Jude is an FM!

Fantastic news from the British Championships at Liverpool, where yesterday Jude had a tremendous win over the very strong IM Brandon Clarke (for the second time in a month, both with Black), finishing with a brilliant rook sac. You can play through the game here. After this win, Jude's live ELO rating has gone over 2300, which means he has qualified to become a Fide Master. This makes him only the second KCC player ever to become an FM, after Adam Collinson, though I'm pretty sure Adam didn't reach this milestone at the age of just 15!! Many congratulations from everyone at the club, Jude. Your success is absolutely brilliant.

It was very nearly an even more special day, as Billy was on the verge of taking down another IM, Andrew Ledger, but somehow the more experienced player saved a desperate looking rook ending and prevented an IM-bashing double by KCC juniors. So after 4 rounds of the Championships, Jude has a fantastic 3 pts with Billy on a more than respectable 2 pts. Today its another very tough pairing for Jude, against Ukrainian IM Svyatoslav Bazakutsa, while Billy plays FM Stephen Dishman. Good luck to them both, and indeed to all KCC participants. Which includes myself, of course!

More news as and when I can find the time/energy!

The Storm Before the Even Bigger Storm

It was the second instalment of the inaugural Kenilworth Speed Chess Championships last night, and ten intrepid players assembled to contest a five round rapid chess Swiss with a time limit of 10'+5".

Fresh from my surprise joint first place in leg 1, I found myself as clear top seed this time around, mainly thanks to everyone else having either ridiculously low rapid ratings (yes Keatan, that means you!) or no rapid rating at all. In the absence of our Swiss Manager supremo, Gregory, tournament organiser Ben had to revert to the tried and trusted analogue method of pen, scraps of paper and trial and error to make the pairings, but despite the distractions of also playing in the event, he coped admirably with the pressure and kept the show on the road.

Round 1

Mark 1 – 0 Bernard 
Ben 0.5 – 0.5 Mike 
Dave 1 v 0 Rhys
Keatan 1 v 0 Algis
Patrick 0 v 1 Paul B

Round 2

Paul B 0 – 1 Mark
Mike 1 – 0 Patrick
Keatan 1 – 0 Dave
Bernard 1 – 0 Ben
Rhys 1 – 0 Algis

Round 3

Mark 1 v 0 Keatan
Dave 0 v 1 Mike
Paul B 0.5 – 0.5 Bernard
Ben 1 – 0 Rhys
Algis 1 – 0 Patrick

Round 4

Mike 0 v 1 Mark
Dave 1 – 0 Algis
Bernard 0 – 1 Keatan
Ben 1 – 0 Paul B
Patrick 0 – 1 Rhys

Round 5

Mark 0.5 – 0.5 Ben
Mike 1 – 0 Rhys
Patrick 0 – 1 Dave
Paul B 0 -1 Keatan
Algis 0 – 1 Bernard

At the end of the evening I had just about managed to justify my number 1 seeding, finishing on 4.5/5, ahead of Keatan the rating bandit on 4. The full standings were:-

1 Mark 4.5 
2 Keatan 4
3 Mike 3.5
4= Ben and Dave 3
6 Bernard 2.5
7 Rhys 2
8 Paul B 1.5
9 Algis 1
10 Patrick 0

The tournament was very hard fought, with the 5 rounds not concluding until around 10.30, and many games lasting close to 30 minutes. I almost lost count of the number of drawn out queen endings I had to play!

For the second successive event, I got to the final round with a 100% score (after a very lucky Rd 4 win over Mike) but - just like last time - I found Ben a very difficult opponent. At least this time I didn't lose, which was just as well, as Keatan won his last round encounter against Paul and would have tied if Ben had done the double over me. I don't know what it is about Ben's play, but he's got me totally psyched out now!

