Club Championship Results

There was one game played in the 5th round of the 2024 Club Championship last night, with Damian Oldham beating Peter Anderton.

There was also a 2nd round game played in the 2025 U1450 Championship, with Colin Marley beating Dan Vernon.

David Reynolds Cup Update

The standings in the David Reynolds Cup have been updated to reflect the position as at the 1st March. Damian Oldham still leads the way with an adjusted score of 72.1%. Please note that to be included in the standings you must have played a minimum of 6 LRCA games by the end of February, and at least 8 by the end of the season.

The current standings can be viewed from the tab at the top of this page. 

Ashby 1 and Ashby 3 Both Draw

There was an excellent result for Ashby 3 in Division 3 last night, when they held top of the table Wigston 4 to a 2-2 draw. Tom and Nick both continued their recent runs of good form with wins against higher rated opponents on boards 2 and 3. With both Steve and Les missing from the usual lineup, Larry and Jan were drafted into the team, both with unfortunate results. Jan's loss on board 4 was not totally unexpected as she was up against an opponent rated 300 points higher, which proved too much to overcome. We are now joint second in the Division with 10 points, although behind both Heathcote Arms and Lecicester University 1 on game points difference.

Ashby 1 dropped their first point of the season when they were surprisingly held to a 2.5 - 2.5 draw by Thurnby. Tom Dove suffered his second loss of the season, something I expect to hear more about when he produces his own match report !! With Gheorge, Richard and Patrick all drawing, it was left to Andrew to bore his opponent to death on board 5 to give us a share of the points. We are now 6 points clear of the chasing pack with just 4 matches left to play.

Ashby 5 Whitewashed

It was a miserable evening for Ashby 5 last night as they went down by 4-0 at top of the table Latimer. I would have liked to report on some highlights but, sadly, there don't seem to have been any !!

Thursday Night Double For Ashby

Apologies for the delay in reporting on last Thursday's matches but I've been a bit under the weather. Anyway, it was a good night for the Club last Thursday as both Ashby 1 and Ashby 4 won their matches, Ashby 1 beating the Pork Pies from Melton Mowbray by 3.5 - 1.5 and Ashby 4 beating Syston 3 by 2.5 - 1.5.

Team Captain Ric Dawson led from the back with a win on board 4 for Ashby 4, whilst Magnus Brown took another giant step towards his first GM norm with an emphatic win on board 3 against an opponent who only learnt the moves last week. Following John Howlett's loss on board 1 it was left to Ian Maskery to stumble to a draw on board 2 to give us the points. Ashby 5 are now staring down from the lofty heights of 5th place in the table, a position that even  the International Space Station would be envious of.

Tom Dove has sent his usual inimitable report on the antics of Ashby 1 -

Ashby 1 continued their fine form despite the absence of captain Patrick who was on holiday in Zimbabwe.

He sent a postcard back to everyone at the club.

"Hi all, continuing my pilgrimage to the resting places of all my favourite people in history - managed to tick Robert Mugabe off the list having paid my respects to Vlad The Impaler late last year. Whilst in Zimbabwe I took the opportunity to bag myself a baby white rhino, although the guide told me if I'd taken out the mother first, I'd still have had a great shot at the baby as it most likely wouldn't have run off. Ah well. We live and learn".

Andrew took his place on board four and set about boring his opponent to death with his London Zzzstem.

Unfortunately, his opponent Christopher Knight is an avid collector of walking stick badges and considers train spotters to be foolhardy adrenaline junkies. To him, the London is like the bastard lovechild of the Leningrad Dutch and Kings Gambit Accepted, and he succeeded in out-boring Andrew.

An astounding achievement.

Chris had earlier confided in the team that the pressures of "carrying those useless Ashby 2 f*****s" was really playing havoc with his chess, so it must have been a euphoric moment when the delightfully named Ian Farquharson resigned in a hopeless position, made all the more satisfying for our substitute since Chris had adopted his hero Tom's defence of choice for this match.

With Queens, Rooks, Bishops and Knights all still very much on the board, Gheorghe decided he'd make things interesting against Ben Pourmozafari by deliberately making his own King as unsafe as humanly possible.

Seriously, there wasn't a friendly pawn within 5 ranks of it.

Still won. 

What a guy.

Tom was cruising to yet another routine victory on board 1 against former UK Olympiad silver medalist Alan Jex, but noticed that Richard had excellent winning chances.

 Rather than take the match-winning glory all for himself, the Ashby Talisman offered the battered and bewildered Alan a draw, which was accepted most gratefully.

This left stand-in captain Richard to dispatch Shaun Cope in clinical fashion, putting Ashby 1 five points clear of their nearest rivals with remaining games fast running out.

