Stourbridge Chess Club

This week was trophy week and saw Stourbridge first team playing in the semi-final of the Pittaway cup run by the Wolverhampton league, while the third team were playing in the quarter-finals of the Townshend trophy.

The firsts faced a strong Lichfield team at Lichfield and had to field mainly reserves as several key players were unavailable. Stourbridge were severely out graded on every board, but all the games were close with the Stourbridge players putting in a good performance. John Foxall on board 2 played a great game and should have won but had to settle for a draw in a rook and pawns endgame. Julie Wilson, Ron Evans and Jeremy Humphries also played well to draw. Stourbridge gave a great performance that was not truly reflected in the 6-2 score-line.

The thirds faced a strong Birmingham university team. Unfortunately this year’s intake had several good chess players making the team much stronger than their league division. Stourbridge lost 1-5 with draws for Tony Shaw and Martin Berridge.

Several SCC members played in the Shropshire weekend chess congress .

The Arkell brothers both played in the strong open section with Keith putting in an excellent performance to tie for first place with five higher rated grandmasters all on 4 out of 5 .

Nick finished 30th on 1½ and had some good games against tough opposition.

In the major section for players graded under 160, Tony Shaw graded 134 put in an excellent 149 performance to finish 17th with a 50% score.

In the minor sections, for players graded under 125, Sam Bradley graded 121 put in a 131 performance to finish 8th on 3½.

If you are interested in playing chess, contact Dave Scriven on 01384 423642 for more information about Stourbridge chess club or visit www.stourbridgechess.f9.co.uk.