The even bigger storm referenced in the title of this article could be either Leg 3 of the KCC Speed Championship (which will be another Blitz event on August 28th) or the imminent British Championships which are about to start in Liverpool. KCC's 2 junior CMs are both in action in the Championship proper (but with starting ranks of 43 (Jude) and 72 (Billy) you can tell this is a monstrously strong event. Keatan is flying the KCC flag in the Major Open, where he is seeded 17th (of 137!) aiming for one of the 10 qualifying places available for the 2026 British Championship. Ben makes his debut in the 50+ Championships (seeded 41) where he is joined by Bruce (start rank 24). Of course, Ben is also playing in a morning tournament as well, and a couple of Blitz evenings. Good luck to him I say, but count me out of such an intensive schedule - I've got sight-seeing, eating, drinking and sleeping to take care of! Keatan, Bruce and - surprise, surprise - Joshua will also be blitzing two of their evenings away. Madness, sheer madness!

Well, why not? It is Liverpool we're going to!

Ed (seeded 60) and myself (21) are the two KCC representatives in the 65+ event. The chances of me repeating my shock joint first in 2019 are consequently very low.

So we haven't quite been able to match the even larger turnout we had in Torquay back in 2019, but its still a respectable showing. Good luck to all and who knows, there may even be a report or two of proceedings posted here.

Now, we've had this song before (no idea if it was this same video), but it would be careless of me not to continue the theme. So here goes.

 

You Wait Ages for a 2700 GM and Then 3 of Them Come Along at Once

The English Championships are under way at the Holiday Inn and Kenilworth has been graced by the presence of not one, not two, but three GMs rated over 2700 ECF. This must be the strongest collection of chess players Kenilworth has ever seen!

Fresh from his slaughter of the innocents at the recent KCC 50th Anniversary Simultaneous Display, Mickey Adams has quickly returned to Kenilworth as the number 2 seed, with an ECF rating of 2726, and following a Round 4 win over number 3 seed Gawain Jones (rated a mere 2723!) has assumed sole leadership as I write with a 100% score. Trailing half a point behind is number one seed, and 2021 Russian Champion, Nikita Vitiugov (2746).  A potentially decisive round 5 encounter between the top two seeds is scheduled for Sunday morning.

Round 1 underway, with Nikita Vitiugov White on Board 1, Mickey Adams Black on Board 2, and Gawain Maroroa Jones on Board 3 nearest the camera (left)

Three of Kenilworth's finest are also in action, with Jude currently leading the way on an undefeated 3/4 after some excellent games. He faces IM Brandon Clarke in Round 5. Keatan and Billy are both on 1.5 pts at the moment, though Keatan will be the happier of the two given his very strong opposition so far. Billy has suffered two White losses which have derailed his progress, but lets hope for a strong finish in the last 3 rounds. We can in any case be massively proud that three of our juniors are mixing it in this ferociously strong tournament. Keep going guys!

Its Hot and Cold as Club Quickplay Championship Begins

It was 29 degrees centigrade in Kenilworth yesterday, as the first of three legs of the new Kenilworth Quickplay Championship got underway. Inside the Holiday Inn, though, it was decidedly parky, as the air conditioning was seemingly turned up to 11 and frostbite, rather than heatstroke, was the more likely affliction for the 12 players who contested a 7 round (slow) Blitz (5" + 2'). There should have been 14 players but Rhys (unwell) and Joshua (who knows!?) were late withdrawals.  But all twelve starters would surely agree with Little Feat that "it was freezing cold in that hotel!" Great version here, with Bonnie Raitt on guest vocals.

The tournament was only able to function smoothly thanks to Gregory, our 14 year old National Arbiter, who was able to set things up on Swiss Manager and handle the pairings, results and grading functions with an ease which made both Ben and I very embarrassed after our own pathetic attempts to master the software!

Javi started off as hot favourite, but something went very wrong in Round 2 when he contrived to lose on time against me, in a probably winning endgame - though as he pointed out to me afterwards, I had missed the one move win of a piece earlier! This put me, Mike and Dave in the early lead but somehow I then just kept on winning, getting myself to 6/6. Before the last round, Javi had recovered to lie in second place on 5 pts, with Dhairya and Ben back in a tie for third on 3.5.

