Northumberland teams edged by Manchester

(Newcastle Chronicle, 1 March 2024)

Northumberland’s teams have a tough battle ahead to qualify for the national stages of the Counties Championship after losing narrowly to Greater Manchester.

Northumberland, which draws players from Northumberland and Tyne & Wear, lost the Open match 5.5-6.5 and the Under 1650 match 5-6.
Both fixtures took place on February 17 in York.

The Northumberland teams now have to win their matches against Yorkshire to qualify for the national stages of the Counties Championship. These matches will be played on March 24 at Darlington’s Dolphin Centre.

Results in full (Northumberland players first):

OPEN
1 Tim Wall 1-0 Adam Ashton
2 David Walker 0-1 Paul Macklin
3 David Mooney 1-0 Ethan Norris
4 Andy Burnett 1-0 Aidan Rawlinson
5 Mate Ther 0-1 Robert MacLean
6 Andrew Dunn 0.5.-05 Chun Hei Wong
7 Paul Dargan 0-1 Yaoyao Zhu
8 Husain Nakara 0.5-0.5 Marek Mazek
9 Zheming Zhang 1-0 Andrew Wilson
10 Ravi Wariyar 0-1 Tetsuaki Sanada
11 Yaroslav Kolodiy 0-1 John Robinson
12 Nathan Ekanem 0.5-0.5 Alannah Ashton

UNDER 1650
1 John Awesome 1-0 Jonathan Miller
2 Steven Eggleston 1-0 Matthew Poon
3 Michael Allen 0-1 Andeel Mohammed
4 Brandon Russell 1-0 Graham Phythian
5 Kevin Cox 0-1 Ethan Parker
6 Alex Piercy 0-1 Anthony Jinks
7 Didrik Leivdal 1-0 Ian Mitchell
8 Kazam Khosravi-Nik 0-1 Steven Flaherty
9 Kai Harkensee 1-0 Paul Ashton
10 Steven Newsworthy 0-1 Samarth Mishra
11 (Default) 0-1 David Kilmartin

After five rounds of the Northumberland Individual Championships, clear leaders have emerged in the top two sections, while in the third, a four-way tie for the lead leaves it wide open.

Zollner (Open): Tim Wall (Newcastle) 5/5; David Henderson (Tynemouth) 2.5/4; Gustavo Leon Cazares (Gosforth) 2/3; Andy Trevelyan (Jesmond) 2/5; David Armbruster (Gosforth) 1/3; Chris Izod 0.5/3; and Gary Murphy (Jesmond) 0/3.

Sell (Under 1950): Paul Bielby (South Shields) 4/5; Mick Riding (Gosforth) & Raj Mohindra (Forest Hall) 3.5; James Ross (Gosforth) & Dalil Benchebra (Leam Lane) 2.5; Stuart Skelsey (Forest Hall), John Clarke (Tynemouth) & Alex Blake (Gosforth) 2; Ian Chester (Gosforth) & Morgan French (Forest Hall) 1.5.

Gilroy (Under 1700): Andrew Robinson, Mark McKay, Alex Blake (all Gosforth) & Kevin Cox (Gateshead) 4/5; Jeff Baird (Forest Hall) 3.5; Dave Peardon (South Shields), David Pritchard & Lev Drobiazko (Gosforth), Joseph Miller (Leam Lane) 3; David Simm (Morpeth), Jonathan Solomon, Gautham Sathishkumar (Gosforth) 2.5; Morgan French (Forest Hall), Denise Mosse (Gateshead), Andrew Hardy (Alnwick), Ethan Tatters (Forest Hall) 2; Bob Heyman & Aaron Cheung (Gosforth), Steve Downey (Leam Lane), Sanjay Sathishkumar (Gosforth) 1.5; Albert Griffiths (Gosforth) 1; Rob Appleby (Leam Lane) 0.5; Alan Johnson (South Shields) 0.

This week’s puzzles are from the Northumberland county matches and recent local league games.

Puzzle A: Nathan Ekanem (White) to play.

Puzzle B: What could Tim Wall (Black, to move) have played here?

Puzzle C: Didrik Leivdal (White) to play.

Puzzle D: John Awesome (Black, to move) – two solutions

Answers:

A: 1 cxd6 Qxd6 2 Bc5 Qd7 3 d6 wins the knight.
B: 1…Nxf4! 2 fxg4 Nxe2+ wins the queen.
C: 1 Rxh7! Kxh7 2 Rh5+ Kg8 3 Bxg6 1-0.
D: 1…Rxg2+! (1…Nf3+ 2 Kh1 Qg4! also leads to checkmate) 2 Kxg2 Qg4+ 3 Kh1 Qh3+ 4 Kg1 Nf3 checkmate.