A Visitor from the East!

A couple of weeks ago we had the great pleasure of welcoming back, just for one night, a KCC member from pre-covid times, Algis Toleikis. Algis was visiting Kenilworth with his family from his home land of Lithuania, and found time to pop into the Ale Rooms to catch up with a few old friends and play some chess. I say a few, because only Joshua and I of the older club members were there initially, though Bernard did hot foot it back from Solihull, after a crushing win for the D team, to join in the reunion. But thankfully there were several newer KCC members also in attendance to join in the welcome. A shame that more of Algis' old friends from the Gauntlet days weren't around, but  - no names mentioned - they are bound to miss out on such enjoyable occasions if they opt to sit in a dark room in, say, Fen End instead of socialising with their mates on a Thursday evening! Anyway, I can report that Algis was in excellent spirits and reported that things were going very well back home, where he is once more in the world of academia, but now running his own team and research projects. He certainly looked in good health!

Algis, flanked by Dylan and - lurking in the darkness - Joshua 

Algis' chief enemy was always the clock, but there seems to have been a remarkable transformation in the last few years, as within about 90 minutes of arriving at The Ale Rooms, he was doing the unthinkable, and playing a bullet game with Steph! As preserver of club morals (and club chess clocks!) I have since had to outlaw this practice on club nights as being far too exciting for a respectable chess club, but it was certainly quite a sight on that particular night.

I was extremely fortunate to win my single rapid encounter against Algis that evening, as he was giving me a very hard time for most of the game. There's no doubt he would be a very useful player for us if he ever gets the urge to return to Warwick University!

But the really big news he was able to tell us was that he had recently notched up a GM scalp. It was in a simul, but it was still a GM - and not any old run of the mill GM, but quite a celebrity in the chess world. His victim was Viktorija Cmilyte, a former European Women's Champion who has been a (full) GM since 2010, with a peak FIDE rating of 2542. She is also well known as the former wife of GM Alexei "Fire on Board" Shirov and, since 2013, as the wife of Peter Heine Neilsen, Danish GM and chief coach/second of Magnus Carlsen for many years. She is largely inactive in the chess world these days, as her career has taken her into politics where she is currently Speaker of the Seimas - the Lithuanian Parliament.

Algis in play against Viktorija Cmilyte. Little does the GM know what is about to happen! 

Regrettably, the whole game has not been saved for posterity ...... but the conclusion has! In this complex position, both teams are on the verge of landing knockout blows to the opposing king. Despite the excitement, the all seeing chess engine tells us - almost inevitably - that it is a dead draw. The evaluation, of course, is 0.0! But you still have to find the right moves, and even for a GM that can sometimes prove to be too difficult a task!

Bravo, Algis! A great scalp. Best of luck for your life and career in Vilnius from everyone at KCC. It was great to have had you as a club member for a few years, and it was a real pleasure to see you again. And hopefully it was not for the last time!

Season Review/Double Quick Time!

 Kenilworth D completed their League program last night with a convincing 3.5 - 0.5 victory away to Solihull B. While we rightly celebrate the fact that our A and B teams are first and second in Division 1, and that the C team is vying for promotion from Division 2, it would have seemed fanciful not so long ago that we could also have a D team that is so strong. 

Yet we were right up there with the Division 2 pacesetters until quite recently, and are ending the season comfortably in mid-table, with a Cup final to look forward to. As well as Solihull B, we've also triumphed against Banbury B and Olton B and have drawn one of the two matches against every other team in the Division (including Leamington A) - with only Kenilworth C doing the double over us (with a little help from our star player following Keatan's promotion.)

Dhairya has topped scored for the D team with 5/8 and secures my captain's award, as our team's player of the season as a result. Without doubt, Dhairya has a very bright future ahead of him. 