The last round pairing had me as Black against Ben, and all I needed for victory was a draw, but as this is a three leg event, with the best 2 results on game points counting, I decided that it was more important to go for broke rather than try and wimp out with a draw. (Which Ben may not have accepted, of course!) You can all guess what happened next. Ben played a monster game and took several of my pawns before annexing a piece and then delivering mate. Brutal!

Of course, Javi then won his Round 7 encounter with Dhairya to catch me on 6 points. Ben's demolition job on me meant he finished in clear third place on 4.5. But this is just the first of three events, so there's plenty of twists that might happen yet - and the tournament winner might even not have played a single game yet! Who knows who might turn up for events 2 (Rapid) and 3 (another Blitz)? BTW you can play one of these events without being a member of the ECF, but you won't be allowed to play in a second without at least Bronze membership.

So the future dates for your diary are July 31st for leg 2 and August 28th for the potentially decisive leg 3. By the way, there will be a prize of £25 to the overall winner, and £25 to the best placed player under ...... a rating yet to be decided by Ben. Though on the evidence of yesterday's field, the rating cap will possibly be in the vicinity of 1700. Anyway, no need to panic yet as Ben will be in touch with everyone to take entries before each of the two remaining legs.  In the meantime I will enjoy my position as joint leader while it lasts - which will be until July 31st!

KCC Routed in 50th Anniversary Celebration Simul!

It was a great day for the club yesterday, when we hosted a simultaneous display from England's legendary Super GM and 8 time British Champion, Mickey Adams. Well, it was a great day in every respect except the score, as Mickey turned on the turbo chargers to leave us losers by a score of 28.5-0.5! Massive congratulations to Andy Ward for preventing the clean sweep and retaining just a bit of dignity for the club!  In the end there were 22 KCC participants, as Dhairya was unable to get to the venue in time from a football match, plus 7 of Paul's most promising students from the Coventry Chess Academy, who we were delighted to invite to join us. With none older than 11, and three of them only 5 (yes, 5!!) it was something of a baptism of fire to be playing a man once ranked 4th in the world - behind only present/future World Champions Kasparov, Kramnik and Anand! - but they all did themselves and the CCA proud with both their play and their behaviour.

And, as you can tell from the score, it was no better for the older and more experienced KCC contingent. We had managed to bring in 2 of our big guns, Jude and Javier, to fill the top boards and - surely - put us on the scoreboard, but regrettably these were 2 big guns who were only able to fire blanks and were readily put away by the GM. Andy B dropped a pawn early on Board 3 and despite determined play inevitably went down to defeat. I thought I was doing rather well (+1.8 at one point!!) but got well outplayed at the critical moment and ended up in a mating net where my extra piece was not much consolation. On Board 5 Keatan got into a big tactical melee which looked quite promising, but Mickey had seen a bit further and when the fireworks finished he was a pawn ahead and inevitably winning.

I failed to see much of anybody else's games, and while I have collected all/most of the score sheets, I haven't had a chance to play through them yet. (Watch this space - I'm sure that some of the games will feature on the Blog in due course.) At the very end it was only Mike and Algis left, but Mike was powerless to stop Mickey promoting to a second queen, while Algis - the last man sitting - had to concede as a central pawn push destroyed his position and won material.

So full marks and maximum kudos to Andy who, together with Ilyas from the CCA juniors, won a best game prize, selected by Mickey, and each received a signed copy of his ECF Book of the Year, Think Like a Super Grand Master. (Shame none of us read this before the simul!) Naturally, you will want to see how you go about drawing against a Super GM, so here's the game. The Lichess Stockfish tells me that Mickey played at 94% accuracy and Andy at 95%! Impressive or what?! 

