The poster is in PDF format, which can be read by Adobe Acrobat Reader, most browsers, as well as other programs.
Latest | Playing chess online | Rave reviews | Mini-survey
Sutton Coldfield are the Birmingham League Division 2 Champions! Details to follow.
Our congratulations go to the teenager Harinder Dhesi on being the outright winner of the Dudley Spectrum Congress U100 Challengers' Section held on the last weekend of January, 2008. Hari scored 4½/5 for a grading performance of 119.
It is with great sadness that we report the death on 27/Jan/2008 of Ian Storey aged 74. Ian was with the club for many years, and in the past served as 2nd Team Captain and recently as Equipment Secretary. He was well-liked and thoroughly reliable both on the board and off. We at the chess club shall miss him enormously. Our condolences go to his family and friends.
The new ECF January 2008 Rapidplay Grades were issued 22/Jan/2008. Details of our own players are on our Grades and Ratings page.
Following the announcement on BBC Radio Five Live of Bobby Fischer's death, the Sports Panel on the Simon Mayo Show were asked whether chess was a sport, and listeners were invited to comment. At 13:35 18/Jan/08 Simon read out...
Marek from Birmingham: Of course chess is a sport. A single game can take hours. Afterwards the players will be drained and exhausted both mentally and physically. Why should the word sport apply only to something that takes no brain power like running - moving very quickly at the sound of a loud noise and then being reminded by another noise that it's the last lap so they can stop. I mean, can't they count?
We are pleased to welcome Joseph Stewart to the ranks of our B'ham League First Team. Joey is an experienced player and, among other things, Captain of the Warwickshire Open Team and Webmaster of the Coventry Chess League.
| You can now download a Sutton Coldfield Chess Club Poster or flyer so that you can print it off, and distribute it yourself, to help advertise the location and activities of the club. Simply click on the graphic on the left. The poster is in PDF format, which can be read by Adobe Acrobat Reader, most browsers, as well as other programs. |
 | 20/Aug/07 Club Secretary Larry Hayden cuts the cake, the 2nd Cold War Cake of the annual Sutton Coldfield CC versus Warley Quinborne CC pre-season friendly. Altogether about three dozen people were present at the event, a chess club attendance record at our new Jaguar Club venue. |
 | This year Warley Quinborne avenged their 2006 defeat and won 3-9. Another photo from the event appears on the Welcome page, next to the map.
2ND COLD WAR CAKE
20/Aug/2007
Sutton Coldfield CC
1 K ESCOTT ½ AS SINGH ½
2 I DHESI 0 C GORDON 1
3 H STEPANYAN 0 M DORAN 1
4 T BURGESS ½ S SMITH ½
5 G WINDOWS 1 J FAHY 0
6 D GREEN 0 P BULL 1
7 I STOREY 0 A BURNET 1
8 S JOBANPUTRA 0 A HUSSAIN 1
9 A STEPANYAN ½ S BLACK ½
10 H DHESI ½ P THOMPSON ½
11 E BROWN 0 J PAKENHAM 1
12 G CARPENTER 0 H WATKINS 1
SCCC 3 WQCC 9
|
We are delighted to welcome back Bob Greatrex who has rejoined the Club as a Full Member after an absence of several years.
