just three boards left to play.

George Fortune on board four was up against Mike Rotchell. Mike is quite an aggressive player and sure enough when i looked at the game he seemed all set to begin a full scale assault on George’s king. However as in my game Mike went wrong and George won a rook, and soon after the game, to put us back in front.

Steven was playing the opposition captain Jonathan Smith on top board. Jonathan deviated from the positions played in previous games and went for what looked like a Philador type set up. However Jonathan the lashed out with c5 which at first glance looked dubious as it accepts a backward pawn on d6 and leaves a gaping hole on d5. However as the game went on Jonathan got the upper hand, Steven put up a tough fight two pawns down in the ending, almost swindling a stalemate at one point. But Jonathan kept his cool to level the match once again.

Which left Chris Chadwick as black against Ian Johnson on board two to decide the match. After the opening white (Ian) decided to give up a pawn in order to create two menacing looking central pawns. However Chris was able to blockade successfully and after which he played a flawless game creating a won two rooks and pawns v rook bishop and pawns ending. The only danger was the clock as both players went down to under two minutes left at the end. But Chris kept his cool and his opponent resigned as Chris was going to deliver checkmate next move. Which won us the match 2.5-3.5. Who said you win nothing with kids

 

St Helens A V Padgate A

We lost narrowly to St Helens last night. Details below, Might have been a different story had our new player Arnolds Kozlovskis turned up! However he didn’t appear which left us a man short from the start

St Helens A V Padgate A	WDCL Div 1	30/03/11
St Helens A		Padgate A
1.Mark Ellis (175)	1 – 0	Steven Jones (168)
2.Dominic Jorden (157)	1 – 0	Chris Chadwick (166)
3.Steve Potter(159)	0 – 1	John Wordsworth (161)
4.James Hayward (158)	0.5 – 0.5	Damian McCarthy (148)
5.Mark Higgins (133)	0-1	Charlie Sharp (138)
6.Barry Groves	1 – 0	DEFAULT
Final Score	3.5 – 2.5	St Helens A Win

First result was Steven’s loss in an opposite side castling Sicilian position. It was the sort of position where whoever gets their attack in first usually wins and black was just a little bit quicker. This left us two points down as we had already forfeited bottom board due to Arnolds absence.

Damian (me) managed a draw despite playing shockingly once again. Totally missing two wins and then almost blundering the game away. However luckily for me there was a fortunate (and totally unforeseen escape) and white decided not to go for it.

John Wordsworth was on top form playing a brilliant game to beat Steve Potter and leaving us just one point behind. Then on bottom board Charlie Sharp levelled the match in a brilliant comeback for him. Charlie has been very busy with work and hasn’t played since September. Usually with Charlie he needs a few games to get himself going after a break, but not this time!

This left the match level with just board two remaining…

Chris Chadwick had also played a very nice game and seemed poised to deliver a win. However the dreaded clock became a factor for both players and with just over a minute left to finish for both it was Chris who went astray, giving St Helens the match by a point.

 

The New Padgate Warrington East Chess Club Homepage

Joe Chambers “our friendly B team captain!”

Steven Jones, our board one “usually” :P

Hello and Welcome to the new home of Padgate- Warrington East Chess Club. After climbing from division four to division one in the space of five season’s since I started all this, I think it’s still safe to say we are still the most up and coming chess club in the Warrington and District Chess league

For those of you that haven’t already heard of us we meet each wednesday from 7.30pm at the:

Padgate Community Centre, Station Road South, Warrington. WA2 0QS

All new players are most welcome, whether your a complete beginner after a few friendly games over a beer or two. Or maybe your a budding Grandmaster interested in playing competitively rated games for our teams in the Warrington Chess League! We cater for all ages and abilities.

So please feel free to pop down and visit us on a Wednesday evening.

(For those of you who have been around a little bit longer we used to run the website www.padgatechessclub.co.uk sadly that website perished when my computer developed a problem with the software i used to upload the website. I still have all the files saved for that and hope one day to get the old site up and running again. However this new blogging idea also has it’s advantages! For example one of the problems with the old site was that YOU didn’t really have much of a say in things!  Now you will be able to leave comments or simply like things that we write. Or games that we put up! I really hope that people will take advantage of this new feature as it really does encourage me to post more often if i continue to get feedback! Also if anyone feels like helping out a bit other people apart from me (Damian) should be able to post stuff on here, (again this was not possible with the old website) Finally the biggest advantage of the blog over the website for me is that it is all totally FREE!

So here we go, a new dawn! Please bear with me a bit as i’m still getting to grips with all this. But please do feel free to let me know what you think, by rating and liking pages and leaving comments!

For more information about our team’s current league progress please view the pages next to this!