Half a match report

To try and once again provide a contrast to Mark's laziness in often combining 2 matches into one report, I present here information from the first half of Monday's Kenilworth B game against Solihull.

The first game to finish, not unusually was mine, though for this case the incompetence that caused this was not my own. I was playing the white side of a Ponziani, what we can all agree is one of the most dynamic and exciting openings in chess, and somehow my opponent (John Raouf) managed to bungle into losing a piece by move thirteen, as in the position below:

I can't say I did much to earn it, but I'm certainly not going to complain about the result. Although the game did last for another 16 moves and until my opponent had 11 seconds left, he remained at least a piece down for the entirety of that time.

At that point I had to leave the b=venue for the evening, with the state of play in the other games as follows:

Don Mason - Andrew Paterson: One of those weird Sicilians where white castles queenside, and Andrew as black leaves his king in the centre, plays gxf6 after a bishop captures a knight, and it all looked very scary. Captain's prediction - any result other than a draw

Ray Carpenter - Mike Donnelly: An opening where both sides basically ignored what the other person was doing, with Ray adopting a Stonewall setup and Mike initially some kind of Benoni. After some maneuvering it appeared that Mike was losing a pawn, which white then very generously appeared to give straight back for unclear reasons, to leave a fairly level position. Captain's prediction - draw

Bernard Charnley - Julian Summerfield: It was good to see Bernard back at the board, and with a new found appreciation for unsophisticated hacking attacks. He played a King's Indian Attack, and proceeded to have pawns on f6, g5 and h4 extremely quickly, with some heavy pieces ready to join the attack. Captain's prediction - Bernard victory.

I saw no further action after this point. I have no idea what happened. However, the results were:

Don Mason - Andrew Paterson: Draw

Ray Carpenter - Mike Donnelly: Mike wins

Bernard Charnley - Julian Summerfield: Bernard loses

Good to see my grasp of chess positions is as accurate as ever. Still, that makes yet another 2.5-1.5 win for the team, and continues our record of only losing against our own club colleagues.

Best of the Rest?

Having already slipped up once against Warwick University B, our chances of retaining our Coventry League title now seem to depend on us beating the University A team twice, which I very much doubt is going to happen, given the strength in depth they have at their disposal. So we are, realistically, probably playing for a best of the rest finish and second place - although you can never be sure that the perennial student aversion to administrative matters might just leave the door open for us. But I'm not banking on it!

Which is a long winded way of saying that a second successive convincing victory has elevated us to a second place Division 1 standing that is unlikely to be transformed into first place any time soon. 

But as we even improved upon last week's 3-1 win over Nuneaton A this time around, by seeing off Coventry A 3.5-0.5, there's still plenty to be pleased about.

Despite the wide margin, this was a well fought match. Javi was first to strike, beating Francis Sagyaman after an interesting battle in a Spanish opening. Well, the name says it all really - clearly that is one opening where Javi has to be favourite! Harry, on his Coventry League debut, had a tough task on Board 4 against our very own Katia (it is customary for us to have to face at least one of our own members in these matches!) but successfully navigated lots of complications - bishops and rooks were raging across the board! - to win. Though Katia was rather kind in resigning when Harry only had a couple of minutes left and - crucially - no increment!

Mike's win over Ed Goodwin - a match up that has been going for over 40 years by Mike's reckoning - yielded our third full point, so you'll now be able to work out that yet again it was the Club Organiser who failed to complete the clean sweep of victories. I only drew against Jonathan Fowler despite being two pawns up in a knight v bishop ending, as the pressure of the clock, and the realisation that if he had even one pawn left on the board at flag fall I would lose on time, meant I failed to convert a very tricky position. But 3.5-0.5 is still a pretty good score. I'd certainly settle for it every week!