As Richard was carried shoulder high to the bar by his teammates, Tom looked on as if to say "That'll do, pig. That'll do".

Ashby 2 Still The Strongmen Of Division 2

Ashby 2 continue to hold up the rest of the Clubs in Division 2 following another loss last night, this time at Thurnby.

Cometh The Hour, Cometh The Man and Les Fancourt stepped up to the  plate, slipping seamlessly into a lost position on board 5 to put us 1-0 down. Tom Gerrard pulled things back on board 3 shortly afterwards, to level the score at 1-1. Unfortunately, Larry Hayden got into time trouble again on board 2 and lost a piece and the game, whilst Chris Tipper put up a strong showing on board 1 against an opponent rated over 2000, but was ultimately beaten. It was then left to Steve E. to give the score an air of respectability with a win on board 4. Final score Thurnby 3 Ashby 2.

Club Championship

I omitted to report on last week's 5th round game between Roy Evans and Nick Wyld, which resulted in the upset of the competition, with Nick winning. This puts Nick into joint 4th place with a score of 3.5/6, and a Performance Rating of 1777, as opposed to his actual rating of 1550, so very well done to him.

Tom Gerrard beat Ian Maskery on Monday evening, leaving just 2 outstanding 5th round games to be played - Dom Lennon v Ric Dawson and Peter Anderton v Damian Oldham.

These should be completed by the end of February which, unfortunately, means we are 2 months behind schedule and the 2025 Championship will start almost immediately.

Ashby 3 And Ashby 5 Both Held

Ashby 3 entertained Heathcote Arms last night, hoping for a win that would propel them into second place in Division 3. Unfortunately it wasn't to be. Les Fancourt, the Minor Champion of the whole of the Counties of Leicestershire and Rutland, and the joint Champion of the whole of the market town of Ashby de-la Zouch, insisted on using the Chris Tipper playbook, but his Dutch Defence had more holes in if than Rachel Reeves cv and soon led to an early night. Steve E. continued his recent bad habit of playing well, getting a superior position, and then letting things go to his head and extracting a loss from a winning position. Fortunately, Nick Wyld, fresh from his upset win against Roy Evans in the Club Championship, and Tom Gerrard, fresh from his win over nobody in particular, were on hand to salvage a 2-2 draw from the wreckage. Nick and Tom arrived at the match in their Time Machine after having both turned up at the Chinese restaurant a month early for Les's birthday dinner !!

Elsewhere, Ashby 5 were at home against Melton Mowbray 2. With Ian Maskery and Jan Oldham on boards 1 and 2 both letting themselves down, letting the Club down, letting their families down and letting their friends down, it was left to Graham Bird and debutant Dan Vernon to rescue the situation with wins on boards 3 and 4, to ensure that the Pork Pies were sent packing with just a half share of the points.

Alternatively, here's Neil's version of events:

"Melton had planned to bring five players, but one pulled out at the last moment. Their Captain offered to default a board but I thanked him and declined. Anyway, we did well to get a draw on the evening, thanks to fine wins by Graham Bird and Dan Vernon, who was playing his first ever OTB game. His opponent said that he'd never played a game like it before. Graham's game was very tight, and he had to be careful, but he played very well and made the breakthrough when he pinned his opponent's King and Knight, leaving him with only Pawns, which Graham was then able to pick off and promote one of his own. Jan put up a good fight after being slightly down in the middle game, but was eventually overcome by her opponent. Ian's game was very close and looked like it could go either way. Ian had a Pawn close to being promoted, and his opponent had two advanced Pawns on the a and b files. He managed  to overcome the threat from Ian's Bishop and promote one of them first."

There was also a game played in the U1450 Championship, with Peter Anderton putting in a stellar performance to claim the Runners Up spot against Ric Dawson in a 10 move master class.

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ECF Appointment

Steve E. has just been appointed an Officer of the English Chess Federation as LMS Administrator. In this capacity he is responsible for the management of the ECF League Management System and providing support to all Users of the System. There are currently 125 Leagues, Counties and Congresses throughout the country using LMS. In addition to this, every Club in every League using LMS also has access to the system to allow them to organise their own internal competitions and have them rated. At the moment there are over 1000 Clubs that are able to do this. Ashby have been using  the system for their internal competitions since 2022.

Ashby 4 Beaten At Anstey

Ashby 4 came up against Division 4 leaders Anstey 4 last night and came away with the runners-up medal in a 3-1 defeat. There were draws for Nick Wyld  on board 1 and Mick Brown on board 3. James Foster's winning streak came to an abrupt end on board 2, while on board 4 Ric Dawson, the Team Captain, was a piece up but with some inspired play managed to conjure up a loss.

