Stafford Chess Club

Today we launched our official YouTube channel. Just a couple of videos to start with, giving step by step, clear guidance on some DGT clock settings. Who knows what might follow when the younger minds in our club start coming up with ideas! 😁

http://www.youtube.com/

And our winners are:

In the major section of our Summer Rapid tournament, David levelled the score at 1-1 with a good win against Steve to send the pair into the Blitz tiebreaks. Steve seemed to cope a little better with the reduced time control, as David run short on time in both games. In the end Steve saved us from an Armageddon tie-break with a 2-0 win in the Blitz, to take the 2026 Major title.

The minor section final saw two close games, but with a 2-0 outright win, Arthur claimed the 2026 Rapid Minor title over Noah, who had an exceptional tournament himself, beating everyone on his way to the final...except Arthur. Two worthy finalists, and a very worthy winner.

Congratulations to all our Summer Rapid finalists, but especially to our winners, Steve and Arthur. Well done!

We have two club tournament finals to look forward to tonight, in our Summer Rapid major and minor sections.

With 24 of the 25 tournament matches completed in our major section, it comes down to the final match between Steve Whatmore and David Mercer, with Steve already leading 1-0 in their best-of-2. It's still all to play for though, as David is perfectly capable to taking it to tie-breaks.

In the minor section, weve seen a whopping 42 matches played so far, with the final best-of-2 to decide our winner between Noah Paton and Arthur Boros. In the qualifier stage, Arthur was the only player to take a point from Noah, so it promises to be a close match.

Good luck to all our finalists tonight.

We are very proud to learn that one of our talented Stafford juniors, Malcolm Fletcher has been selected to represent England in the prestigious Glorney Gilbert International Chess Tournament in Limerick, an annual junior team chess festival featuring some of the most talented youth players from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Malcolm will represent England in the under 14's Open (the Robinson Cup), where he will undoubtedly face some stiff challenges in a 6 board round robin format. At least he got some practice games in on Friday night, thrashing our club secretary 2-0.

We wish him every success over the board but he's already a winner, deservedly being given the honour of representing his country.

Go Malcolm!! Go England!!

Another busy night at the club this week saw the conclusion of our Simon Cup final as well as our Minor Blitz final, while the Stafford Knights took on the Stafford Bishops in the inaugural match of our new Summer Classical Challenge.

Mike had a 1-0 lead heading into the 2nd of the Simon Cup matches, meaning it was a must win match for Pavel in this best of 2 grand final. Mike provided the club with a comprehensive match analysis via our club Whatsapp group, detailing mistakes and missed opportunities for both players. Ultimately Mike played an excellent positional endgame to secure the win, deservedly taking the 2026 Simon Cup title.

Glen and Jimmy faced off in the minor Annual Blitz final, with Jimmy having won the Xmas event and Glen winning our Easter competition. In a best of 4 games (first to 2.5pts), it was Jimmy who emerged victorious, winning 3 in a row. Thankfully no need for tiebreaks or Armageddon this year!

In a 3v3 match up between our Knights (u1600 rated) and Bishops (new unrated players), 3 very close games were contested. While the Knights won this encounter 2-1, it could easily have been 1-2 as our new players gave an excellent account of themselves.

Congratulations to our new champions Mike and Jimmy, and thanks to Steve for organising the Knights vs Bishops mini-tournament, where we expect another close match up this week.

On Monday we played the last of the games in the South Staffordshire Summer Rapid League tri-series at Rushall. With Walsall Kipping having played all of their fixtures & unable to win the league, it came down to the result of Monday's game to decide who won the trophy. Due to our resounding 6.5-1.5 win at home to Rushall in June, we knew that any result better than a 6.5-1.5 defeat would give us the head-to-head advantage.

Despite some confusion with the clocks not having been set with increments, Pavel, Steve, Ken & Jimmy all won their first games of the double header to ensure that we won the league before the second games took place. In those games we managed a 2-2 draw with even more clock dramas. The link with all of the results & final standings is here:

South Staffordshire Summer Rapidplay | ECF League Management System

In total, ten of our squad played at least one game in the competition, so it was a good team effort from our higher & mid rated players.

As a club we have now won 5 trophies this season - Cannock League Division 2, Cannock League's Chase Trophy & Chase Shield, North Staffs League's Major Cup & now the South Staffordshire Summer Rapid League.

