Shrewsbury win junior derby

The derby match between Shrewsbury Juniors and Newport Juniors in the Shropshire league took place last Thursday after a postponement before Christmas. A well-fought match ended in a 3.5 - 1.5 win for Shrewsbury.

The first game finished was on board 3 when Shrewsbury's Chris Lovejoy overlooked a combination from young opponent David Birtenshaw which lead to checkmate. Then a rook and pawn ending on board four went Shrewsbury's way to equal the score as Matthew Best overcame Luke West. On board one Shrewsbury's 'honorary' junior Ian Davies built up a strong attack and won his match against Mark Richards.

Henry Graham then clinched the match for Shrewsbury with a win on board five against Richard Heath. Henry got a two pawn advantage then sensibly swapped off major pieces and eventually won a rook as well.

The final game which wouldn't affect the final score was nonetheless the most closely-fought of the match. Shrewsbury's Francis Rooney defended stoutly against an attack on his kingside from his former team mate Jonathan Newey who now plays for Newport. The final stages of the game saw Jonathan a piece up but Francis' advanced pawn caused him a lot of problems with a number of mating threats from rook and king. Jonathan decided to give up his rook for the advanced pawn leaving him with a knight and three pawns against the rook. Perilously short of time, Francis found a way of forcing off a pawn and then Jonathan had to give away his queen promoted from a pawn to avoid checkmate.

The final seconds involved a desperate chase of king against knight and pawn and showed the weakness of the knight in such situations ending up with a drawn king against king and a pawn. Great entertainment for those watching!

London Chess Classic successes

Shropshire was well represented at the London Chess Classic.

Congratulations to Nathanael Paul who came joint second in the Classic Weekend Under 145 event with 4/5; and to Athar Mehmood who won the Under 14 rapidplay event.

Mathew Best and Francis Rooney also attended the event on Saturday (taking their dad's along to pay for dinner!), and enjoyed watching the super grandmasters in the main theatre as well as the commentary by various British grandmasters in the analysis room which also included visits by the stars. Nigel Short was particularly entertaining in his post mortem of his game against Chinese GM Ni Hua. And the joint analysis from US GM Hikaru Nokamura and Norwegian Magnus Carlsen (currently rated world number 1) was astonishing. The speed with which these guys see things has to be seen to be believed. It was very exhausting just listening and makes you wonder whether these super GMs are actually human or some kind of higher level species!

We also bumped into former Shropshire player Tommy Cheng who is now based in Wimbledon and was competing in the Saturday rapidplay. All in all a fantastic event - do not miss the next one promised in 2010!

PS - Spot the Shropshire dads in the background to photo of Kramnik and Adams! (Photo from London Chess Classic report by John Saunders - www.londonchessclassic.com)

County match cancelled - 28 Nov

The county U140 match on Sat 28 Nov is off. Our opponents Lincolnshire have conceded th match as they couldn't raise a team. Next match is on 16 Jan 2010.

London Chess Classic

There will be some Shropshire juniors attending the fantastic London Chess Classic tournament next month. It includes the top British players against the best in the world including the current world number one rated player Magnus Carlsen! We are going to the event on Sat 12 Dec - if you would like to join us please get in touch with Steve or Francis.

Shropshire - Worcestershire county match result

Wins by Graham Shepherd, Ivor Salter, Mark Richards and county team debutant Sam Eardley, and draws by John Tunks, Steve Kempsell and Francis Rooney were the highlight of the season's second county match against Worcestershire.