Just like Julius Caesar, Mickey would be well entitled to say, "Veni! Vidi! Vici!". So many congratulations to our visiting GM, who was a very friendly and engaging guest - and a frighteningly strong chess player. If Jude, Billy or Keatan can't win the English Championship in Kenilworth in July, I hope its Mickey who can regain the crown he last won in 2023 and only relinquished to Gawain Jones in a play off last year. I should have asked him what piece of music he would like to accompany this article, but as I didn't he'll have to make do with my choice. Looking at the results list it seems to me that there was indeed, from a KCC perspective, "too much blood on the page" (and also "on the Page!"), so I'll let The Gaslight Anthem play us out, in what is only their second ever appearance here.

Trophies Galore

At last week's Leamington League AGM it was raining, not men, but silverware and trophies on KCC. As well as 4 team awards, there were also 3 individual prizes. And just to prove it, here is a picture of them all together for what is probably the only time.

3 humans: (l-r) Andy Ward, Ben Graff, Mark Page
7 trophies: Back (l-r) Division 2, Division 1  Front (l-r) Best Game (Andy W), U8750 Cup, Open KO Cup, Blitz Champion (Javier), Blitz Intermediate (Keatan)

By the way, you can replay Andy's splendid prize winning game (as judged by National Master Don Mason) here. 

Now I bet you all thought you'd guessed what the song would be from the very first line of this report - and that was, indeed, my intention. But my super-new video list has now told me that I've used it before. So hurriedly I've had to go to Plan B. Very tenuous, but its the best I could come up with at short notice. It's got the word silver in, so that will have to do! (The alternatives were David Soul or David Essex who just don't cut it as far as I'm concerned!) Probably a bit too country for some of you, but we're here to cater for all tastes. The rock 'n roll will surely be back next time!

A nice rendition by Poco, but even better, in my opinion, is the original by Gram Parsons. But why don't you decide?

Never Mind the Chess - What About the Music??

As far as I can tell, the first music video to appear on the KCC website appeared on December 20, 2017. It was Tina Turner singing "We don't need another hero". But don't bother going back to try and find it, as the video has subsequently been deleted from YouTube, so no longer appears on our Blog. Little did I realise, when I first discovered how to embed videos into a web post, that the selection of music would become such a big part of the KCC Blog. My semi-scientific research (scrolling back for what seemed like ever through 7.5 years of posts) has revealed that there have in total been some 101 different artists featured across a total of 160 music videos.

You won't be surprised to learn that Bruce tops the table of most appearances. The Top 10 currently looks like this.

Bruce Springsteen        14*
Jackson Browne             9
Bob Dylan                      8
Little Feat                       5
The Kinks                       4
The Allman Brothers      3
Buffalo Springfield         3
The Byrds                       3
Mark Knopfler                3**

The Grateful Dead          3

* Plus 1 with Southside Johnny

** Plus 2 with Dire Straits

There are a further 14 artistes with 2 contributions, and 77 with a single appearance.

The Club Organiser has clearly been progressively losing his marbles, as several songs have appeared more than once by accident - though on a couple of occasions it has been done deliberately, most recently with Fairground Attraction's Perfect, in honour of a second 100% score by Javier at the LDCL Blitz Championships. Going Home, the theme from Local Hero, appeared 3 times in the same post (deliberately!) and Running on Empty by Jackson Browne has also featured 3 times though two of these have now disappeared, having been removed from YouTube. Now I have a list of all the videos, such accidental repetition shouldn't happen again. As long as I keep the list up to date, of course!

In my opinion the weirdest song to appear (so far!) was Charles Jolly's rendition of The Laughing Policeman, though if you want to hear it again you'll have to track it down yourselves as the Blog search function doesn't reference embedded videos. But also pretty weird was John Cage's 4'33" of absolute silence. Still, I prefer this to any of the contributions by Abba or Queen. Not my favourite groups!

