On the right is the magnificent cake created by Alison East (Chris's wife).
Thanks to Derek Green for the pictures.
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Congratulations to Colin Eckloff on winning the Leamington Major (U175) Rapidplay 13/Sep/2009 with a perfect 6/6. And congratulations to Sola Folayan on winning the Hereford Major 29-30/Aug/2009.
We are pleased to welcome three new members: Donald Scarr from Scotland, Marek Biernacki from Poland, and Ron Rimkus from Australia.
| The 4th Cold War Cake Match, or in other words the annual Warley Quinborne CC v Sutton Coldfield CC pre-season graded friendly, took place 24/Aug/2009 at the Jaguar Sports & Social Club. Sutton Coldfield won 8-5. On the right is the magnificent cake created by Alison East (Chris's wife). Thanks to Derek Green for the pictures. | |
 | On the left in the foreground is the top pairing, Team Captain Keith Escott versus Simon Smith.
4TH COLD WAR CAKE
24/Aug/2009
Sutton Coldfield CC
1 K ESCOTT ½ S SMITH ½
2 C ECKLOFF ½ A SINGH ½
3 H STEPANYAN ½ P BULL ½
4 A STEPANYAN 1 J TURNER 0
5 R LAWRENCE 1 J FAHY 0
6 G WINDOWS ½ A HOLOWCZAK ½
7 H DHESI ½ A HUSSAIN ½
8 C EAST 1 J PAKENHAM 0
9 D GREEN 0 P HUGHES 1
10 P THOMPSON 0 P KEARNS 1
11 B FRENCH ½ H WATKINS ½
12 G CARPENTER 1 A KAMAL 0
13 R LAL 1 K KEMBO 0
SCCC 8 WQCC 5
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Congratulations to Roy Lawrence on coming equal 1st in the Major Section, Bloxwich Rapidplay 23/Aug/2009. Barry French bravely entered the Open Section, and scored a creditable 1½/5.
Neil Owen won the 2nd 2009 Lightning Tournament 17/Aug/2009 with a perfect 7/7. Second was Colin Eckloff, third was Shailesh Jobanputra.
At the Squad Selecton Meeting 11/Aug/2009 Keith Escott and Grant Carpenter were confirmed as First Team and Third Team Captains respectively, while Shailesh Jobanputra was selected as the Second Team's new Captain. Our Third Team's squad was strengthened by two new members, Barry French and Ram Lal.
 | Monday 27/Jul/2009 the Club held a very enjoyable Simultaneous Display by International Master, Lawrence Cooper (FIDE 2316, ECF 203). Lawrence (pictured right) scored 13/15 or 87%. He lost only to Adrian Hussain, and drew with Marek Soszynski and last-to-finish Keith Escott. Seven of the players finished the night at a local curry house. Incidentally, in recent years Sutton Coldfield Chess Club has had displays by more titled players than any other club in the Birmingham League. |  |
The Sutton Coldfield Chess Club Annual General Meeting 2009 was held 13/Jul. The headlines are:
| Following recent tradition, after the AGM some members went on for a curry to the excellent Jahed Restaurant, 425 Birmingham Road, Wylde Green B72 1AX. |  |
Marek Soszynski is the Sutton Coldfield CC Rapidplay Champion 2009 having won the five-round Twenty20 Tournament held on 29/Jun and 06/Jul/2009. Players from other clubs also competed, but were unplaced. There were prizes of wine and beer. Last year the inaugural T20 was won by Keith Escott, who runs these tourneys.
 | The Club has now taken delivery of four DGT 2010 Digital Chess Clocks to add to our other digital clocks. We can now equip an entire match with FIDE approved digital timers; we believe we are the first Birmingham Club to be able to do so. Details of the DGT 2010, including a PDF manual, are available from the relevant page on the Digital Game Technology website. |
 | The 2009 Time Handicap Tourney on 22/Jun had the same result as last year's - young Henrik Stepanyan was outright winner, while his sister Astghik Stepanyan tied for second place. Our congratulations go to them both. Incidentally, one of Henrik's tournament games is discussed on GM Nigel Davies's ChessBase DVD, Chess for Scoundrels. |
The 1st 2009 Lightning Tournament was held 15/Jun. First was Neil Owen, second was Marek Soszynski, third was Larry Hayden. Neil now overtakes Tristan Cox as the player with the most Lightning Tournament victories. There is a list of previous winners (since 1996) on the History page.
Raise your glasses and clap your hands (but not at the same time) for:
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| Our congratulations go to Tristan Cox on being the clear winner of a tourney in Budapest, Hungary. He scored 9 points from 11 rounds in the FM-A First Saturday Tournament Oct/2008, for an impressive performance of 2307 Elo or about 211 ECF. For a conventional crosstable scroll down to the end of the tournament's results page. For more information on the First Saturday Chess Tournament Series, which is very well known in international chess circles, visit www.firstsaturday.hu.
Tristan's past successes included winning the Cardiff Spectrum Open Jun/2006, and after that the Coulsdon Challengers' All-Play-All Tournament Aug-Sep/2006. (Our thanks go to Laszlo Nagy for permission to use the photograph.) |
 | We are proud to announce that at the British Chess Championships held Aug/2008 in St George's Hall, Liverpool, Astghik Stepanyan became the British U14 Girls Champion. The picture on the left shows her being presented with the trophy by the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, Steve Rotheram. (Our thanks go to Stephen Connor for permission to use the photograph.) In the printed ECF Grading List 2008 Astghik appears as the 22nd highest-graded girl in the country. Astghik has benefited more than most from the "new" adjusted grades issued by the ECF alongside the "old" official grades. See our Grades page for hers and everyone else's, although note that the new grading system won't come into use until late summer/autumn 2009. |
| The 3rd Cold War Cake Match, or in other words the annual Warley Quinborne CC v Sutton Coldfield CC friendly, took place 21/Aug at the Midland Red Social Club, Quinton. Our thanks go to opposition captain John Fahy and everyone else at Warley Quinborne Chess Club for their considerable hospitality, and to the players of other clubs who guested for both sides. We look forward to hosting the event next August. |  |
 | This year Sutton Coldfield reinforced the idea that the away side does well in this competition; for we won by a large margin. The photo on the left shows a scene from the lower boards. Seen standing is Gugo Stepanyan watching daughter Astghik Stepanyan on Board 10.
3RD COLD WAR CAKE
21/Aug/2008
Warley Quinborne CC
1 A DRAPER 0 K ESCOTT 1
2 A AGNEW 0 C ECKLOFF 1
3 D LEE 0 H STEPANYAN 1
4 P BULL 1 I DHESI 0
5 S SMITH ½ M SOSZYNSKI ½
6 A BURNET 1 L WRIGHT 0
7 J TURNER 0 R LAWRENCE 1
8 A HUSSAIN ½ C EAST ½
9 J PAKENHAM 0 S EDWARDS 1
10 P THOMPSON 0 A STEPANYAN 1
11 P HUGHES 0 H DHESI 1
12 H WATKINS ½ M BROWN ½
13 P KEARNS 1 G CARPENTER 0
WQCC 4½ SCCC 8½
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 | Sutton Coldfield are the 2007-2008 Birmingham League Division 2 Champions! A large squad of players was used. The picture shows only: Derek Green, Roy Lawrence, Team Captain Keith Escott holding the trophy, Larry Hayden, and Marek Soszynski. Meanwhile our Second Team narrowly missed promotion from Division 3, and unfortunately our Third Team lost its relegation playoff from the same division. |
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.
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?
 | 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
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 | 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. |
 | 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. |
 | 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. |
 | 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.
 | 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. |
 | 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
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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.
