4NCL: 12-13 January 2008
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OXFORD 1 |
v |
WESSEX 1 |
|||
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1 |
w |
Savage,
Ben D |
2305 |
1 - 0 |
Corkett,
Anthony R |
2306 |
|
2 |
b |
Rose,
Matthew |
2248 |
˝ - ˝ |
Poulton,
James |
2364 |
|
3 |
w |
Shaw,
David A |
2261 |
1 - 0 |
Lock,
Gavin R |
2213 |
|
4 |
b |
Smallbone,
Kieran |
2230 |
˝ - ˝ |
Webb,
Richard M |
2260 |
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5 |
w |
Eckersley-Waites,
Tom |
2215 |
1 - 0 |
Simons,
Martin J |
2228 |
|
6 |
b |
Rawlinson,
Aidan |
2229 |
˝ - ˝ |
Yeo,
Michael J |
2110 |
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7 |
w |
Dickinson,
Timothy R |
2166 |
˝ - ˝ |
Neil,
David R |
2176 |
|
8 |
b |
Lang,
Heather (F) |
2072 |
1 - 0 |
Moore,
Gillian A (F) |
1905 |
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6 - 2 |
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Yet another disadvantage of a venue in the middle of nowhere became
apparent with the comical attempts to reach Wokefield Park by some of the
team. Gillian and I had turned back on
our cross-country route when we found that the River Lodden had expanded
somewhat. Dominic had successfully led
Tony through three separate sets of floodwater, but Tony became stranded in the
fourth. He was very fortunate to be
towed out by a passing 4x4 and arrived just in time, minus his socks!
This match was always going to be very tough and we never really looked
like avoiding defeat. Indeed, the Drawmeister even turned down a draw offer
from the opposition captain on the basis that the match looked to be going
badly, before thinking better of his bravado a few moves later. Dave was
playing a notorious hacker, who true to form found a dangerous looking piece
sacrifice when a much better move was available. Dave successfully diffused the danger to
emerge a piece up, but his opponent still had all his pawns left and was
allowed to construct a barricade. Martin
was made to pay for a slight inaccuracy in the opening. Tony produced a dubious novelty in a trendy
Nimzo line. James was a comfortable 3 pawns to the good but allowed a
perpetual. We reached the time control
3˝ - 1˝ down, but with three losing positions.
Gillian had, if anything, looked a bit better for most of the game until
she anticipated a rook check and touched her king, only to find that the rook
had gone to a different square. Gavin had also built up a promising attack, but
at the cost of horrendous time trouble which led to the loss of the
exchange. With the match already won, my
opponent overpressed, but I failed to take advantage and was left struggling to
draw after most of the team had set off to the pub:
W
Yeo –
Rawlinson (White to move)
Here I played 62.Kf4? and then realised that this loses to
62....Rxh5! 63.Nxh5 c2 64.Rc7 Bd6+
shows one reason why the white king shouldn’t be on a dark square and 63.Rxh7+
Kg6 64.Rxh5 c2 65.Rh1 Kxf6 66.Rc1 Bh6+ shows another reason! 62.Kg4 draws, since if 62....Rg5+ 63.Kh4 Rg7
64.Ng4+ Rxg4 65.Kxg4 the rook is able to stop the pawns. Fortunately my opponent allowed me to escape
with 62....Bg7? 63.Ng8+ Kxh5 64.Rxg7 Rc5 65.Nf6+ Kh6 66.Rg1 c2 67.Ng8+ Kh5
68.Nf6+=
You may eventually be able to read what Oxford thought of the match here.
