Month: August 2019

August 30, 2019

First, congratulations to Dave Mooney for winning the Colle themed blitz on 22nd August with 9.5 / 10. Well done to Kevin Rowden (6/10) and Paul Bielby (5/10) for finishing 2nd and 3rd. Full details here.

The North East qualifier for the 2019 British Blitz Championships is being held at RGS in Newcastle on Saturday 7th September. Online entry form here.

The time control for this event is 3 minutes with a 2 second increment, which is a bit faster than our normal themed blitzes.

So, to help club players who want to enter this tournament to acclimatize to the faster time control and also for those who just want to play some rated blitz, we are running a warm-up event over 9 rounds on Thursday 5th September. This will have the same time control, 3+2, as the real event and will be FIDE rated. Start time is 19:30 at The New Ship Inn on Sunderland Rd.

As usual, no entry fee, no prizes, open to all who want to turn up and play.

August 18, 2019

Congratulations to Dave Mooney for winning the Scandinavian themed blitz with 9/9. Well done to Paul Bielby who finished 2nd with 7.5/9 and to Tim Wilton-Davies and Brian Towers for finishing equal 3rd on 5/9. Honourable mention to Michael Allen, making his debut in these themed blitzes, for finishing 5th on 4.5/9. Full details here.

This Thursday, 22nd August, the theme will be the Colle. Play will start with black to move after the moves 1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. e3 e6 4. Bd3. There are two basic directions white can go in with either c3 (Colle-Koltanowski) or b3 (Colle-Zukertort).

As usual here are two videos for your prep, one for each variation, the Colle-Koltanowski and Colle-Zukertort.

August 13, 2019

Congratulations to Dave Mooney for winning the Grob themed blitz with 8/9. Well done to Yaroslav Kolodiy who pushed him close with 7/9 and Paul Bielby who finished 3^rd with 5.5/9. Full details here

This Thursday, 15^th August, the theme will be the Scandinavian Defence. Play will start with black to move after the moves 1. e4 d5 2. ed. Two serious videos, the first from the St Louis Chess Club and the second from “Hanging Pawns”