Our AGM has been set for September 4th. Until then we are going to help our many new unrated players get started on achieving a standard play rating by holding an internal competition pitting them against some of our under 1600 ECF rated players. We also have an under 1600 ECF Rapid home & away series planned for the end of August versus Rushall, & the finals of the Simon Cup, Andrew Leadbetter Memorial Shield, Minor Blitz tournament & also Major & Minor Rapid playoffs. So, despite it being the chess off-season we still have lots going on at Walton Village Hall.

For anyone who is familiar with the late Jeremy Silman's excellent book: 'The Amateur's Mind', you will know that first main chapter of the book looks at 'The Battle Between Bishops and Knights'.

Jeremy dismisses the claims of some authors that the Bishop is superior to the Knight in the endgame, with some even assigning it a 3.5 point value compared with only 3 points for the Knight.

As Silman clearly demonstrates in this highly instructive chapter, the value of the piece depends on the position on the board, stressing the point; "It's up to you to manipulate the position and make whatever piece you own more valuable".

The given position from one of our members online matches, demonstrates this point perfectly.

Black has just played 32...Qe1 putting pressure on the c3 pawn. How did White immediately manipulate the position to maximise the value of his Knight?

It was another week for catching up on our club's internal Summer Rapid tournament matches, with 6 players trying to improve their chances of qualification for the Major finals and another 6 in the Minor section.

In the Major section, Steve maintained his lead over the field with a good win this week, while Stan made sure he remained in contention with a win against Ken, who himself only managed 1 win from 2 matches, leaving himself mathematically unable to qualify.

In the Minor section, Noah and Arthur are standout leaders, although Philip kept himself in with a shout, scoring 2 from 2 this week. Despite also picking up a good win this week, things look slightly more difficult for Glen.

So it's still all to play for at the top of both sections, with 3 weeks remaining in the Round Robin stage.

We have played 2 of our 4 South Staffordshire Rapidplay games in the past week or so...

Last Friday we took advantage of an understrength Rushall team to inflict a 6.5-1.5 demolition on them. We rotated a total of 7 players across the 8 boards with wins for Jake (2), Andrew, Steve, Jimmy & David M.

Then on Thursday we travelled to Walsall Kipping & had a shocker. Against a much weaker team (according to the ratings anyway) we lost 3.5-4.5 with 1 win each for Jake, Stan & David M. Our 2 return fixtures are at the start of July.

In our Club Rapidplay competition most players have now played over half of their games. On a busy Friday this week, a total of 12 games were played across the Major & Minor sections. There are now 4 match weeks left to complete the games plus play the home South Staffordshire game versus Walsall Kipping. So far, the leaders are Steve 3/3, Stan 2.5/3 & David M 2.5/4 in the Major & Noah 6/7, Arthur 6/8 & Jack 3.5/5 in the Minor.

Welcome return for Boris.

Captain Peter Evans was hoping to sit out the final home match in Cannock League 4, against Norton Canes B, but due to misunderstood communications Stafford just had two players present, Ailen and Atharva. Boris stepped up and after a couple of quick phone calls he volunteered to play board two and Peter took top board. It would be Boris’s first match for Stafford for over 12 years.

Atharva on board three with black was the first to finish. It is always difficult to get an assessment of games played by Juniors due to their speedy play. His opponent was building a powerful wall of pieces in front of Atharva’s castle king, ignoring Atharva quietly building an attack with queen and bishop on the g2-h8 diagonal. Atharva’s checkmate came as a surprise to his disappointed opponent.

Ailen on fourth board started well and won three minor pieces, but his opponent recovered after a queens exchange leaving them a rook each with Ailen having a bishop. The Norton Canes board 4 was attempting to support a passed pawn on the f file when he moved his rook into the bishop’s range. 2-0 to Stafford.

Norton Canes recovered on boards one and two. On top board with black Peter faced his bête noire, the London System with Bishop f4 as white’s second move. After some early manoeuvring, Peter was please to remove the London bishop with his king’s knight. However, this left white a pawn on f4 that he advanced against Peter’s king’s side fianchetto. This was followed by a series of attacks first with minor pieces, then with queen and rook. Peter repealed most of the attacks, but the continual pressure and loss of position told and Peter was forced to resign.

Boris on board 2 with white started his game very well, he had several attacks and threats against his opponent’s king, but he found the 60-minute match time difficult. His teenage opponent survived Boris’s attacks and eventually set up a winning queenside attack against the long castled white king. Thanks to Boris for his help, and let’s hope that he will continue to turn out for the club.

A 2-2 draw, thanks to our opponents Norton Canes B for some good games and to Boris for his help. This puts Stafford in temporary third place in Cannock Division 4. A fine achievement after a slow start to the season, and hopefully we can consolidate the position in our remaining match later this month.

PE