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WESSEX 1 |
v |
KINGS HEAD |
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1 |
w |
Poulton,
James |
2364 |
˝ - ˝ |
Whiteley,
Andrew |
2265 |
|
2 |
b |
Webb,
Richard M |
2260 |
˝ - ˝ |
McMichael,
Richard |
2253 |
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3 |
w |
Corkett,
Anthony R |
2306 |
1 - 0 |
Okike,
David C |
2189 |
|
4 |
b |
Simons,
Martin J |
2228 |
1 - 0 |
Spivack,
Simon |
2191 |
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5 |
w |
Lock,
Gavin R |
2213 |
˝ - ˝ |
Mackenzie,
Colin |
2124 |
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6 |
b |
Yeo,
Michael J |
2110 |
˝ - ˝ |
Ward,
Julian T |
2145 |
|
7 |
w |
Neil,
David R |
2176 |
˝ - ˝ |
Thomas,
Richard H |
2176 |
|
8 |
b |
Moore,
Gillian A (F) |
1905 |
1 - 0 |
default |
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5˝-2˝ |
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Helped by being 1-0 up since the previous Thursday, this match always looked comfortable, especially once Martin had successfully resuscitated one of his favourite openings:
Spivack - Simons
1.e4 Nc6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4
4.d5 Ne5 5.Bf4 Ng6 6.Bg3 f5 7.Nh3
I was present on two occasions in Jersey
nearly a decade ago when Martin faced this. He lost one and should have lost
the other one. I was intrigued to find out how he had thought he had made this
line playable again.
7.... e5 8.dxe6 Qxd1+ 9.Rxd1
c6
A
move-order nuance. Against Jim Plaskett
Martin had played 9....Bb4 and Jim had whipped the pawn off with 10.Bxc7. After 10....Bxe6 11.Bb5+ Ke7 12.Ng5 Nf6 (12....Bxa2!?) 13.Nxe6 Kxe6 Martin was
slightly better but went on to lose. It
is not clear to me that 9....c6 is any better though since after 9....Bb4
10.Bc4 Black has the additional option of 10....Ke7.
10.Bc4 Bb4 11.0-0 Bxc3
12.bxc3 N8e7
Against a prepared Sophie
Tidman a year after the Plaskett game Martin developed the knight to a
different square: 12...Nf6 13.f3 Nd5? (13...b5 14.Bb3 c5 15.fxe4 f4 16.Bd5
Nxd5 would transpose to the
present game) 14.Bxd5 (14.fxe4!) cxd5 15.c4 dxc4 16.fxe4 f4
17.Nxf4 Nxf4 18.Rxf4 Bxe6 19.Rd6 Ke7 20.e5 with advantage to White although
somehow Martin managed to win.
13.f3 b5 14.Bb3 c5
15.fxe4?
15.c4! Bxe6 and only then
16.fxe4 is an awful lot better for White, so it looks as though Martin has some
more work to do to make the line playable.
15...f4 16.Bd5 Nxd5 17.exd5
fxg3 18.hxg3 Rf8 19.Nf4 Nxf4 20.gxf4 Ke7 21.f5 Kd6 22.g4 h6 23.Kh2 Bb7 24.Rd2
Rad8 25.Kg3 Ke7 26.Rfd1 Rd6 27.Kf4 Kf6 28.Ke4 Rfd8
The
position is won for Black but White now hastens the end:
29.a4? Rxd5 30.Rxd5 Rxd5
31.Rxd5 bxa4 32.c4 a3 33.Kf4 Bxd5 0-1
The Drawmeister found another customer and Dave’s opponent felt that the match was beyond redemption. This left us 3-1 up with four promising positions. However, Jim dithered and Gavin and I played too passively so only Tony was able to get the full point. He always had a big space advantage, and his opponent’s position caused his teammates a lot of amusement with its awfulness, the highlight being an isolated pawn on g6 grimly defended by knights on f8 and h8. Eventually Tony brought an end to his misery.
