It has come to my notice that another vital member of our chess club, namely George Horne, has gone into hospital with the flu and pneumonia. He is due to leave intensive care soon and members are welcome to visit him in the hospital. His outstanding KO final game, with Matthew Mackenzie, has been postponed..
On the wednesday 15th May 2024, the summer league of seven times ten minute blitz games had a competition night. Dave Cole won it with 6/7, Jon Duffield played a blinder in second with 5/7 with myself(Alan Llewellyn) in third with 4.5/7. Mention should go to our new members. Jason Probert(4/7),, James Turdoff(2/7) who both played excellently and although Charlie English scored nothing he is improving fast as our youngest member. Trevor Blower(3.5/7) and Frank Whalley(3/7) were the other 2 of the 8 of us.
As the summer league is held on aulternate mondays and wednesdays monday coming up(20th May 2024) will be our nexr event night.
On monday 13th May 2024 there was the final match of the season for a Barrow team in the Cumbria Leagues. In the mid-week League Barrow lost away to Ulverston C 2.5-1.5. Our team was Michael Bunter(lost), Trevor Blower(lost), Jon Duffield(drew), and Charlie English(won).
Below is a video of a BBC programme which was on teresterial TV in 1988. Its Stephen Fry at the Chess Olympiad that year.
On the 6th of May 24 there was a poorly supported first summer league tournament night. Frank Whalley and Dave Cole were joint winners with 6.5/7. Jon Duffield finished 3rd with 5/7. The next event in the summer league, is on wednesday 15th May.
Monthly on line tournament for Cumbria Juniors.
A new monthly on line Cumbria Junior Chess Tournament is about to be launched.
Cumbria is geographically large but sparsely populated, which is challenging for chess activity so the decision has been made to have some on line activity to compliment the current over the board stuff.
The first tournament is to take place from 6PM to 7PM on the 10th of May.
Neill Cooper is running the tournament and he asks that you email him if you wish to take part.
His email address is: nsc@cplusc.co.uk
Neill will help you with all details such as creating a Lichess Profile and entering the tournament.
Below is a clip of one of my favourite chess films-click on the link to rent or buy(be careful you know how to run it).
Below is the final table for the Barrow Chess Club Championship for 2023-2024. It turned out really difficult for Trevor Blower the competition organiser because a lot of the games were defaulted. Matthew Mackenzie is the Major winner and thus Club Champion. The Minor winner was Michael Bunter.
POS
NAME
P
W
D
L
DEF
PTS
1
M MACKENZIE
16
9
3
0
4
14 ½
=2
F WHALLEY
16
8
3
2
3
12 ½
=2
M BUNTER
16
7
1
3
5
12 ½
4
R HAYLEY
16
9
3
3
1
11 ½
=5
A LLEWELLYN
16
8
4
3
1
11
=5
G HORNE
16
4
4
2
5
1 D
11
=7
T BLOWER
16
4
0
8
4
8
=7
R BUNTER
16
2
0
6
6
2 D
8
9
C BROWN
16
1
1
6
6
2 D
7 ½
10
J DUFFIELD
16
3
2
7
3
1 D
7
=11
D COLE
16
5
0
1
10 D
5
=11
S CORAN
16
0
0
4
5
7 D
5
=13
J WOODBURN
16
4
0
1
11 D
4
=13
C ENGLISH
16
0
0
12
4
4
15
H BECK
16
1
1
3
11 D
1 ½
=16
R ROY
16
0
0
3
13 D
0
=16
A SANDERSON
16
0
0
1
15D
0
The KO Final game between George Horne and Matthew Mackenzie was postponned due to the continued bad health of George, next week on may bank holliday the summer season starts. With the summer league played one night a week until mid august, alternating between Monday and Wednesday. On the final night of the Club Championship Connor Brown and Charlie English finished off their game and Connor won. The final results will appear in next few days on this page, the summer chess news page. For older news items see the list of pages below the title at the top of the page.
In the game Jacob McAtear vs Matthew Mackenzie, in the Whitaker Cup Final , Matthew intends to play g5 defending both his advanced Knights and securing pressure against the weakened King of Jacob, what idea did Jacob have to thrawt Matthew here which in the game gave him a won position(highlight below for the answer):-
The critical winning line runs 1 d6!! (when the actual moves played were 1...Qxd6 2 Qxh4 Ne2+ 3 Kh1 and White will certainly win with too much material loss by Matt.) a possible line goes 1...cxd6 2 Bxb7 Kxb7 3 Qxf4 when its a mistake to play 3...Qe2+? because of 4 Rf2 Qe7 5 Qxf7 Qxf7 6 Rxf7+ and it would have been hopeless.
