(Chronicle Chess 20 October 2023)

Club chess on Tyneside is thriving, with six divisions, 37 teams and up to 150 players taking part in the 2023-24 Northumbria League. Many of these players and teams are new to league chess.

This week Divisions 1, 3 and 5 have been in action.

Newcastle A, who won Division 1 last season as Forest Hall A before joining the newly formed Newcastle Chess Club, won narrowly 2.5-1.5 against just-promoted Jesmond.

On Board 1, Newcastle’s Tim Wall was held to a draw by Chris Goodall, while on Board 3 Jesmond’s Andy Trevelyan scored a surprise win over Matthew Forster. The two remaining boards went to Newcastle, with Andy Burnett and Zheming Zhang triumphing over Gary Murphy (a new Jesmond signing from Tynedale) and Sophie Atkinson, respectively.

The other four teams in Division 1 have yet to report results. Gosforth Empire, who have recruited Roger Coathup from Morpeth and Jack Erskine-Pereira from Liverpool, travel to South Shields A in what is expected to be a close match. Leam Lane Aces, with David Walker and Graeme Oswald on top boards, are slight favourites against Tynemouth A.

In Division 3, Morpeth B, Tynemouth B and Gosforth Centurions have all won their first matches.

Leam Lane Comets and Tynemouth C currently lead Division 5.

In the Northumberland County Championships, a total of 41 players in three competitions (Zollner, Sell and Gilroy) are playing the first of seven rounds.

In the Zollner, Tim Wall (Newcastle), David Armbruster (Gosforth) and Andy Trevelyan (Jesmond) lead with 1/1.

In the Sell, Paul Bielby (South Shields), Stuart Skelsey (Forest Hall), Mick Riding and James Ross (both Gosforth) are leading.

And in the Gilroy, eight players have won their first round games: Denise Mosse (Gateshead), Andrew Robinson, Mark McKay and David Pritchard (all Gosforth), David Peardon (South Shields), David Simm (Morpeth), Jeff Baird (Forest Hall) and Joseph Miller (Leam Lane).

On 14 October, Gosforth ran a blitz tournament, with all proceeds donated to Beam Café on Gosforth High Street, run by the Smile for Life Children’s Charity.

Next Monday, 23 October, Newcastle Chess Club is holding an open training session for members and visitors at Tyneside Irish Centre from 6:30pm to 9:15pm, with Tim Wall, a FIDE Trainer, leading a session with puzzles and exercises on “Attacking the Castled King. Entry is £2 and open to adult and junior players from any chess club. Anyone interested in coming along should contact: timpeterwall@gmail.com

(Chronicle Chess 6 October 2023)

Many people are aware (from films and shows such as ‘The Queen’s Gambit’) of chess being played in city parks around the world, particularly in New York’s Washington Square Park, where Bobby Fischer used to hang out. In Moscow’s Gorky Park, to this day chess aficionados young and old wrap up warm and enjoy a friendly game.

Now chess in parks could be about to take off in this country.

Under the government’s plan for £1 million to support the development of chess, chess tables could be installed in parks in some North East local authority areas. The plan is for 100 permanent chess tables to be put in parks and green spaces as part of the Levelling Up Parks Fund. The total cost is £250,000, or £2,500 for the installation, upkeep and marketing of each chess table.

The North East local authorities chosen to be part of the project (assessed as areas of ‘multiple deprivation’) may be somewhat contentious, however. Northumberland, South Tyneside and Sunderland are part of the project, but Newcastle, North Tyneside and Gateshead are not. Further afield, County Durham, Hartlepool, Redcar and Cleveland and Stockton-on-Tees will get chess tables.

The North East chess community first became aware of the government funding when the announcement was made on August 22. But no one from the English Chess Federation has contacted North East chess organisations about which areas will get chess tables, and what they should do to get involved.

The short deadline for councils to apply for a chess table was September 25 – just a month after the funding was announced. According to the government prospectus – https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/installing-chess-tables-in-parks-and-public-spaces-prospectus/ – the tables should be installed by February 2024.

It is not clear how many North East authorities have applied for the chess tables, where they will be situated, or what arrangements have been made for them to be used. Will the chess tables in parks initiative work, or turn out to be a white-and-black squared elephant? Only time will tell.

It is also not clear how the rest of the £1 million funding will help anyone in the North East. £500,000 will go to the ECF, with the intention to spend it on elite players in the England Open team and a handful of promising juniors. Little or none of this funding is expected to be spent in the north of England.

In the last tranche of £250,000, up to 125 schools nationally (with a focus on socially deprived areas) are scheduled to receive funding of £2,000 each to buy chess equipment and view chess lessons online.

The Department for Education has the responsibility to allocate the funding, and the charity Chess in Schools and Communities, run by ECF International Director Malcolm Pein, is widely expected to be involved in the delivery of this project.