And there has been more good news for the club this week, as the C team - newly invigorated by Keatan's elevation to Board 1 - chalked up a 4-0 win over Rugby A on Monday, and the D team - still just about hanging onto Keatan for a match or two! -  then beat Olton B 2.5-1.5 on Tuesday, with Solomon the hero of the hour. So double Division 2 success which consolidates our two teams in the top half of the table.

Such positive news demands that we have some truly excellent music to round off this report. I just discovered this today, and it seems mean not to share it. Former Allman Brothers guitarist Dicky Betts on stage with the Tedeschi-Trucks Band, playing an old Allman's classic. Its truly epic!

Is it a Bird? Is it a Plane? No, it's Another Twofer!

Monday night at the Abbey Club and Shirley A are the visitors for a Leamington League match. Kenilworth A has its four nominated players out, though whether its actually our strongest team is anyone's guess! But never mind, on the night it was strong enough to keep the show firmly on the road, as we ran out 3-1 winners to extend the lead over our B team at the top of Division 2, to 3 points.

Yet another reverse for Jude on Board 1, this time against Phil Purcell, took some of the shine off proceedings, as his bad run of results continued. But as we all know, form is temporary, class is permanent. Like General Douglas MacArthur, he will return! And rather sooner than MacArthur, I predict!

My game against Darren Whitmore on Board 3 was also nothing to be too proud of. I was taken aback when he sacked the exchange for no obvious reason, but one or two inaccuracies on my part soon gave him full compensation as a White knight on f5 was more than a match for my rook. But quite sensibly - yes, it surprised me too! - I found a good way to return the exchange for a better ending. It should have been a draw but in defending all his loose pawns Darren went very passive and allowed me to put him into a virtual zugzwang, and my passed e pawn soon won a whole rook and the game.

Bruce was hardly more convincing on Board 4, though he also eventually brought home the full point against Dave Thomas. After giving up two knights for a rook and pawn right out of the opening, he was clearly leaving all 3 results on the table. When a White rook got onto the 7th rank, though, the Black position started to creak at the seams and a timely exchange sac let the White queen in with decisive material gain.

But standing well above all this dubious play on the other three boards, Javier was in complete control against Jonathan Dale on Board 2. Somewhere in the middle game, he turned back a hopeful Black kingside attack and just started collecting pawns. By the time he reached a queen ending he had 4 or 5 extra pawns. Never one to be accused of resigning too early, the Shirley player played on until Javi's two queens delivered checkmate. 

Twenty four hours later, three of the team reassembled for another home match, this time in the Coventry League against Nuneaton A. Elevated to Board 2, Bruce played a wholly convincing game against Maurice Staples, gradually taking control of the centre and queenside (where the Black king had optimistically sought shelter) and then totally routing the Black position. I followed suit not long after when time pressure saw Tony Green collapse against me and blunder a piece, after a very interesting game in which I stood slightly worse for some of the time. Ben then went under against Colin Green after needlessly converting his light squared bishop into a big pawn by pushing d4-d5. Colin occupied the half open e file and trained all his sights on White's e4 pawn while also finding squares for his two knights and eventually Ben's position collapsed. But fear not, because for the second night running, Javi played a high quality game, this time against Phil Brigg's typically unorthodox play, and exploited his better pawn structure and more active pieces in the ending to wrap up another 3-1 win. Unfortunately, our chances of retaining our title are virtually zero, as we have already dropped 3 points and still have to play Warwick Uni A twice, but it would be nice if we could at least come out best of the rest, so this was an important win against perennially strong opponents.

On Monday night I wasn't able to pay much attention to the Division 4 table-topping clash between Kenilworth E and Daventry A while it was in progress, - if I had been, this report could have been a threefer! But - alas - I did see enough to notice that our 100% record went down the drain, as Nigel and Roy lost, meaning Patrick's victory was in vain. We still lead the division, but Daventry A (and Stratford C) are now only 1 point behind, though we have a match in hand on both of them and remain in the driving seat.

