4NCL: 20-21 February 2010
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WESSEX 1 |
v |
ANGLIAN AVENGERS |
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1 |
w |
Lock,
Gavin R |
2170 |
½ - ½ |
Talsma,
Paul A |
2252 |
|
2 |
b |
Kawuma,
Steven Male |
2187 |
1 - 0 |
Munson,
Shaun D |
2172 |
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3 |
w |
Neil,
David R |
2157 |
1 - 0 |
Gray,
Mark S |
2089 |
|
4 |
b |
Simons,
Martin J |
2200 |
½ - ½ |
Player,
Edmund C |
2156 |
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5 |
w |
de
Coverly, Roger D |
2109 |
0 - 1 |
Gregory,
Stephen J |
2126 |
|
6 |
b |
Yeo,
Michael J |
2147 |
½ - ½ |
Cook,
Michael P |
2073 |
|
7 |
w |
Clark,
Ian C |
2072 |
½ - ½ |
Merry,
Alan B (J) |
2074 |
|
8 |
b |
Thilaganathan,
Jessica (F) |
1900 |
½ - ½ |
Wallis,
Ian J |
1982 |
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4½-3½ |
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The
weekend started badly when I logged on at 7.20 am to find that Nick Rutter had sent
me an e-mail at 5.00 am saying that he was too ill to travel. Many phone calls followed to chess players
who were asleep. As luck would have it
our normal reserve was awake, but about to embark on Round 2 of the Portsmouth
Open. Eventually Allan found Phil Aston
shortly before leaving. Replacing Board
1 of the first team with Board 6 of the second team led to a lot of board
changes.
Arriving
at the hotel we found that most of us were unable to gain access to our
rooms. Even when I was given a key, the
lock then stopped working which produced a queue of maintenance engineers
unable to understand what had gone wrong!
Wessex
used to have a very nasty habit of losing matches 4½ - 3½ that we should have
won. This was one of the rarer opposite
occasions – losing 5½ - 2½ which looked likely, would not have flattered us!
For example:
Board 2
Last move
before the time control.
White
played 40.Bxf1 allowing 40....Qg3+ 41.Kh1 Qxf3+ 42.Bg2 Qxg4
43.Nf2 Qh4+ 44.Kg1 Bf5 with an unclear position.
Instead,
40.Kg1 Ng3 41.Nxf4 (41.Bd2 is also good) Qe7 42.Qxe7 Bxe7 43.Be1 trapping the
knight and winning at least a pawn.
Board 4
With
seconds to reach move 40, White played 28.Rxg5 and offered a draw.
After 28....Qxc4+
29.Rc3 Qf1+ 30.Kc2 Qf2+ 31.Kd1 Black has no good way to avoid giving perpetual.
Instead,
28.Rh8+ Kf7 29.Rxd8 Rxd8 30.Qxc7+ wins a rook.
Board 6
54.Kg3 (nothing wrong with this since Black is tied up, but the K + P ending
after 54.Qxd8+ Qxd8 55.Nxd8 Kxd8 56.Kg3 also wins comfortably)
54....g5 55.fxg5 Qe1+ 56.Kf3 Qf1+ with perpetual.
Instead,
55.Qxd8+ Qxd8 56.Nxd8 gxf4+ (56....Kxd8 57.f5 or 57 fxg5 both win) 57.Kxf4 Kxd8
58.Kf5 wins
e.g.58....c5
59.bxc6 b5 60.Kf6 b4 61.Kxf7 b3 62.e6 b2 63.e7+ Kc7 64.e8=Q b1=Q 65.Qd7+ Kb6
66.Qb7+ Kc5 67.Qxb1
Jessica
had Black against an opponent she had lost to last season with White, but this
time made no mistakes. Gavin’s game
featured the Dutch Defence (as had 3 of his previous 4 games) but not a line he
was familiar with and he was under some pressure until able to generate
sufficient threats to force his opponent to take a perpetual. After about 3 hours, we were distracted by
Martin’s opponent banging his clock. It
looked as though Martin had 59 minutes to his opponent’s 20, but closer
inspection revealed that this was 20 seconds in which to make around 10
moves. Fortunately he was threatening
mate and while Martin thought for 45 minutes he was unable to find a sensible
way to avoid delivering perpetual.
1½ -1½
after 4 hours, but things were still not looking very good. Four members of the team had played a total
of 55 rated games in the previous month at Gibraltar, Moscow and Uxbridge but
it was a player who was playing his third game in a year who provided the first
success. While unable to check-in, in common with many others, David was to be
found in front of his laptop. Unusually
he was also to be seen perusing an old book containing strange words like
Kieseritsky and Muzio. Thankfully, his
opponent chose a line from the chapter headed Falkbeer that David was familiar
with. In atypical King’s Gambit fashion, he successfully nursed a significant
space advantage into an endgame which he was able to win. I carelessly lost a
pawn in the opening and never recovered until my opponent allowed a perpetual instead
of swapping off into a winning K+P ending.
Ian decided that it was worth sacrificing a pawn in order to get queens
off the board against his junior opponent.
He missed one chance to recover and seemed to be heading for a lost
ending when he managed one of his traditional Houdini escapes. Roger shed pawns at frequent intervals until
he reached 2 rooks v queen + 6(!) pawns.
His opponent declined many earlier chances to wrap things up by QxR.