 | Once again, Sutton Coldfield CC can boast of a national champion. Henrik Stepanyan is the new 2007 Under 11 British Champion. He gained the title (and a cheque for £225) after dropping only half a point from the seven rounds in his section at the British Championships held in Great Yarmouth, July-August 2007. Henrik was also the 2007 Birmingham League W. Ritson Morry Memorial Trophy winner. The Trophy plus £25 cheque is awarded for "outstanding achievements" by an under-15 junior league player. Among other things, Henrik was outright 1st Warwickshire Championship (U100) Feb/2006, and outright 2nd Nottingham (Minor U120) April/2007. (The picture on the left shows him with another award in the summer of 2006.) Sutton Coldfield Chess Club had two of the five candidates for the Ritson Morry Trophy. The other was Harinder Dhesi who was joint 1st Staffordshire Congress (Minor) April/2007; Hari followed that by winning a grading prize in the Shirley & Wythall Rapidplay (Minor) May/2007. |
 | The 3rd 2007 Lightning Tournament held 07/Aug was won by Keith Escott, second was Neil Owen, third was Marek Soszynski. They are pictured on the left with their book prizes: Keith centre, Neil right, Marek left. Keith rarely takes part in these tourneys because he is usually too busy running them. On his first visit to the Club, the American Grant Carpenter immediately became a paid-up Full Member for the 2007-2008 season and played in this, his very first buzzer tourney anywhere. |
 | In the Simultaneous Display by Keith Escott on 23/Jul/07 Keith scored 7½/8 (94%). His only concession was when he offered a draw to Neil Owen, who accepted. Eddie Brown was last to finish, losing on adjudication (see diagram) shortly before 11pm. Keith's overwhelming performance should come as no surprise considering he is graded 181 in the Jul/2007 ECF Grading List (available online). Incidentally, in that List Harinder Dhesi appears in the top ten of England's most improved players, having gained 37 grading points. All of Sutton Coldfield players' latest grades are listed on our own Grades and Ratings Page. |
The Sutton Coldfield Chess Club Annual General Meeting 2007 was held 16/Jul. The headlines are that from 01/Sep/2007 the Membership Fees for Junior and Associate Members will be increased to £20; the Full Membership Fee will be unchanged at £40. The principal officers were all re-elected. Marek Soszynski was elected Clubman of the Year 2007.
 | The 2nd 2007 Lightning Tournament held 09/Jul was won jointly by Neil Owen (on the left of the picture) and Marek Soszynski (on the right). Neil and Marek drew their game with each other and won the other four. The event was run by Keith Escott. About three dozen chess books were generously donated as prizes for this and subsequent events by Mark Addis and Ian Storey. |
 | In our first ever Simultaneous Display at the Jaguar Club 25/Jun/2007 Tristan Cox faced a dozen boards and scored 75% (+7 =4 -1), a very strong performance considering that he completed the display in only just over two hours, and that among his opponents were Russell James (of South Birmingham CC) and Keith Escott who are experienced simul givers themselves. Two of the players were ungraded, the rest averaged 130 ECF. Tristan's only loss was to Roy Lawrence who regularly does well in these sorts of events. |
 | Here are the prize winners of the 1st 2007 Lightning Tournament held 11/Jun. From left to right: Tom Burgess (Second Place with 6½ points), Mark Addis (First Place with 7 points), Roy Lawrence (Third Place with 5½ points). Altogether, eleven competitors played up to eight rounds at approximately eight seconds a move. As usual, the tourney was ably run by Keith Escott. |
We are pleased to welcome another new member to our club, Ash Mehta, who is resuming playing chess after a gap of several years.
 | 21/May/2007 Club Secretary, Larry Hayden (centre), presented the liquid prizes to the joint winners of that night's Blitz Handicap Tourney: Keith Escott (left) and Roy Lawrence (right). Competitors were split into four bands with from 5 to 8 minutes per game depending on playing strength. The new 5-round format was a success and led to a few surprise results. Half of the players finished off the evening at a local curry house where the prizes could be put to good use! |
 | After nearly nine years at Erdington Conservative Club, Orphanage Road, we have relocated just over 1½ miles south-east to the Jaguar Sports & Social Club, Chester Road. See the Welcome page for more details of our new venue. |
Everyone's attention is drawn to the following E-Petition to the British government to put mind sports (such as chess) on an equal footing with physical sports: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Mindsports/ We encourage you to sign! To discover who was the very first signatory (after the petition's creator) see here. Another E-Petition concerns placing chess on school curricula.