Let's finish with a musical offering. It suddenly dawned on me that I'd never featured a song by the late, great Tom Petty, so its clearly time I corrected that omission. Lots of fantastic songs to choose from, so why not this one? Before Suella Braverman or Robert Jenrick gets it banned because of its title!

Guess the opening (part 1)

As revenge for Mark's Christmas quiz (at which I did depressingly badly), I thought I would introduce some questions of my own. Quite simple - I'm going to show you a position after 10 moves of one of my recent games, and all you have to do is work out what opening the position came from.

Question 1 is below. To my surprise, it turns out this is actually a known theoretical position, but since it is not one I had any idea about, I still think it bears inclusion.

Question 2 will come as soon as I next play a ridiculous game of chess, so I doubt it will take very long.

The End Of The CD... (At Least For This Season)

 We had the second C v D match of the season on Monday. With Keatan moving across from Board 1 for the D team, to Board 1 for the C team, it was always likely on paper that the C team would have more of an edge this time out. However, while the ultimate 3.5 - 0.5 score might appear to back this up, the actual play on the night told a somewhat different story. This all made for one of the stranger chess experiences I can remember (until the following night's Cup game, which doubtless Mark will report on in due course!)

Half way through the evening, Phil was a pawn up against Bernard C (terrific to see Bernard fully recovered and back at the board!) with a nice looking position. Dhariya and Solomon both appeared to be going well, and I was on top against Keatan.

I built up a strong kingside attack, picked up a pawn (but in hindsight most likely chose to take the wrong one) and was moving through the gears as well as I have in quite some time. However, Keatan defended well, and ultimately we reached an opposite coloured bishop ending, and I had to reluctantly agree to the draw. My games with Keatan are always very interesting and I will look forward to the next one!

We popped out to the bar area to analyse and I was feeling very bullish about the likely match result, but in the time it took us to go through our game, back in the playing room the wheels had well and truly come off. Bernard had moved from material down to material up, and now it was he who had the nice looking position. Harry was also clearly winning against Dharyia and I could see no way back for either D team player. Sadly this proved to be the case.

I still had hopes for Solomon holding against Paul, albeit this wouldn't have been enough to change the match result. Solomon has since told me that he also missed a win in this game, but unfortunately for the D team in the final moments, Paul came out on top. A nice tactic picked up a piece and it was all over.

So a one-sided score line following what was actually a very close match. A somewhat surreal start to 2024, but both teams have plenty of chess left to play. Onwards!

2023 Christmas Quiz - the Answers!

Sorry to have kept you waiting so long, but I rather forgot that I owed everyone some answers. So without any further ado, here we go.