We've used ten players in all, nine of whom got on the scoreboard. In terms of the other 6 who played more than one game - Keatan's help on Board 1 in the first half of the season was terrific, and he thoroughly deserved his subsequent promotion to the C team. We were very fortunate that we subsequently picked Michal up out of nowhere, and he proved to be an excellent replacement on Board 1 in the final stages of the season. Bernard Rogers, Phil and Solomon all played a decent number of games to good effect. I played the most of all (10 of the 12) and if far from spectacular was pretty solid. Hopefully I have something to build on after a steadier season than the previous one. 

So how did we beat Solihull having lost to them 0.5 - 3.5 at home a matter of weeks ago? Well, the short answer is very quickly. Dhairya was stuck in traffic so we kicked off a player down, with Dhairya arriving at 7.45, prior to the single most eventful 15 minutes of the season.

Bernard was playing Paul Silverman and Paul walked headlong into an awful trap, with multiple pieces including his queen under attack. It was just horrible for him straight out of the gate. I settled down to think about my move against Shivakumar Akshath, when I heard an end of game conversation breaking out, and the sound of pieces being tidied away. I assumed Paul had decided to call it a night, but to my amazement saw that Matthew Allen had resigned his game against Dhairya, after ten minutes of playing time. Dhairya literally hadn't even taken off his coat! Again, Matthew had walked into a trap and couldn't face playing on. So Dhairya was able to head for home barely before he had arrived, having put us in a great position.

There is no better player when he is ahead than Bernard. In hindsight, Paul probably wished that he had followed Matthew's example and resigned earlier... With a glint in his eye and a ruthless level of efficiency on the board, Bernard spent the next 45 minutes or so brutally demolishing his opponent. It was a joy to watch and we were 2 - 0. It wasn't even 8.30!

I had a slight edge against Shivakumar and I thought Michal also looked better, so I offered the draw that would secure us the two points, and wasn't that surprised when it was accepted. The team had achieved a famous scalp!

I actually headed home at this point so I could enjoy the end of Chelsea - Man Utd. (I am a Man Utd fan, so I didn't, but that's another story...) But Michal's subsequent text to tell me he had won against Julian Summerfield was welcome news indeed! 

Hopefully the U8750 team can repeat this triumph when we return to Solihull to play Olton on the 8th May. It really has been a very good season. While the D team won't grab the headlines, all involved should be really proud of their efforts.

 

One More than a Threepeat is Presumably a Fourpeat?!

Normally I'd not have waited some 10 days or so to report on a League winning victory for one of our teams, but these were not normal times, as I flew off to Dubai the day after our A team clinched the title with a 3.5-0.5 win over Stratford A. And even I am not so sad that I was willing to spend my exotic holiday slaving over a hot blog!

But all good things are worth waiting for, so now the full story can be told. I decided to leave myself out of the team (a) because I thought I would be too excited to play on the eve of my trip to the Middle East; (b) because I'm not playing very well; and (c) because Billy was available, and it was the first time he and Jude had played together in the A team - an historic occasion! With a 20-something in the shape of Javier also in the team, it was left to Bruce to play on the Oldie board, as the team's average age came in at around 28. Not exactly in keeping with the KCC demographic of recent years!

I adjourned to the bar to chat to Billy's Dad and Jude's Mum, but before you could say Jack Robinson, two games were finished. First Javier drew with Black on Board 1 against Ben Larkin. Both players bashed out a lot of theory; Javi got the move order wrong; Ben didn't notice; and it was a draw by perpetual. Al most immediately Richard McNally gave up a piece for a couple of pawns against Jude on Board 2, but followed up by then getting his queen trapped, and so it was 1.5-0.5 to us and we just needed another half point to clinch the title.

But it wasn't exactly plain sailing. Both the remaining games were very complicated and it wasn't clear to me who - if anyone - was better. Especially when Bruce didn't quite manage to trap a White knight that had got itself stranded on g7. But I shouldn't have worried, as Sam Cotterill got into serious time trouble and couldn't hold the position together once Bruce's rooks got motoring. So the Division 1 title was ours - for the fourth consecutive time - and only Billy's game against Richard Dobedoe was still in play. I wasn't entirely convinced that his earlier attack had been entirely sound, and as material reduced I became even more concerned.  I re-entered the room while Billy was thinking in the following position. (Actually it may not be the exact position, but its as close as I can recall. All the key pieces are certainly on the right squares.)