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SOUTH WALES DRAGONS 2 |
v |
WESSEX 2 |
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1 |
w |
Spice,
Alan |
2144 |
1 - 0 |
Pleasants,
Allan J |
2100 |
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2 |
b |
Brown,
Alan M |
2149 |
˝ - ˝ |
Jenks,
Bruce |
2126 |
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3 |
w |
Rees,
Gwynfor |
2070 |
˝ - ˝ |
Rutter,
Nicholas |
2177 |
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4 |
b |
Roberts,
David L |
2109 |
1 - 0 |
Marsh,
Roger |
2101 |
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5 |
w |
Morris,
Gareth L |
2118 |
1 - 0 |
Taylor-Bowd,
Phil |
2061 |
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6 |
b |
Miles,
Richard |
2035 |
1 - 0 |
Clark,
Ian C |
2106 |
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7 |
w |
van
Kemenade, Rudy |
2029 |
0 - 1 |
Tunks,
Dominic |
1896 |
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8 |
b |
Rees,
Sioned (F) |
1324 |
0 - 1 |
Norman,
Dinah (F) |
1971 |
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5 - 3 |
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Ian Clark reports:
The match against South Wales Dragons 2 was always going to be close. On paper, it should have been our easiest of the season so far. The match started well with Dinah and Dominic having quick wins. Allan was always struggling on top board and so was Phil and he duly lost meaning we were level.
Nick was having an exciting game but seemed to get carried away so was struggling to hold a draw being the exchange down. I had a great position but having forced a double passed pawn missed the crucial attacking move although things still seemed very good. Bruce had been on top but this slipped away and he agreed a draw although there was plenty of potential (on both sides! )
Roger was struggling as well and as the best that Nick could do was draw I turned down a draw offer. I soon wished I hadn’t as I was much worse and was tortured for another hour while my opponent found the winning moves. Roger lost and Nick hung on for a draw so a loss of 5-3 was very disappointing.
This left us needing to get something out of our Sunday game against Slough Sharks 2 who we always enjoy playing against!
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WESSEX 2 |
v |
SLOUGH SHARKS 2 |
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1 |
w |
Pleasants,
Allan J |
2100 |
˝ - ˝ |
Van
Weersal, Arlette (F) |
2168 |
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2 |
b |
Jenks,
Bruce |
2126 |
1 - 0 |
Harborne,
Matthew |
2132 |
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3 |
w |
Rutter,
Nicholas |
2177 |
1 - 0 |
Linford,
Charles |
2131 |
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4 |
b |
Marsh,
Roger |
2101 |
0 - 1 |
Ruston,
Mark R |
2116 |
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5 |
w |
Taylor-Bowd,
Phil |
2061 |
0 - 1 |
Foster,
James J |
2091 |
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6 |
b |
Clark,
Ian C |
2106 |
˝ - ˝ |
Purton,
Ben J |
2112 |
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7 |
w |
Tunks,
Dominic |
1896 |
˝ - ˝ |
Edgell,
Ben P |
2092 |
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8 |
b |
Norman,
Dinah (F) |
1971 |
0 - 1 |
Varnam,
Liam D |
2042 |
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3˝-4˝ |
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Captain Ian again:
As usual most of their players were late.
I was playing Ben Purton on 6 (we were destined to meet) but there were no fireworks and I played a very safe game with black and a draw was agreed.
We seemed after a couple of hours to be struggling on most boards but things changed around with Bruce winning very smartly and Nick was always in charge of his game. With Phil having a bit of a nightmare game this left us 2.5 to 1.5 up.
Dominic was playing his usual suspect opening (!) but managed to manoeuvre his pieces into a drawing position. Roger was having a difficult game and was losing but his opponent was in severe time pressure with about 15 moves for 2 mins and after the dust had settled there was play for both sides with passed pawns. Meanwhile Dinah was trying to hang on for a draw but could not prevent the queenside pawn advantage of her opponent breaking through.
Allan’s game on top board against the Dutch female player was very interesting. Allan was the exchange down but had some good threats which were all stopped and eventually came down to R & K v B & K.
Roger had chances to push his passed pawn but never got it going and eventually the more active play of his opponent won through. Allan’s opponent tried every trick in book to win and despite playing for 6˝ hours eventually agreed a draw (for which Martin, Bruce & myself were all grateful.)
This meant a reverse of 4˝ to 3˝ and a pretty disastrous weekend but we still have all the bottom teams to play.
Last modified: February 25, 2008
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