	Clue	Answer	Reference/Comment
1	Midnight	John “Midnight Rambler” Ambler	1969 Rolling Stones song
2	Dragon	Bruce “Dragon Slayer” Baer	Misnomer, as he never plays 1 e4
3	Habsburg	Andy “Habsburg Archduke” Baruch	Bit forced, but how else to get a rhyme for such a strange name?
4a	Imperial	Steph “Imperial State Crown” Brown	Could she be descended from the Romanov dynasty?
4b	One Horse	Steph “One Horse Town” Brown	Not sure if Kenilworth even has that many!
5	Lord	Bernard “Lord Darnley” Charnley	Murdered husband (1546-67) of Mary Queen of Scots
6	Puff the Magic Dragon	Mike “Puff The Magic Dragon Lived by the Sea and Frolicked in the Autumn Mist in a Land Called Honah Lee” Donnelly	Classic 1963 folk song by Peter, Paul and Mary
7	Weather	Patrick “Weather Beaten” Eaton	Well, he’s had a hard life
8	Blacksmith	Billy “Blacksmith’s Bellows” Fellowes	He’s a country boy at heart
9a	Belly	Ben “Belly Laugh” Graff	He’s got a great sense of humour
9b	Transport	Ben “Transport Caff” Graff	Mis-spelling deliberate for rhyming purposes!
10a	Grand	Paul “Grand Slam” Lam	He could win it – if he played tennis.
10b	Wham Bam	Paul “Wham Bam Thank You Ma’am” Lam	Actually a 1950 Dean Martin song. What did you think it meant?!
10c	Hoover	Paul “Hoover Dam” Lam	Iconic 1930s engineering marvel on the Colorado River in Nevada
11a	Waifs	Solomon “Waifs and Strays” Hayes
11b	Dog	Solomon “Dog Days” Hayes	A period of inactivity or decline. Appropriate or not? I leave it to you!
11c	Polluter	Solomon “Polluter Pays” Hayes	Are you listening privatised water companies??
11d	Latest	Solomon “Latest Craze” Hayes
11e	Mysterious	Solomon “Mysterious Ways” Hayes	Popular misquotation from a 1773 hymn by William Cowper
12	West*	Tony “West Wing” King	Classic US TV series.
13	Abercrombie	Gregory “Abercrombie and Fitch” Kornilovich	American “lifestyle retailer” with nearly 900 stores
14	Black & Decker*	Paul “Black & Decker Drills” Mills	I believe these are handy for DIY tasks
15	Sid	Nigel or Will “Sid and Doris” Morris	Sid and Doris Bonkers, the only 2 fans of Neasden FC in Private Eye
16	Now	Harry “Now Hiring” Myring	Pathetic, I know, but you try and come up with something better
17a	Minimum	Mark “Minimum Wage” Page	£8.60 per hr from 1.4.24
17b	Difficult	Mark “Difficult Age” Page	I seem to be stuck in this
17c	Narrow	Mark “Narrow Guage” Page	Choo choo!
17d	All the World	Mark “All the World’s a Stage” Page	The Bard – As You Like It
18	Rebel	Keatan “Rebel Yell” Patel	1983 song by Billy Idol
19	Purple*	Steve “Purple Rain” Payne	1984 song & album by Prince
20	Stiff	Joshua “Stiff Drink” Pink	I think you need one if you’ve got this far
21	Draft	Bernard “Draft Dodgers” Rodgers
22a	Henry	Hector “Henry the Fifth” Smith	1386-1422. King for 9 years and hero of Agincourt
22b	Bara	Hector “Bara Brith” Smith	A traditional Welsh bread
23	Late-Night	George “Late-Night Shopping” Topping
24	Fire	Andy “Fire on Board” Ward	The title of GM Alexei Shirov’s best games collection
25	Stay Out	Roy “Stay Out of the Hot Sun” Watson	See 16
26	Johnny	Rod “Johnny Reb” Webb	Symbolic name for Confederate soldiers of the US Civil War
27a	Greater	Phil “Greater Good” Wood
27b	Chewing	Phil “Chewing the Cud” Wood
27c	Blue	Phil “Blue Blood” Wood	He’s probably got some – well, he is descended from chess royalty!
27d	Elmer	Phil “Elmer Fudd” Wood	Arch-enemy of Bugs Bunny in Looney Tunes cartoons
27e	Little Red	Phil “Little Red Riding Hood” Wood
28a	Big	Lionel “Big Bang” Zhang
28b	Andrew	Lionel “Andrew Tang” Zhang	Ultra-fast US GM – online username is penguingm1

I hope everyone managed to score at least a few points - and solve their "own" clue. Though I realise that some of the individual rhymes were probably impossible, even if you worked out who they related to. But if people will insist on having difficult names ........... Not sure what might constitute a good score, but I'd be interested to hear from anyone who thinks they've got a chance of claiming first place. There's no prize (of course!) but you will have the honour of being the KCC Rhyming Slang Champion - in perpetuity. We're going to need quite a turnover in membership if there's ever going to be a second edition of this quiz, and I don't think I will be around to set it!

No shortage of musical references here, so lets finish with 2 songs. The first just so you can see I'm not making it up, and the second cos' everyone surely likes to join in the chorus!  (Even me, and its not my kind of music at all!)