It wasn't at all obvious to me how he was going to continue, but when he played Rf5!! it all became clear. I had to leave the room in case my excitement gave the game away, but by the time I returned it was indeed all over as Billy had been given the chance to finish things with a beautiful queen sacrifice.

There are still 2 league matches to go for the A team, but we are now unassailable in first place, as the B team has finished its fixtures - and is guaranteed to finish second for what is - I very much suspect - an unprecedented 1-2 for the club. And maybe for any club. I shall have to do a bit of digging to see if this is correct.

No music this week, because there's something much better available - a recording of my horse Diligent Harry (and when I say my horse, I really mean my 7% share of my horse) running a stormer in Dubai last Saturday to finish third in a Group 1 race on Dubai World Cup day. As he was named well before our own diligent C team Captain Harry joined KCC, I can confirm that any similarity is purely coincidental. And I'm sure you'll all approve of this change from music to horse racing, if only because the video is much shorter than normal!

The Killer Queens of Coventry

How did that happen? We were winning on at least 3 boards in the final of the Coventry League KO Cup on Tuesday evening, but when the overweight person stopped singing, we had lost the match 1.5-2.5, and our first chance of silverware for the season had disappeared.

Mike finished first, drawing with Black against Ed Goodwin on Board 4 - a result the smart money would have been on at the outset. I saw virtually nothing of the game, but I gather Mike equalised and held a slight edge, but Ed just played very solidly and shut the game down to a draw.

I finished next, being the first victim of a sudden swarm of Coventry Killer Queens which attacked the Kenilworth team. I was much better out of the opening against Jonathan Fowler; missed an absolutely crushing, but very complex, piece sac; then missed a more prosaic way to establish a won position; before falling to equality around move 30. By move 33 I was completely lost, as I had a total mental blank and failed to notice that an obvious move of Jonathan's was check. Even after he'd played it I tried to make an illegal move. However, the fact it was check made rather a big difference, and I was virtually forced to give up my queen (and a pawn) for a rook and knight. But my king was unsafe and I couldn't find anything better than to force him to sac an exchange to secure two monstrous central passed pawns which - shepherded forwards by a killer queen - overwhelmed by two rooks and won the game.

But we could still win the match on board count if we could muster 1.5/2 on the top two boards. One point was in the bag, as Javier had simply taken a gambit pawn in the opening and held on to it without any semblance of counterplay for Black. By the time I could take a look at the game again, he had won a second pawn, and when he added a third - in what was now a single rook ending - Francis Sagyaman decided enough was enough.

But it didn't save us, as tragically Bruce had succumbed to another Coventry killer queen, this time in the hands of a certain Joshua Pink. Joshua started the inevitable madness early in the game, and Bruce made a fatal mistake in going along with him on his crazy adventures in Pinkland. This time round the Kenilworth player got a rook and two pieces for the queen, but that was hardly important - what really mattered was that Joshua was in his element and subjective assessments were pretty irrelevant given the massive material imbalance. When the White queen rook and knight all advanced to the 7th and 8th ranks, the large but hopelessly uncoordinated collection of Black pieces couldn't hold the balance, and Bruce lost on time when unable to find a defence to the White invasion. Score 2-0 to the Coventry Killer Queens!

This was all very disappointing (we did have a rating advantage on all 4 boards - particularly pronounced on my board!), but other than mea culpa, there's not a lot more I can say.  The only thing we can do now is to make sure we win the Leamington League Open KO Cup, where we are due to play Stratford in the Final on May 8th (at Solihull).

I think you all know what song's coming up. Though don't make the mistake of thinking that I like it. Far too popular for my tastes! Still, at least its blissfully short.

Top of the League (Temporarily) - Part 6 (the finale)

 Not much to this post, other than I want to put this here for one last time:

If we all agree to end the season now, then the most deserving team will win the league. I should also point to the extremely surprising fact we managed to have a +7 match results difference, with only +6 game points, which can't have happened many time before.

