New Darlington Junior Tournament

Event announcement: A new junior tournament, organised by Darlington Chess Club.

Click here for further details.

Library Update

As I keep saying; a lot of people are giving up a lot of their time to create opportunities for people to play chess on Teesside.

Today I met with Brian and Pamela, of Thornaby Library fame.

Brian has done such a lot to popularise chess via the library club and - remarkably - it has been five years since he started the sessions.

Marsh's Angels

Well, the cat is now out of the bag!

We are entering an all-female team into the brand new Cleveland Chess Association D Division, which will start in a couple of weeks' time.

Here is a glimpse of action from the first online training session for Marsh's Angels!

All of the Angels are new to serious chess fixtures, so it will be a very interesting journey.

Has there ever been another all-female team in an 'open' league?

Certainly not on Teesside, so we have already created history without pushing a single pawn.

Event announcement: The Sixth Teesside Megafinal

Event announcement:

The Sixth Teesside Megafinal, representing the second phase of the 2023 Delancey UK Schools' Chess Challenge, will take place at the magnificent Princess Alexandra Auditorium (at Yarm School) on Sunday 30 April 2023.

Entries will soon be open and updates will follow here.

Meanwhile, our CSC Teesside schools will soon be starting the first round of this year's competition.

Très Bien!

Très bien!

My book, ‘Batsford's Chess Bible’, will soon be available in French!

Bank Robber

I tried some games of Bank Robber chess yesterday.

White starts with a lot of knights; Black only has one.

Captures are not allowed. The cops have to chase the robber to the side of the board and arrest it by preventing it from moving.

It took a lot of cops to catch the robber, but eventually they managed to do so.

Open Day

Having a good time at the Yarm Preparatory School Open Morning.

The boys who teamed up to challenge me on the big board were not too keen for me to post my checkmate against them on social media, yet here it is.

A Surprise Reunion

I had a very pleasant surprise at Errington Primary School today, when I was re-introduced to a former pupil of mine.

Sarah, who has gone on to do many great things in life, played in all of my junior events in the 1990s, including county matches, individual championships, 24-hour chess marathons, Summer Schools and lots of others.

We share lots of great memories from numerous chess capers and expeditions across the UK.

Sarah was always extremely loyal, worked very hard and never failed to set a perfect example of how to represent Cleveland (when we still had county status) in exemplary fashion.

An extraordinary reunion!