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."