I don't wish to dwell too much on our last couple of games (a loss to Banbury and then a victory over Shirley), as my teammates decided to cram a whole season's worth of captaincy stress into the last two games; with late arrivals, blundered pieces, and a refusal to take pieces when our opponents blundered them. Therefore, I thought I would focus more on overall achievements for the season.

My task was definitely made easier by having 3 players who managed to play every game in the season, with the following results:

• Andy P - 6/14
• Myself - 7.5/14
• Mike - 9/14

Andrew definitely gets the excuse of having by far the hardest competition, but Mike will clearly have to be awarded our MVP trophy. Board 4 is much more complicated, with 6 different players (Paul B, Andy B, Keatan, Bernard, Ben and Harry) having made appearances, with all scoring points along the way. Once you add up the totals across all those players, you end up with:

• Motley collection - 8.5/14

In many ways, I feel this is a good metaphor for my life. I thought I had quite a good season, but in fact I am just a little bit worse than a random selection of people from the club.

Economy of Effort

In our final two matches of the Coventry League Division 1 season I am pleased to report a massive, aggregate score for Kenilworth of 8-0 against two Warwick University teams - and this without actually winning a single game over the board. Now that is what I call economy of effort!

In our penultimate match we turned up at the University to play their B team. Imagine our surprise when the top 3 players were identical to the top three in the University A side we had played the week before. Especially as on this night, Warwick Uni A were supposed to be playing away against Nuneaton. Hmm, suspicious - unless 4 even stronger players had been rounded up (quite possible given the strength in depth at the University's disposal) to play for the A team. As to the match, Bruce went down spectacularly and very quickly against Arya Cont on Board 1, and Ben went down much more slowly on Board 4. Mike's game against Tom Brown was very interesting and he very nearly crashed through with a winning attack, but had to settle for perpetual. I was in  desperate straits against Damirali Magzumov - who had already beaten me earlier in the season - but thanks to sheer bloody-mindedness, a couple of good moves by me and some missed opportunities for my opponent, I somehow held on for a draw. So 1-3 on the night, but what would the League make of the composition of the University B team? Well, since the University A team did not show up at Nuneaton that night, the answer was not very much. Fortunately, though, there was no need to get into any row over whether this default and transfer of players to a lower team was within the rules (still don't know the answer to that!), as there was a more simple rule transgression with the University Board 1, and captain, being ineligible to play for the B team. So his result, and that on all boards below, were scored as 1-0 to us! Which is how we won 4-0 without winning a single game. The ruling didn't help anybody get back their lost grading points, but it did give us 2 match points in our quest for second place.

And then to cap it all, this week's home match against University A was also reduced to a non-event when our opponents were unable to raise a team at all - despite finding 15 players to play in 4 other teams fielded that night, all of whom were eligible to play in their A team! This is, of course, all highly unsatisfactory from a competitive perspective, as random defaults by the League's strongest side play havoc with the integrity of the final table, which shows us to have finished in second place, within 1 point of Warwick University A, even though they were clearly miles better than us.  I expect a discussion on this at the League AGM, though I'm pretty sure we've been down this road before.

So 8-0 to Kenilworth, with not a win for us to be seen anywhere!

In keeping with the bizarre events of the last two matches, I couldn't think of a more appropriate piece of music than this!

One more match remains in our Coventry League season, as we face Coventry A in the final of the KO Cup next Tuesday. I am pretty confident that they will at least show up for this, as they have - yet again, and for unspecified reasons - been given home advantage.

They Couldn't.......Could They?

4 wins on the bounce has seen Kenilworth C come out of the pack into a clear second place in the 2nd Division and this run, combined with Leamington A losing their penultimate game of the season has opened up a slim possibility of the league title ......we just need to win our remaining 3 games of the season.