Despite being of a certain age myself, I'm pleased to see that the Beatles and Rolling Stones have only managed one appearance each, with their combined score being beaten by both the Kinks and The Byrds, the two best 60's pop bands in my opinion.

But the most astonishing discovery I made going through the Blog's musical history is that one song - which should really have been the first ever - has never made an appearance. Until today. I could have included the live version recently witnessed by the Chairman and Club Organiser in Manchester, but that's an amateur production with very dodgy sound and this song deserves better. Much better. So wrap your ears around this. If its not the greatest rock song ever written, it must be pretty damn close! What a great way to start the second 160 KCC music videos.

We are the Champions! Open KO Cup!

Apologies for being a bit slow off the mark with a Cup Final report compared to Ben. But I've got here in the end, even if I have stolen his headline in the process.

And my goodness, what a performance I have to report. A fifth successive Open KO Cup for Kenilworth was secured on Tuesday (albeit spread over 7 years due to Covid!), when we beat Stratford 4.5-0.5 at Olton. This still leaves us some way behind Rugby's record 7 wins in a row, but as long as the run continues, there's always a chance we might get there! We have now won the Open KO Cup 11 times in total.

Having beaten Stratford A in our recent league match, we were bound to start favourites, as although we were missing Javier from that team, Captain Fantastic Andrew had managed to secure the services of Jude and Billy to make up for his absence. Not a bad trade, you'd have to say! What they lack in years they more than make up for in ability and rating! And as if that wasn't daunting enough, Stratford had the misfortune to be missing their top board, Ben Larkin, and to arrive with only 4 players. Consequently, all I had to do to claim the first point of the night was stay alive until 20.30, and thankfully I managed that.

The first real game to finish was on Board 2, where Jude overwhelmed David Gardner in what looked like a very convincing win - though he did confide in me afterwards that there was one moment where David could have made things considerably more difficult. But once this tactic was missed, Jude started collecting a lot of material and won quickly. Soon afterwards Andrew won against Richard Dobedoe on Board 5 to clinch the match. A Black bishop appeared on h5 attacking a White rook on f3, and unfortunately for Richard there was another White rook on d1, so he was just dropping an exchange. Rather than prolong the suffering he decided to resign on the spot.

Jude won too quickly for me to capture him in action! Billy, meanwhile, looks absolutely thrilled to be playing on Board 1

At which point I took this as my cue to depart for home, leaving Billy and Keatan both in action. Keatan's position against Alexander Roberts was looking rather ropey to me, as he was a pawn down without much/any compensation that I could see. But what do I know - not much later Nash messaged me to say that Keatan had drawn. In contrast, Billy, after a quiet opening with Black, had started to make inroads into Richard McNally's position on top board, posting a very dangerous looking bishop on e4 attacking a White king that was completely lacking any close pawn cover - the g pawn having disappeared and the f and h pawns having marched up the board. I don't know how Billy engineered the win, but it was no surprise to learn that he had found a way and wrapped up a very convincing win, which gave us our fourth consecutive Div 1/Open Cup double.

Keatan (top) thinking hard; The Invisible Man winning on Board 4; and Andrew getting ready to pounce on an upcoming oversight.

Our recent trophy record is getting to ridiculous proportions - it is now 17 trophies in the last 4 seasons with, I think, 15 of them coming in the Leamington League. Kenilworth may be the smallest place to have any teams in the League, but we can certainly punch above our weight! Which is a rather convoluted connection to our song of the week!

Congratulations to every one who played in our latest successful Cup campaign - 4.5-0.5 v Shirley; 5-0 (by default) against Coventry; and 4.5-0.5 against Stratford. 

We are the Champions! U8750 Cup!

 

The Winning Team: - (l-r) Dylan, Dan, Ben, Paul, Dhairya

In the beginning, there were five... This was more or less how I started a recent Chess Magazine article, which focussed on Frank Marshall. In Marshall's (historically dubious) telling of the story, there were originally five Grandmasters.  Just as the names of Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall will live forever in the chess world, future Kenilworth historians will doubtless want to acknowledge the efforts of Badger, Pandya, Graff, Davies and Bayliss in more or less the same breath.

