Open Thoughts: Session Five

The Yarm Costa Open Thoughts Sessions started in May 2025 and today brought the fifth event of the series.

These events are strictly by invitation only, partly due to space restrictions and partly due to an appreciation of who will derive the most benefit from the sessions and also who will bring the most to the sessions with their unique and special personalities.

Several players were making their Open Thoughts debuts and they fitted into our ethos very well.

In fact, with 21 people in attendance from ages seven upwards, this was our most varied and successful Costa event to date. There is never any pressure to play chess and the open thoughts aspect - in which anyone can talk confidentially about anything and everything - was particularly important on this occasion.

When Catherine and I started this successful series, we decided: All talk of rating points should be banned and the accent will be firmly on having fun in a very safe environment, with invitations being sent to men, women and juniors of all ages and abilities.

The wonderful Jolita is instrumental in helping us to set up and run the Costa sessions and we always appreciate her help and support.

Thank you to everyone who helped to make the day such a great success.

Here is an index of our Costa and Open Thoughts sessions.

Playing Session

17th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament

Open Thoughts: Session Four

Open Thoughts: Session Three

Open Thoughts: Session Two

Open Thoughts: Behind the Mask

Open Thoughts: Session One

39

Today will make me happy as I will be jumping into the new school year, to start my 39th consecutive year of teaching chess in schools.

It is time for some educational fun and to see what this year’s students have in store for me.

Perhaps I can even make it to year 40, but who cares about that right now? This is the year which matters at the moment and all I want is for the pupils and staff to enjoy our lessons together and hopefully to provide a little escapism for all concerned.

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A Visit to Grind and Gambit

 

Grind & Gambit, the North East’s first chess coffee shop, will be opening in a matter of weeks.

Catherine and I were very pleased to be given the opportunity to visit the shop today, for a sneak preview of the latest developments.

Thank you to Sarah, Peter and Dominic who made Catherine and I feel very welcome and served us some of the shop’s very first coffees as we took the opportunity to learn from some of the chess literature on offer in their growing library.

Big events are planned (not all chess) and we will share the details here in due course.

Costa: Extra Session

Today we experimented again at Yarm's Costa with a purely playing session for a small set of special guests (David Baillie, David Collins, Peter Harker and Richard Harris).

We played 5-minute games for two hours and, although the strict condition was that the results of the games would not be recorded or reported anywhere, a good time was had by all.

Thank you to the one and only Jolita for helping me to set up this session. More Costa sessions will follow soon.

CSC Teesside Tutors' Summer Meeting

Tonight brought the annual end-of-school-year ‘all hands’ meeting of the CSC Teesside tutor team (there is no finer team).

We discussed the year which has just concluded and made plans for 2026-7.

17th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament

Today brought the 17th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, in honour of our late friend, teammate and colleague. It is rare for a memorial tournament to become an annual event instead of a single iteration, but the memory of Mike still burns very brightly and this series has always been entertaining and fun.

The new venue was Costa Coffee in Yarm, as part of our ongoing relationship with that very fine establishment. Thank you, Jolita!

This was the largest such event since 2012 and the first one since 2011 to enjoy the attendance of Mike's widow, Sandra, and Mike's son, Elliot, both of whom presented the trophy at the end of the morning.

Defending champion Kevin Winter, fresh from captaining one of the England senior teams in Albania, was joined by former champions Matt Jackman and Dave Baillie (the only person to have played in every event to date). Numerous players were making their debuts in this event, including several former Teesside junior stars.

The players were split into two groups and there was a random draw to determine the opening choices for each round, which were, of course, all Mike's favourites. Therefore, sharp (Blitz) games were guaranteed. The openings this time were the French Defence: Wing Gambit, Danish Gambit, French Defence: Milner Barry Gambit, Sicilian Wing Gambit and the Modern Benoni.

Group One Results 

Nick Webb, 5/5

Dominic Leigh, 4/5

Peter Harker, 3/5

David Collins, 2/5

Brian Whitaker, 1/5

Group Two Results

Matt Jackman, 4.5/5

Stephen Ollis, 4/5

Kevin Winter, 3/5

Dave Baillie, 2.5/5

Sean Cassidy, 1/5

The two group winners then contested the final and the chosen opening was the King's Indian Defence, with Nick playing White against Matt.

It was a great final, which kept the spectators enthralled from start to finish.

The one and only Catherine Lloyd joined us for the finale.

Matt won the exchange (rook for knight) early on and seemed to be in control of proceedings, but Nick somehow managed to achieve perfect coordination between his queen, rook and knight to produce a deadly attack. Matt, ever-resourceful, tried to return his extra material to nullify the attack, but Nick refused the offer and had the confidence to force his attack through to its natural conclusion.

Therefore, we have a new champion: The Great Nick Webb!

Thank you to everyone who supported the event, which was easily on the best of the series.

Index of Reports on Previous Events

1st Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2010

2nd Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2011

3rd Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2012

4th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2013

5th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2014

6th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2015

7th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2016

8th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2017

9th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2018

10th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2019

11th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2020

12th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2021

13th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2022

14th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2023

15th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2024

16th Mike Closs Memorial Tournament, 2025