First up - Solihull B, who we had yet to play as their season started after Christmas. It all started smoothly, games looked very balanced, Keatan playing a symmetrical English as black, Bernard was facing a lot of pawn advances but looked ok to me, I had negotiated the opening with an edge as black and Ben looked like he had the edge on Board 4. 

Bernard then took advantage of his overstretched opponent and won a couple of pawns, Keatan was taking the initiative (although it had eaten into his time) and Ben looked threatening although still equal. Great, I thought, as my edge had fizzled out due to some smart play by my opponent. This left me thinking a draw would be enough and indeed my opponent offered me one which I declined as I wanted to see how the games played out and my position contained no real risks.

But Bernard then got on the receiving end of a series of checks by the opposing Queen that he could not escape - 1/2 point. Ben contrived to lose a pawn heading into the end game but solidly stopped his opponent progressing and gained another 1/2 point. Keatan's game looked in a good place but could he win with the time remaining on his clock? Suddenly my game might need to be won....

I tried to create some pressure in a Queen and Bishop vs Queen and Bishop (same colour) endgame with plenty of pawns on the board - computer says draw (obviously) but I find playing computer moves to be difficult and hoped this was the case for my opponent too. Indeed he abandoned his King's defence to snaffle a pawn and suddenly I spotted a mating trap. With 1 minute each left on the clock, I confidently moved thinking it was in the bag but he simply sidestepped the issue (note to self - the opponent does not have to take pieces when they are offer!) and I was left floundering with very little time and could feel the pressure getting to me........

Fortunately for me, Keatan (not for the first time this season) came to the rescue - I did not see how but he secured the much needed win, leaving me to immdiately take the easy perpetual I had and secure the draw needed for the overall win....phew. Nerves a bit frayed to be honest, but our hopes are still alive (with our 3rd 2.5-1.5 victory in a row). One more win (against Solihull B again) would leave a winner takes all title decider against Leamington A.....

PS - Only when I got home did I find out I had a (pretty simple) win at the end as my nerves over time got the better of me. At least I could reconcile this as the team win was secured so I was happy with my decision to take the half point and it was probably a fair result.

And Then There Were Two

For the gazillionth time this season the A team vaulted over the B team and returned to the top of Division 1 after a 3.5-0.5 win over Solihull A on Monday night. Its fair to say that we fielded a very strong team while our opponents, sitting unusually low in the table, were clearly missing some players. Nevertheless, we've seen in the past that rating gaps seldom convert that smoothly into victories, but on this occasion there were not too many alarms along the way.

Javi scored a very convincing win over Ray Carpenter on Board 2. Ray went wrong in the opening and Javi simply won a pawn with an overwhelming position. In no time at all he was three pawns up, and as these were 3 connected and passed pawns the result was never in doubt.  Bruce was next to finish against Tony Sadler on Board 3. I only looked at this game twice - the first time, Bruce was a pawn up and the second he had added an exchange. Plus he had all the play against White's long-castled king. Andrew - more at home on Board 1 for the B team - found himself on Board 4 against a very promising Solihull junior Akshath Shivakumar, who has already made a winning 4NCL debut for Warwickshire Select 2 in Division 3 of the 4NCL. Paul will have to check his records and see if Akshath has broken Jude's record (or is it Billy's?) for the youngest player in Division 1 of the LDCL. Andrew seemed to get a very big plus in the opening, and landed a monster knight on e6 where it was forking 2 Black rooks. He had to be careful about his king safety, as his fianchettoed light squared bishop had disappeared, but he avoided the potential banana skins and wrapped up the victory soon after.

But things had gone less smoothly on Board 1, where Jude had not found a great set-up against Don Mason's slightly innocuous opening set-up, and was soon in some difficulties. He tried to tactic his way out of the problems, but Black had too many loose pieces, and as we all know Loose Pieces Drop Off. But just as one of them was about to, Don offered Jude a draw because he was already in serious time trouble. Jude, being in a lost position, could hardly decline, and was probably very relieved toi take home a half point.

The upshot of this latest A team win is that the Division 1 champions will definitely come from Kenilworth - its just a question of whether it will be the A or B team that gets the trophy.

