News Archive 2013

Checkmates Withdrawn

Birmingham Checkmates have withdrawn from the Birmingham League. Their matches against our Divisions 4A, 4B and 6 have been deleted from the schedule.

South Birmingham Friendly

This took place at South Birmingham's venue on Monday 3rd September. A full report appears on the Friendlies page.

Division 6 Extra Matches

Mutual Circle have entered Division 6 and the team will play them at home on Tuesday 5th March 2013. The team will go to Solihull on Wednesday 17th October.

Fixtures 2012

The fixtures for all Olton Teams are available on the relevant teams' pages and as a PDF Document here...

Registrations for the current season are on the Birmingham League page. Please note that members will either be required to join the ECF membership scheme as a Bronze member (£12 if done through the League Scheme), or pay a game fee of £2.00 per game. Olton Captains will not select any non-ECF member who is more than one game (ie £2.00) in arrears.

Friendly Matches

The annual Friendly match against South Birmingham takes place on Monday 3rd September, at Moseley All Services Club. Members will be contacted for availability for this match.

There was a friendly match against Shirley & Wythall on Tuesday 14th August. Shirley had a convincing win of 10½-3½.

Olton v South Birmingham

The 26th Annual Friendly match took place at Olton's venue on Tuesday 27th August 2013. This match was the best attended for some years, with 25 players a side.

Olton were outgraded on most of the boards and there were once again large chunks of the scorecard littered with losses for the home side. The Olton top boards did not fair as well as might have been hoped and the middle order recorded just half a point from 8 games.

Jeff Elson on board 24 opened the scoring for Olton, but South Birmingham were soon in the lead when their relatively inexperienced lower boards scored wins against Bram Garner, Bill Yeomans and If Ali. Tom Evans (Snr) had his second friendly match win on board 20, beating a former comrade at Mutual Circle.

Ken Allen's efforts to distract Martin Smyth with his shirt came to nothing and Ken was soon joined on the losers' bench by Mark Cundy and Rob Wallman. There were draws on the top boards for Phil Holt and Alan Lloyd and Richard Smith won on board 4.

Young Tom Evans won on board 17 and Pete Singh should have done better on eighteen. There were draws for Warren Archibald and John Clulee. Robert Reynolds drew on board 7 after an entertaining game which saw pieces hanging everywhere and dangerous mate threats. Richard Reynolds on eight also drew after an exciting (if totally unsound opening), a desperate attempt to stay in the game to the ending and a couple of tactical errors by his opponent in time trouble.
 

Simultaneous Display

Bill Yeomans with an early Queen sortie as Phil ponders Ken Allen's move.

Phil Holt gave a simultaneous display to club members and invited guests on Tuesday 31st July. Fourteen players of various strengths took part and most gave a good account of themselves. Phil won 11 games and drew 3, although his father Trevor lost after having good winning chances.

Trevor Holt, Steve Chadaway, Ken Allen & John Clulee early on. Bram
Garner (out of shot) looking at a dangerous advanced Black Knight.

Ken Allen forced a draw and Phil had to force a draw against Robert Reynolds an exchange down. Richard Reynolds was several pawns up, but couldn't find a win in the head-to-head and agreed a draw.

10-Second Tournament

A lightning (10 second) tournament was held at the club on Tuesday 10th July, which attracted 15 players. Mark Cundy was the overall winner, with 5 points out of 6. Robert Reynolds was second on 4½, closely followed by Frank Jimenez and Tom Evans on 4 points.

Summer Tournament

The Annual Summer tournament started on Tuesday 1st May, with an entry of 28 players. The full result appears here...

In Round 2, Richard Smith went to 2 points after beating Frank Jimenez. Ken Allen had a quick win against Bram Garner.

Mike Walker (below) beat Gary Evans and Jim Gillespie beat stand-in Richard Liszewski. Phil Holt went to two points with a win over Alan Woollaston and Kim Gilbert beat John Clulee.

Round 3 saw Richard Smith take the lead on three points. Mark Cundy held Phil Holt to a draw and Dave Brown fought hard for a draw against Trevor Holt. Jim Gillespie took all night, but eventually beat Paul Heeney.

In round 4, Phil Holt went into joint 1st place by beating Richard Smith. Dave Brown had a bad game and lost to Jim Gillespie. Mark Cundy's win over Trevor Holt meant that he was level with Phil on 3½.

Round 5 has taken place, but with several games outstanding, and the fixtures meeting on Tuesday 19th June, the next full round will take place on 26th June.

Round 6 saw Robert Reynolds take the joint lead on 5/6, after beating Richard Smith. Phil Holt beat Richard Reynolds to reach the same score and Dave Brown continued a good run to beat Frank Jimenez and arrive at 4½ points. Ken Allen scored a good draw against Mark Cundy and Craig Mills beat stand-in Richard Liszewski. John Clulee's finish against Paul Kelly was well-executed, with all three major pieces in diagonal contact with the King. Trevor Holt was again buckling his swash against Allan Woollaston, the latter's King caught up in a deathly crossfire from Trevor's pieces.

Round 7 saw a quickfire win by Frank Jimenez against Craig Mills. Phil Holt completed a tournament win by beating Robert Reynolds. Tom Evans carefully steered past John Clulee to win the Minor section. Dave Brown won the Major section, despite losing to Mark Cundy.

LDCL Lightning Tournament

Phil Holt won the Leamington League Lightning Tournament, which was held on Wednesday 24th April at Solihull's venue. He dropped just half a point to Robert Reynolds and won the other 8 games to win by a full point from Mark Page.

24 players took part, although the entry from Olton was less than in previous years. Robert finished equal 3rd on 6/9.

BDCL Lightning Tournament

This took place on on Tuesday 12th March at Olton's venue. Teams of 4 players competed in graded sections at the rate of 10 seconds per move. !4 teams entered in two sections.

The event was dominated by South Birmingham Club. Three of their four teams were in podium positions at the end. Their first team won section A and the B team were second. South Birmingham D were top in section B, with Olton B second.

Olton's A team were third equal in the top section, with 12½ points. The team consisted of Robert Reynolds, Mark Cundy, Robert Wallman and Richard Reynolds.

Olton B consisted of Garry Evans, Jim Gillespie and twins Richard & Thomas Evans. They scored 15½ points, just one behind the winners. Jim Gillespie's game in the photo above was an epic affair, where the saying 'The winner is the next-to-last person to blunder' was very appropriate.

Olton C saw Peter Singh, Tom Evans, Bram Garner and Jeff Elson take a more relaxed approach to the game, probably best described as 'Enthusiastic'. They finished with 7½ points and were 6th out of 7, but had a great evening nevertheless. Bill Yeomans was transferred to another team for the night, as was John Clulee.

You can see more pictures on the Birmingham League website.