Match Report: 09/01/25
Thursday 09/01/25
Urmston 3.5 – 1.5 Eccles
Match Card: http://www.stockportchessleague.org.uk/season/div1games.htm
A Division Stockport League
Great Result for Urmston as this is their first match win in A Division in the Stockport League since the start of the season.
Urmston’s newest player Lucas Nyamandi was given a local estimated rating of 1594e. Lucas took part in the open section of Bolton Congress and beat seasoned player Rob Furness who at the time had an August rating of 1957 a grading difference of 363 points
In the Urmston v Eccles match Lucas was fielded on board six winning against Eccles team captain Dave Toole (1895) this game had a grading difference of 301 points.
“Lucas is a very valuable and much admired addition to the Manchester chess community. Eccles Chess Club wishes him every success and happiness at his new club. I was surprised to see that his grading was “only”1594. His standard of play seemed in all honesty, to be more like 1954!! I have no doubt that, if he continues to play at his current standard, it will soon be more accurately reflected when he receives a known rating.”
It is important to remember that players need to be fielded against opponents who are of a similar ability in order to create fairness in competitive chess games.
Man of the Match: Ethan Norris. Nice kid Ethan!!
Nathan’s game was analysed by good friend and mentor: James Buckley.
This is what James said about Ethan’s game
Eccles team captain David Toole awarded the prestigious “Man of the Match” award to Eccles player Ethan Norris for his hard fought draw against International Master Paul Macklin, who is rated 208 points higher than him.
Paul opens with the Sicilian Defence, which Nathan counters with one of the currently popular “Anti-Sicilians”, the Moscow Variation 3. Bb5+. One of the aims of this opening is to take the game out of the very heavily analysed Sicilian lines, starting with 3. d4, such as the Najdorf and the Dragon. Ethan plays 4. a4, which looks to be a very interesting effort to thwart Black’s usual queenside counterplay in the Sicilian.
The chessdrop engine says that Ethan’s move 22. Rg4 is not so good, and says that black now has the advantage, to the tune of -1.0, which is the equivalent of a pawn up. I cannot see anything wrong with the move, and Paul is certainly not able to take advantage of it.
According to the engine, black holds a slight advantage for much of the rest of the game, but Ethan defends solidly and Paul is unable to find the breakthrough.
The game ends in a draw due to threefold repetition, and the engine says the position is completely equal.
Comments can also be found within the board analyses.
Next: Double Match Report: 14/01/25
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Thank you for reading “My Journey through Chess” by Barbara Farrar
‘It is important to remember that players need to be fielded against opponents who are of a similar ability in order to create fairness in competitive chess games’
A very fair comment, but if that is the case then why is Mike Surtees being played in 2nd team matches and Lee Kay in 3rd team with large rating gaps?
Hi Tim, there are only 97 rating points between Mike and Lee, we are allowed up to 100.
There is nothing wrong with your board order at all. My point is that some of the matches you’ve played in the past have had huge rating differences, one example being Eccles 3 vs Bury where some of the gaps between the two players was over 500 points.
So the comment in this report saying about people needing to play players of similar ability seems contradictory to me.
A captain does not know who the opposing captain will be fielded. Bury could have fielded Joel Hutchinson rated at about 1900. The average point rating difference across all six boards is 55 points. If Bury could have fielded a stronger team then the result of the match could have easily been very much different. https://lms.englishchess.org.uk/lms/fixture/73132
The Eccles average is 332 higher. There was also a match vs Altrincham where it was over 400
Yes you’re also right that the opposition was weaker and it is also not your fault that you have a lot of stronger players at your disposal but it just feels hypocritical to me to write that about Urmston given some of the huge rating differences that have occurred in matches involving Eccles this season
I am sorry that my post made you feel like this. Yes, I agree that there have been some big gradings differences in Eccles matches this season, but that has been because the opposing club has, for whatever reason, not been able to field their strongest team.
However, I do understand your comment about the Urmston match. I have rewritten this piece so you are less concerned.
Thanks Tim and I hope we can let bygones be bygones and thank you again for your interest. Barbara.
As a former registration secretary in another league, I can appreciate that clubs sometimes give estimated ratings in all good faith and which they believe are reasonable from the facts known to them at the time of registration. However, there may be other factors which they are oblivious to and It is really then up to the league to make checks to establish if that estimate should be allowed. If the league allow such an estimate then the player’s club cannot really be blamed and that any questions or further evidence about their rating should go to the league rather than the club itself.
Thank you Alan and good to hear from you and nice to know you are still there.
Of course Barbara keep up the blogs I’ve enjoyed reading them!