| Members and visitors to Sutton Coldfield Chess Club are reminded to have their mobile phones turned off in the playing area during matches (which are scheduled to start at 7.30pm). Using a mobile phone not only causes a disturbance but can also, according to B'ham League rules, cost the player concerned the game. |  |
 | Two Sutton Coldfield Chess Club players appear in the FIDE Rating List Oct/2006: Women's FIDE Master Sabrina Chevannes 2093, and Tristan Cox 2065 (his highest was 2102 in Oct/2001). In the printed ECF Grading List 2006, which covers all of England, Henrik Stepanyan appears as =2nd in the Top Under 11 section, and Sabrina Chevannes as 18th in the Top Female section. In the ECF Online Grading Database 2006, David Gardiner (pictured left) is listed as one of the Most Improved Players, having gained 24 points to reach 144. |
Our special congratulations go to Tristan Cox who is becoming a seriously strong player. He won the Cardiff Spectrum Open Jun/2006, and has followed that up by winning the Coulsdon Challengers' All-Play-All Tournament Aug-Sep/2006. A game from the latter can be viewed on our Games page.
 | They knew we were coming - so they baked a cake. The good folk at Warley Quinborne CC laid on a buffet for a Pre-season friendly match (ungraded) between our two clubs. We were easy victors on this occasion, but Warley are invited back to Sutton next year for what will have to be called... the Cold War Cake. The right-hand picture shows Board 6 where big man Adrian Hussain faced Iqbal Dhesi. |  |
1ST COLD WAR CAKE
31/Aug/2006
Warley Quinborne CC
1 Mark ADDIS 0 Mike WILDBOAR 1
2 Sola FOLAYAN 1 SINGH 0
3 David GARDINER 1 Philip BULL 0
4 Marek SOSZYNSKI 1 John FAHY 0
5 Glenn WINDOWS ½ Adam DRAPER ½
6 Iqbal DHESI 1 Adrian HUSSAIN 0
7 Arthur KENT 1 PARKINSON 0
8 Chris EAST 1 Peter THOMPSON 0
9 Harinder DHESI 1 John PAKENHAM 0
SCCC 7½ WQCC 1½
The Sutton players all appear on the left, and had White on the odd-numbered boards. Peter made a guest appearance for the opposition; Adrian is actually a member of both Clubs. The Captains played each other on Board 4.
Our congratulations go to Roy Lawrence on winning the Hereford Minor (U116) Aug/2006. His 5 points from 6 games earned him the outright winner's cheque for £120.
 | The annual Ashby-Sutton Challenge Match took place at Sutton Coldfield CC, 03/Jul/2006. In a new format the seven-a-side teams played two 30 minute games, with Sutton winning 9-5. Our appreciation goes to the two captains for organising this event - Chris East of Sutton, and Larry Hayden of Ashby (and Sutton too). |
 | For the second year running, Sutton Coldfield CC ran a Simultaneous Display by an International Master. This year it was Thomas Rendle on 19/Jun/2006. Nineteen year old Thomas disposed of eleven boards in just a couple of hours. Only David Gardiner, and Henrik Stepanyan managed to get draws. Young Henrik was last to finish and was possibly winning at one stage, although the diagrammed position shortly before the very end was indeed dead drawn. |
 | The 5th Sutton-Wood Cup took place 12/Jun/2006. Although Handsworth Wood CC was officially wound up 11/April/2006 their players (with the help of a couple of guests) won this final match. Details here. Sutton Coldfield CC is the recipient of the defunct club's chess equipment (about a dozen boards, sets and clocks plus cupboard). To show our appreciation of the windfall, former members of Handsworth Wood CC will be charged a reduced Membership Fee of just £1 for the 2006-2007 season. |
 | On 04/Jul/2005 Sutton Coldfield CC was the venue for a 14-Board Simultaneous Display by Robert Bellin, the 1979 British Chess Champion. Robert, an International Master currently rated 2399, lost to Roy Lawrence, drew with Neil Owen, but beat the other dozen players for a score of 89%. Roy's game can be seen here; it was annotated in the Dec/2005 issues of Chess Monthly and the ECF's Chess Moves (available in a PDF version). |
The URL of Sutton Coldfield Chess Club's website is of course www.soszynski.btinternet.co.uk/sccc/ but now the Club has also registered the new domain name www.suttonchess.org.uk which is far more memorable. Anyone entering the new name in their browser will be automatically taken to the present main site that continues as before, so there is no need for users to change their current bookmarks or favorites [sic].