LDCL League Table as at 05/03/24. Pleasant reading if you are from Kenilworth!

So, to paraphrase a Little Feat song, "Now there's 2 trains running on that line, One train's the A team and the other's some friends of mine."

Top of the League (Temporarily) - Part 5

I feel the title should be self-explanatory by this point. A minor point of note that we (Kenilworth B that is) actually won 3-1 in this match against Olton instead of our usual 2.5-1.5, but I’m in a thoroughly bad mood about the whole thing.

The start of the evening did at least produce some amusing early stress, as our two home matches in one evening became something of a space problem once we realised there was already an AGM taking place in the main bar area, meaning we had to fit 8 boards into the space usually taken up by 4 (or, to be precise, 7 boards there and one in the corridor). The confusion was then confounded by Steph and her opponent’s decision to sit on opposite sides of the table from everyone else in the room, meaning I was constantly confused by which team was doing well on that board every time I looked.

However, focusing on our match for a bit, it all seemed (with one specific exception to be covered later) to go quite well. Andrew as black against Alan Lloyd played an excellent looking gamer, neutralising Alan’s traditional English, winning a pawn in the middlegame and then converting. Keatan also had a nice win in his debut B team game, pushing a pawn up to f6 as white early in the game which, although it never quite led to a mating attack, did stay there for most of the rest of the game, and eventually cost black a piece in the endgame. 2-0 and looking smooth.

3-0 followed not long after, with Mike converting a game I assume he must have been much better in for quite some time. Relatively early on as black, after white had castled kingside, he played Bg4 attacking a white knight on f3. White responded with h3 to attack the bishop, and black captured the white knight. So far so normal, except that white had no piece defending the knight, and so had to play gxf3 in front of his own king. It took a while for this to prove catastrophic, but it looked very ugly for most of the game, and did eventually cost Olton a third point.

The match should have ended 4-0 to us – it did not. I was playing Mark Cundy and, after a not very impressive game from either player, I eventually bumbled into a better rook endgame, normally something I am not that terrible at.

In that position, I played the quite exciting (I think) move Rc7+, sacrificing the rook to get the passed pawn moving as fast as possible. Not a necessary move, other things also worked, but it is winning for me, and I would argue the most fun way to do so. A few moves later, we reached the following position.

You will see three noted possible moves in the position. I spent most of my last 3 minutes deciding between Kb1 and Kb3, thinking they were both winning, and eventually settled on Kb1 it looked the simplest win. It turns out both moves lose for me. I played Kb1, and after b3 I do indeed get a queen, but it turns out I then get mated by c2+, Ra1+ and c1=Q+. The move Kd3 wins for white, but this is a move I did not even notice was a legal one to play. So, a loss from a winning position, and the fancy rook sacrifice wasn’t even the move to blame. What a disappointing way to go back to the top of the table.

Eyes down for the British Rapidplay - and you can watch us live!

This Saturday and Sunday, the British Rapidplay takes place in Peterborough. There are currently 210 runners and riders, with several Kenilworth players in the mix. If you fancy a flutter, I probably wouldn't. But if you must, back the youngsters. Our current seedings are Billy (18), Jude (27), Joshua (91), Keatan (113) and me (131), albeit clearly I am just lulling everyone into a false sense of security! Apologies, of course, if I have inadvertently missed anyone from this list.

The great news is, you can watch the action live. Every board will be streamed in real time, via this link (or some such.) Chess-Results Server Chess-results.com - 2024 British Rapidplay Championship

Mark watched last year as myself, Josh and Bernard Rogers strutted our stuff. He said it was quite an experience, albeit on reflection this might not have been a ringing endorsement of our technique! It is certainly a fun event. Last year I managed to beat WGM Sheila Jackson and to lose to a 1200 within the same afternoon. Albeit, I normally only tell people the first part of this story.

So if you've got time on your hands and fancy watching some weekend chess, check us out. Alternatively, if this has whetted your appetite, perhaps even explore putting in a late entry...