WORCESTERSHIRE 10.5 SHROPSHIRE 5.5

Grade Score

1 JOHN VARILONE 139 0 GRAHAM SHEPHERD 139 1

2 DAVID SCRIVEN 139 ½ STEVE KEMPSELL 138 ½

3 DON CURRY 137 ½ JOHN TUNKS 138 ½

4 IAN TRUSCOTT 136 1 ATHAR MELMOOD 133 0

5 DOUG BOTT 131 1 PETER MELLOR 125 0

6 TIM YATES 129 1 GEORGE VESZOKAI 123 0

7 DAVID RICHARDSON 128 0 IVOR SALTER 120 1

8 JOHN GITTUS 126 ½ FRANCIS ROONEY 110 ½

9 KRZYSZTOF KROWICKI 274843F 126 1 VINCENT CREAN 109 0

10 ROB BRICKNELL 125 1 MAISY PUGH UG 100E 0

11 GILES STANTON 125 0 MARK RICHARDS 98 1

12 FRANCIS O'GORMAN 124 0 SAM EARDLEY UG 90E 1

13 MICHELE CLACK 124 1 RICHARD HEATH UG 80E 0

14 JASON COLE 123 1 DEFAULT 0

15 IAN CLACK 122 1 DEFAULT 0

16 PETER BANKS 121 1 DEFAULT 0

10½ 5½

League season underway for junior teams

Both Shrewsbury Juniors and Newport Juniors found their opening league matches tough going down 4-1 and 5-0 respectively.

For Shrewsbury the half points came from Chris Lovejoy (who drew after being too polite to play on and win on time!) and Angelica Dean.

Shifnal & Telford D v Shrewsbury Juniors 4 - 1
A Jones 1, F Rooney 0;
R Brown 0.5, C Lovejoy 0.5;
P Broderick 1, M Best 0;
R Szwajkun 1, H Graham 0;
T Skidmore 0.5, A Dean 0.5.

Newport Juniors v Wellington B 0 - 5
J Newey 0, K Hickmott 1;
J Allan 0, D Powell 1;
M Richards 0, D Ogundipe 1;
H Davenport 0, J Kuczynski 1;
R Heath 0, D Wright 1.

First county match of season

The first county match of the season for Shropshire Juniors took place on 3 October. This season the team is competing in the Midlands Chess association under 140 section. As it's a 16-board event, there will be a mix of adults and juniors to make up the team.

The first match was a tough one and ended with a 12-4 defeat to Warwickshire with wins for Graham Shepherd, Ian Davies an Maisy Pugh and draws for Athar Mehmood and Vinnie Crean. Unfortunately a couple of transport problems meant that we defeated three boards.

Juniors playing their debut match for the county were Richard Heath and Laura Newey

	Shropshire	ECF CODE	GRADE	SCORE	Warwickshire	ECF CODE	GRADE	SCORE
	white on odd				white on even
1	Shepherd, Graham C	118873C	139	1	Harrington, Michael J	156103A	137	0
2	Mehmood, Athar	264465E	133	½	Choudhury, Shakeel	269822F	135	½
3	Davies, Ian G	136893L	131	1	Al-Samir, Medhi	270896G	133	0
4	Default			0	Brelsforth, Dave	172043A	138	1
5	Salter, Ivor	118435A	120	0	Jimenez, Frank C	113645J	132	1
6	Default			0	Pitt, Chris W	129346B	131	1
7	Micallef, Charles	273522C	112	0	Walker, Mike BA	120981E	131	1
8	Rooney, Francis	264469B	110	0	Gilbert, Kim T	111228E	129	1
9	Crean, Vincent	143038F	109	½	Phipps, Malcolm J	117082L	129	½
10	Pugh, Maisy			1	Llewelyn, John D	114495K	128	0
11	Best, Matthew	269317D	95	0	Hussain, Adrian	256357F	128	1
12	Newey, Jonathan	267845H	91	0	Green, John	273516H	125	1
13	Dean, Angelica	273523E	72	0	Hodkinson, Peter	249822E	120	1
14	Default			0	Leaper, Richard D	192092D	117	1
15	Heath, Richard			0	Pakenham, John H	116631B	114	1
16	Newey, Laura			0	Hughes, Peter J	270857H	111	1
	RESULT			4				12