Ashby 1 Scrape Past Ashby 2

Tom Dove's Match Report:

It was business as usual for Ashby 1 as they overcame a spirited display by their somewhat less glamorous opponents.

Disaster struck early on for the eventual victors as Tom suffered his first loss of the season.

He'd bought a brand new Google 9 Pixel mobile earlier that day, and could've sworn  he'd switched the unfamiliar device off - but with Paul's defence in tatters having totally misplayed the opening and with Tom's Queen hovering menacingly, the phone began to ring.

Tom later said "It was bitterly disappointing to lose in such a miserable way, but rules are rules. It's the game we choose to play".

 Typical 'take it on the chin' stuff from our no.1 player.

 Controversy reigned on board 4.

Steve's crippling misophonia is well known at the club, our understanding members always going out of their way to create a quiet and stress-free environment for him to play his chess.

It thus raised a few eyebrows when Patrick sat down at the board clutching three packets of cheese and onion crisps and sucking on a raspberry slushie.

He proceeded to munch, chomp, chew and slurp for what seemed like hours to the rest of us, but must have been an eternity to poor Steve, who nonetheless managed to whip up an unstoppable mating attack.

The unrythmical tip-tapping of fingernails on wooden table was the final straw for Steve who finally let out a scream of anguish, overturned the board, ripped up his membership card and staggered from the room, a broken shell of a man.

Patrick went to the bar to celebrate.

Quote from Steve:

 "The crisps and slushie I could just about cope with - but it was the inept paradiddle, utterly devoid of any rhythm or musicality that did for me" 

Les had prepared for Andrew's London System by downing twice the medically advised amount of Red Bull, but by move 9 both players were sound asleep with Les' clock still running down and eventually flagging. Both were still softly snoring when everyone tiptoed out at the end of the night (can someone pop to the club to check if they're ok? Ed.)

Larry (whose idea of blitz is postal chess with first class stamps) got into a fantastic position, but sadly hadn't left enough time to deliver the killer blow and had to settle for a forced draw by repetition, much to the relief of an out-played Richard.

Last to finish were Chris and Gheorghe.

After a lifetime of moving the wrong pawn on move 1 (f4???) Chris finally got it right with 1 c4.

The result was scarily impressive.

Instead of meandering to inevitable defeat somewhere around move 20, Chris had Gheorghe on the ropes until the very end.

Unfortunately, just like Larry, Chris had left himself too little time to find the winning sequence. Gheorghe gratefully accepted the draw.

Final result - 3-2 to Ashby 1, who maintained their 100% winning record.

 

 

 

Ashby 2 v Ashby 1 Preview

From Tom Dove:

"It's derby day as high flying Ashby 1 take on their fierce rivals Ashby 2.

Ashby 2 have been struggling of late with only a single point to show for their campaign so far - a mixture of bad luck and appalling judgement leaving them languishing second from bottom.

In contrast, Ashby 1 are running away with the title, bolstered by the electric form of returning star player Tom Dove, the destructive power of chess machine Gheorghe Albu, the dogged performances of indefatigable Richard Vann, and the dull as ditchwater openings of Andrew Wilson.

Paddy Buckley also plays.

Will Paul Gibson survive the opening? Will Gheorghe be troubled by Chris Tipper's Birds Opening? Will Larry Hayden manage his time effectively? Will Paddy avoid embarrassing himself against Steve Emmerton and will Andrew's opening lead to a thrilling encounter with Les Fancourt?

 The answer is 'No. Of course not'.

 A comfortable 4-1 'away' victory beckons."

Nottingham Rapidplay

Les Fancourt, the Leicestershire Minor Champion and joint Ashby Champion, powered his way to joint 29th out of 44 entries in the Intermediate Section of this weekend's Nottingham Rapidplay Congress. His score of 2.5/6 meant he attendance wasn't required at the prize giving.

U1450 Championship - 2nd Round Draw

The draw for the 2nd round of the Club U1450 Championship has now been made and can be viewed here. All games to be completed by the 27th March, or sooner if possible.

Ashby Player Ratings Update

The current rating of all Ashby players has been updated and can be viewed here, or from the tab at the top of this page. Your current rating is your rating as at 1st February, as opposed to your LRCA rating, which uses the January List. 

The biggest change has seen Les jump up by a massive 55 points over the course of the month, rising from 1570 at the start of January, to 1625 at the start of February. Very well done to him.

David Reynolds Cup Update

The David Reynolds Cup standings have been updated to reflect all games up until the end of January.

The LRCA rating list was changed recently to use the January ECF Rating List, rather than the September 2024 Rating List. As a result of this, it was decided to use the average of these 2 lists to determine the David Reynolds Cup standings. In most cases this makes little or no difference.