We not only defended the U8750 Cup last night against Shirley, but also managed to do so having played the same team in every round. 

We started out with a 1-4 win away to Solihull on a cold January night. This had been followed by a nail-biting semi-final against Stratford in March, which we edged 2-3. Yesterday we were on the road again. All finals are at a neutral venue, and we lined up against Shirley in Olton.

 

The match was played in a really good spirit, with lots of friendships existing between the teams. As someone who plays for Shirley in the Birmingham League, I have reflected on the fact that the two biggest games of the season for the C and U8750 teams both came against the club (other than Kenilworth of course) that I most have a soft spot for and relationship with - but needs must. I'll get the drinks in when I attend the Shirley AGM!

I would love to be able to give a blow by blow account of all the games, but I can't, as my own battle was the last to finish. So I will share what I can... Things started exactly as they had last year, with me losing the toss. Dylan finished first with an excellent draw against Arnold Peace. It looked to have been very solid throughout. Last year Dylan was in the U1600 cup final team and his promotion and delivery at a higher level is testament to his progress. An excellent end to a great season.

Paul then went down on Board 1 against Darren Whitmore. It sounds like both players had their chances, and Darren is always a tough opponent. So a good struggle, but it meant that we were losing the match. I would like to thank Paul for all his efforts this season as he has been our key player on so many occasions, but this wasn't his night.

Dhairya rounded off his superb season by beating Keith Ingram on Board 2 to bring us level. We are so blessed with fantastic juniors and just like Dylan, Dhairya has grown and grown as the season has progressed. He really is a special talent. 

Dan has also been a revelation this year, and he did a great job of bringing the full point home against Kim Gilbert on Board 5. I am glad from a blood pressure perspective that I didn't see the end of this one, as Dan told me afterwards that he had been below 20 seconds at one point. But he got the job done, and Dan has been a major find for the club this year.

All of which meant that we were winning 2.5 - 1.5, but I needed to draw with Gordon Christie or we would lose on board count. I can't in all honesty say it was my best ever game. I wasn't happy with how I played the opening (although Fritz thinks it's OK) and I was certainly losing at one point. I dug deep and managed to completely turn the tables, not only beating back Gordon's attack but also picking up a pawn in the process. I seemed to be in full control, but it was Gordon's turn to play well. Fritz has highlighted that I did miss a win, but we were both below 3 minutes at that point, and even now I can see why a human would have played what I did, so I can't beat myself up too much. Ultimately we ended up knight and 3 (me) vs knight and 2 (Gordon) but all the pawns were on the same side of the board. I still had in my mind that I should win (because of the earlier position rather than what I had now, which Fritz scores as dead level), but clearly there was nothing doing. Even when Gordon offered me the draw I hesitated, but I certainly wouldn't have been happy if someone else turned down a  draw that would have won us the cup, so I took it. We were the U8750 Champions!

It's been a great team effort. Dan and Dhairya both scored 3/3 on our cup run. I also clocked in with 2.5/3, which is somewhat better than my contribution to last year's cup triumph when I lost in the semi-final and final. That's the beauty of chess, when things go wrong, there will always be another opportunity.

I'm so proud of our team, all of whom (along with others) also contributed to the C team success in the League. They say that it is better to travel than to arrive, and that's probably true, but let's enjoy the moment. I doubt we'll ever do a quadruple again, but next season will bring with it new opportunities and new adventures. So here's to that, and a bit of a holiday first, to contemplate all that we have delivered.

Stop Press: Kenilworth win Open and U8750 Cups, to complete historic quadruple!!

 Full match reports and details of the open-top bus parade through Kenilworth to follow...

Savour the moment. 

Division 1 Champions

Division 2 Champions

Open Cup Champions

U8750 Cup Champions

Get in!!