Details of upcoming events within the Club, as well as locally, can as usual be found on the Diary page.
If you are interested in playing live chess on the web, then check out the Internet Chess Club, better known as ICC. This is the premier online chess service of them all, used by top GMs, many IMs, and over 25,000 chess enthusiasts worldwide. It runs tournaments, simuls, and lectures, etc., and has live coverage of matches like Kasparov versus Deep Junior. It even has its own radio station, Chess.FM!
The table below shows all the known "handles" of the Sutton Coldfield members, past and present, who use ICC, plus a few other players associated with Birmingham League clubs.
ICC handles of local players
Player Handle Club
___________________________________________________
Brian BRISCOE notbad Sutton Coldfield
Tom BURGESSS burgers Sutton Coldfield
Tristan COX Biggie Sutton Coldfield
" " Zebedee Sutton Coldfield
Collin DANDY Legal-Tender Sutton Coldfield
Stephen EDWARDS rooksnapper Handsworth Wood
Dom FISHER treatathon Shirley
Malcolm HUNT Lazarus-Chopper Warley Quinborne
Paul HUNT arthur-king South Birmingham
Kevin JONES tubby Handsworth Wood
Arthur KENT Allkents Sutton Coldfield
Robert LEE a3xloser Walsall Kipping
Wilf MORGAN Birchfield Kynoch/Barn
Munroe MORRISON NaughtyKnight Wolverhampton
David PRITCHARD davekipp Walsall Kipping
Sean RALPH GoldenBalls South Birmingham
Marek SOSZYNSKI Keram Sutton Coldfield
Rob TAYLOR NorthernPride Birmingham Uni
___________________________________________________
26/Oct/2005
Other local players, such as Ann-Marie Ashby, Russell James, Neil Owen, and Dave Shurrock also have/had ICC accounts. If you know of any more Birmingham ICC-ers, do please send us an email.
The UK Channel of ICC has its own website Channel 67, which has photos, etc.
Incidentally, Maxim Devereaux, who appeared on Channel 4’s “Faking it” on 02/Mar/2004, has the handle MaxDev(FM).
Fame at last! In the May/1999 issue of Chess Monthly, Chris Ravilious’s “Internet Diary” led with the following item.
Once sharing premises with Baruch Wood’s Chess Ltd., Sutton Coldfield is the latest British chess club to set up its own website [...] where webmaster Marek Soszynski is developing a promising mix of general information, news and opening analysis, currently Marek’s own introduction to the Nimzowitsch Defence. The games section features a sample of British under-11 Girls’ Champion Sabrina Chevannes, and this and other games by Sutton Coldfield members past and present - including historic simul victories over the likes of Taimanov and Smyslov - are also available for downloading. The Sutton Coldfield website makes a welcome addition to the tally of UK club sites on the net, continuing a tradition of chess publishing in the area which would have gratified the editor of the original Chess.
John Saunders, Editor of the British Chess Magazine, called the site “very impressive.”
GM Jon Levitt emailed to say, “I have noted your enthusiastic pages... Good stuff.” Jon is the leading exponent of the Clarendon Court defence.
GM Nigel Davies says this is “An excellent club site...” His own website is called Tigerchess.
Polish IM Jan Przewoznik emailed to say this is a “very interesting internet place! I have been playing 1...Nc6!? successfully for years! Other parts of the web page are also very interesting. Especially I admire layout, graphics. Very well done!” [sic].
If you could ban one reply to 1.e4, what would it be? Perhaps you play 1.e4 yourself, and one defence in particular gives you problems. Or if you don’t play 1.e4, the banning of which Black reply would most tempt you to take it up? Choose from the scrolling list below and press the button.
So far the Scandinavian is just ahead of the pack, but the votes are really very evenly spread across most of Black’s options. No one, though, seems especially scared or impressed by the Pirc or Nimzowitsch defences.