(Chronicle Chess 22 September 2023)

What do these sports have in common: Football, baseball, American football, basketball, pool and table tennis?
The answer is they all use the Elo system, a way of rating chess players invented by US physics professor Arpad Elo.

Elo predicted the expected score by two players in a competitive game. Two players rated the same are expected to score 50 percent. If a player is rated 100 points higher, the expected score rises to 64 percent; if it’s 200 points higher, that rises to 76 percent.

Elo’s system has stood the test of time, but in recent years its chess ratings have started to show signs of distortion. At the top end (where Magnus Carlsen plays mostly against other super grandmasters) there are clear signs of inflation.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the ratings scale, juniors are coming onto to the system with far lower ratings than their real strength – in part because they play most of their games online, and in their first over-the-board games, they tend to under-perform.

Underrated and unrated players can create problems in club matches.

For example, in the Northumbria Summer KO Plate Final this week, a 2-2 draw meant that Newcastle University B (average age less than 20) won against Gateshead, (average age over 70) based on the students’ marginally lower estimated average ratings.

In a generous move, after the match the University players offered to share the Plate trophy with their more experienced opponents.

In money tournaments, ratings can also cause headaches, as a few players unscrupulously throw games after team matches are decided so that they can enter lower rating category tournaments and have a better chance of winning prizes.

It’s difficult to prove this unethical practice, known as ‘sandbagging,’ and tournament organisers rarely bar or reassign a player.

The next two tournaments coming up on Tyneside give opportunities for players of all ratings to take part.

The Newcastle Central Chess Club Blitz is on Monday 25 September at the Tyneside Irish Centre, 6:30pm-9:30pm. It’s open to everyone, and the time control is 5 minutes, plus three seconds per move. Games qualify for international (FIDE) ratings. To enter the Blitz, email: timpeterwall@gmail.com.

The 59th Northumberland Weekender takes place at the Parks Leisure Centre, Howdon Rd, North Shields NE29 6TL from 29 September to 1 October. There are Open (FIDE-rated), Major (Under 1900), Minor (Under 1675) and Foundation (Under 1450) tournaments.

In line with the ‘amateur’ ethos of most local congresses, the prizes (£350 for 1st, £200 for 2nd and £100 for 3rd) are the same in the Open, Major and Minor, even though the levels of play are quite different. Entries are being taken online at: https://northumberlandchess.wixsite.com/congress

(Chronicle Chess 9 September 2023)

The Northumberland Summer Chess Knockout has always produced a bunch of surprises, and this year has proved no exception.

The Cup Semi-Final between Gosforth Salters (Division 2, let’s call them the Giants in this case) and Gosforth Woodbines (Division 5, who we can safely call the Giantkillers) battled it out on Monday for a place in the Final against Forest Hall A (the even bigger Giants).

The first shock result in the match was between Jonathan Rooney (Woodbines), who scored a draw with former Irish champion Ray Devenney (Salters) on Board 4. This left the Salters having to win all three remaining games to win the match, due to the handicap system, which gave the Woodbines a 2.5 points start.

On Board 1, the Salters’ young Uzbek sensation Shah Saliev safely defeated the Woodbines’ Antonio Stepanovic, while on Board 3 Gosforth Salters captain Mick Riding dispatched the Woodbines’ Michael Owen.

This meant it all came down to whether Stefan Hartmann (Salters) could beat Woodbines’ captain David Pritchard in a drawish-looking endgame. As Stefan’s final pawn was exchanged, leaving no result except a draw, the cheers went up from the watching Woodbines, as the underdogs – by scoring 1-3, with the handicap had won 3.5-3.

The Woodbines now go through to meet Forest Hall A, the Division 1 champions, who defeated Jesmond 4-0 in their semi-final.

In the KO Final, Forest Hall A have to win 4-0 for victory, as the Woodbines have a 3.5 points start. The Final is due to take place at Gosforth Empire Club on Tuesday 12 September.

In other news, as the Northumbria League gears up for the 2023-24 season, Jesmond Chess Club have revealed that their new match venue is at the Punch Bowl, 125 Jesmond Rd NE2 1JY, from 7:15pm on Thursday evenings. For more info on Jesmond Chess Club, contact Andy Trevelyan on: andytrev@gmail.com

The West Jesmond Junior Club has also resumed its Sunday afternoon sessions, at Jesmond Library, St George’s Terrace NE2 2DL – now from 2:30pm-4:30pm. To attend and more info, please contact Tim Wall on: timpeterwall@gmail.com or text/call: 0750 372 2366.

The upcoming 59 th Northumberland Weekend Congress, at the Parks Leisure Centre, North Shields, runs from Friday 29th September to Sunday 1st October 2023. Entries are welcome for the Open, Major, Minor and Foundation sections, with an online entry form available at: https://northumberlandchess.wixsite.com/congress

Entries are currently over the 50 mark, with the organisers hoping to reach close to last year’s numbers of 130-plus.