Unusually,
we ate at the hotel. This had a
significant advantage in that we were able to return to the tournament hall at
frequent intervals to check on Steven’s progress. Earlier he had had a very cramped position
but he extricated himself into an ending with 4 pawns for a piece which he won
just before 9 pm.
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BARBICAN 4NCL YOUTH |
v |
WESSEX 1 |
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|
1 |
w |
Twyble,
Michael S |
2264 |
½ - ½ |
Lock,
Gavin R |
2170 |
|
2 |
b |
Dorrington,
Chris J |
2262 |
1 - 0 |
Kawuma,
Steven Male |
2187 |
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3 |
w |
Hodgson,
John H |
2181 |
½ - ½ |
Neil,
David R |
2157 |
|
4 |
b |
Sen,
Subin |
2117 |
½ - ½ |
Simons,
Martin J |
2200 |
|
5 |
w |
Manley,
Jon P |
2146 |
1 - 0 |
de
Coverly, Roger D |
2109 |
|
6 |
b |
Smith,
Ivor BN |
2145 |
½ - ½ |
Yeo,
Michael J |
2147 |
|
7 |
w |
Farrand,
Julian T |
2112 |
½ - ½ |
Clark,
Ian C |
2072 |
|
8 |
b |
Cumming,
Rhys (J) |
1969 |
1 - 0 |
Thilaganathan,
Jessica (F) |
1900 |
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5½-2½ |
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Only the two junior members of the
opposition team on boards 4 and 8 had survived from the team that had faced Wessex
2 last season. Half-term meant that the
rest had been replaced by a variety of somewhat less youthful players!
Gavin and Martin drew relatively
quickly without an awful lot happening.
David was denied the opportunity to play the Marshall but had an
excellent position before his opponent escaped. Jessica played her favourite
line against the Grünfeld but one suspects that her opponent knew this and was
well prepared. 
In
a week when the Daily Telegraph described me as “a gifted attacking player” my
gifts were those donated to my opponent as I sacrificed a queen, two bishops
and a knight twice and unsurprisingly ran out of material to win with.
My original intention in this
position had been something along the lines of 14.Bxf6 gxf6 15.Nxe6 fxe6 16.Qxe6
Bf8 17.exf6 which looked (and is) rather unclear.
I then realised that I could
sacrifice my queen for quite a lot of material:
14.exf6 hxg5 15.fxe7 Rxh3
16.exd8=Q+ Qxd8 17.gxh3 gxf4
Only
now did I realise that the Black pawns could become quite dangerous
particularly if he gets in e5, f5 and g5.
It is possible that 18.Ne4 does
preserve some advantage, but I felt that more drastic measures were necessary
to deal with all those pawns:
18.Bxb5 axb5 19.Ndxb5 d5
20.Nxd6+Kb8 21.Nxb7 Kxb7 22.Nxd5
Now
if this latest desperado is taken, Black has no good way after 22....exd5
23.Rxd5 of preventing Red1 followed by Rxd7 with some reasonable winning
chances.
Unfortunately, he declined it with 22....Qg5 23.Nc3 f3+ 24.Kb1 Ne5 when his f pawn takes a lot of stopping.
We
eventually reached this position.
It is possible that White can draw
with 35.Rd1, but given what had gone before, it was more fitting to play 35.Nxf5 exf5 and accept the offered draw.
Houdini on board 7 put on another
fine display. In a lost R+P ending 2
pawns down, he contrived to win 3 pawns and reach a position that Martin would
have contemplated trying to win. Steven
was doing fine until blundering on move 40. Roger unsuccessfully tried
rewriting early 90’s Four Knight’s theory.
This result finally consigns us to
the relegation pool where even losing our last 4 matches might not be enough to
get relegated!
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WESSEX 2 |
v |
FCA SOLUTIONS 2 |
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1 |
w |
Jenks,
Bruce |
2127 |
1 - 0 |
Elwin,
Adrian G |
2013 |
|
2 |
b |
Tunks,
Dominic |
2076 |
0 - 1 |
Valentine,
Brian J |
1962 |
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3 |
w |
Pleasants,
Allan J |
2079 |
1 - 0 |
Matthews,
Adrian MS |
1936 |
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4 |
b |
Gregory,
Keith DF |
2060 |
½ - ½ |
Adebajo,
Olufemi |
1952 |
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5 |
w |
Taylor-Bowd,
Philip J |
2043 |
½ - ½ |
Shaw,
John S |
1930 |
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6 |
b |
Aston,
Philip M * |
1922 |
½ - ½ |
Grainger,
Benjamin P |
1562 |
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3½-2½ |
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BRAILLE CHESS ASSOCIATION |
v |
WESSEX 2 |
|||
|
1 |
w |
Crouch,
Colin S |
2342 |
1 - 0 |
Jenks,
Bruce |
2127 |
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2 |
b |
Ross,
Chris N |
2205 |
½ - ½ |
Gregory,
Keith DF |
2060 |
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3 |
w |
Gibbs, Peter C * |
2002 |
½ - ½ |
Taylor-Bowd,
Philip J |
2043 |
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4 |
b |
Armstrong,
William G |
1966 |
0 - 1 |
Tunks,
Dominic |
2076 |
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5 |
w |
Hilton,
Steve H |
1891 |
1 - 0 |
Pleasants,
Allan J |
2079 |
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6 |
b |
Ross,
David J |
1802 |
½ - ½ |
Aston,
Philip M * |
1922 |
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3½-2½ |
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Last modified: March 30, 2010
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