Mission: Promotion!

 I still remember a Spring evening at the Leamington tennis club, back in 2024. On that night, the C team needed to beat Leamington to win an astonishing promotion to Division 1. I did not make the team, but watched on avidly as a gripping battle ensued. Ultimately it was not to be, and we missed out. For all the pride we had in what was a really good season, there was also a sense that such opportunities are rare. We did not know when we would get another chance.

Incredibly, this season of all seasons, the chase is back on. We might have lost players, and be continually juggling our selections, but whatever we are doing is working. Following last night's win against Olton, we are four points clear at the top of the table. With our heroic D team still in second! The truth is, it is still all to play for, as Coventry A are also four points back and have a game in hand. Our next two matches are against them, and they are going to prove crucial. 

Last night, Harry chalked up a very helpful and relatively quick draw against Andrew Cottom to get us on the board. Harry has been juggling a lot of commitments as well as the B team captaincy and I hugely appreciated him playing - thank you Harry! 

The other three games went deep into the night. I didn't see much of Andy's game, but he led the way with a brilliant win on Board 1 against Mike Hollier. Andy told me afterwards that if anything he had been worse out of the opening, but found a way to rearrange his pieces and to get active. Good things clearly followed! So 1.5 - 0.5.

With 5 minutes of the evening to go, I had turned down various draw offers from Roger Threlfall on Board 3, just as Dan our C team debutant had against Julian Camino-Sanchez on Board 4. As I said to Dan, I didn't even have to look at his position to know that he was winning, I could hear it in their respective voices. It looked like a very professional grind on Dan's part and an excellent contribution. It just shows our strength in depth that we were able to call on Dan when we needed him, and he really delivered!

My own game falls into the somewhat frustrating category. I was better throughout and nobody could say that I didn't give it fricking everything to win, but all credit to Roger. After most likely various repetitions and with us both below a minute on our clocks, we agreed to split the point. That's the third white in a row where I have been better, but had to settle for a draw. Still, it didn't matter and we left with a comfortable 3-1 win.

So onwards! Who knows if we can do this or not, but we should all be really proud of what we have done to date. We are definitely going to give this a good go!

Back in the High Life Again

It's been a rather uncharacteristically subdued effort from the A team so far this campaign, highlighted of course by two chastening results against our own B team - the chief common denominator of these two results being the presence of me in both matches with disastrous consequences. As a result of these mishaps, we were lagging a bit off the pace at the top of Division 1, a point behind Solihull A and two points adrift of league leaders Banbury A. This meant that our trip to Banbury on Thursday was one we simply could not afford to lose - and which we really needed to win. Could our recently all conquering team rediscover its mojo and put itself back in the title race? You bet we could!!

Banbury were clearly treating the game seriously, as they - almost invariably when we are the opponents - got IM James Jackson to make one of his infrequent appearances, and packed the team with 2000+ players. But thankfully two teams can play at that game, so while we can't yet field an IM, we were also able to field a team that, on paper, looked more than equipped to give them a run for their money. I say on paper, since while Andrew and myself have been quite respectable Board 1s for the club in seasons not too long past , our recent form was pretty discouraging. Indeed, having me in the team, even on Board 4, could have been seen as tantamount to a default, given my record of 0/3 this season, and no win since last May. But who knows - maybe the old magic could make a timely reappearance to back up the very strong presence of Jude and Javier on the top two boards? Anyway, all was set for a meaty encounter.

Given my recent efforts, I didn't spend much time spectating the other boards, but what I did see had me moderately encouraged for most of the evening. Jude and James Jackson had a real heavyweight clash on top board, which I am clearly not remotely qualified to assess. Jude went for the jugular and sacrificed a pawn right out of the opening, getting lots of compensation against Black's fractured pawn structure. But James is not an IM for nothing, and somehow held his position together while gradually extricating himself from passivity. I missed the end, but the IM prevailed and it was 1-0 to the home side. But fear not, as things were not going at all badly on the other three boards.

I was next to finish, my game against Tom Day ending in bizarre fashion when he played the move Qxa5 (a pawn) only to resign instantly as he realised that the pawn was defended by my queen. I was two passed pawns up at the time, so I was winning anyway, but with a queen and rook each and time trouble very firmly on the agenda, there was still every chance I would manage to screw things up, so this was a very welcome development.

By this time Andrew had won an exchange for a pawn against Sean Gordon on Board 3, after playing what I thought was a splendidly controlled opening and middle game. But the ending of rook v knight proved to be very difficult. The White rook simply couldn't get in behind the Black pawns and for all the world it looked as though Black had established a fortress. But as Magnus famously told us, you shouldn't always believe in fortresses. managing to avoid any treacherous knight forks, despite being well under a minute on the clock (as were both players) Andrew somehow magicked a position where he was able to give back the exchange to set up a winning king and pawn ending. 2-1 to us, and both the recent basket cases had managed to win!

Which left Javi on Board 2 against Georgs Vikanis. Javi seemed to play an excellent game against some rather unorthodox opening play by Georgs, and by the time my game had finished he had a clearly advantageous position with two rooks and same colour bishops each. But whereas Javi had most of the board to play in, Georgs was stuck on the back two ranks with his bishop looking particularly woeful behind a wall of its own colour pawns. But all the same, I couldn't see how Javi was going to engineer a breakthrough - especially as he had well under a minute on the clock. And was continuing to write down the moves as well!! But he showed great determination and imagination to set up a position where he was able to sac his bishop for a pawn - and it couldn't be taken due to a back rank mate which had appeared from nowhere. This proved a decisive breakthrough, and after some more accurate play (during which he finally stopped recording the moves!) he then started collecting White's queenside pawns as well to force an excellent win, and clinch the match 3-1.

This was a terrific team performance and it returned us to the top of the table - albeit only on game points - and is hopefully a sign that the big red Kenilworth mean machine is finally back in full working order. And it will need to be, as things are very close in the battle for the title, which looks set to be a three way fight for the rest of the season. And things are very close at the bottom of the table too, with just two points covering the other 5 clubs. So the B team could do with getting its collective finger out and winning a game or two to ensure safety. It would be a complete disaster if the administrative cock-up which turned a 3.5-0.5 win over Shirley A into a 0-4 defeat proved decisive.

Hope you like the choice of music to celebrate this important Kenilworth A victory. Not one of my all time favourites, but a pleasant enough little ditty by one of England's under-rated musical giants. And hopefully an apt sentiment for the rest of the season.

Spinning Around

"Spinning around, spinning around

I'm spinning around, move out of my way

I know you're feeling me 'cause you like it like this."

                                                 Kylie Minogue 

Mark often likes to make musical references in his posts, and I am sure he would heartly approve of a bit of Kylie. Either way, when Kenilworth C played Kenilworth D last week, it seemed like the only appropriate song.

I had started the season as D team captain, but was now C team captain, yet was playing for the D team. Harry had been C team captain before moving up to be B team captain, and was lining up for the Cs. Bernard who had always been in the D team was now the D team skipper. We had agreed in advance that I would sort both teams and we ended up with strong line-ups, all be it with the forementioned musical chairs. 

These matches have been close in the past, but not last week. On Board 1 Dave and Dhairya played out the most interesting game of the night. The endgame went to the wire, where Dave's experience ultimately told, but it was still another good effort on Dhairya's part.

I made a Horlicks of Board 2 against Michal - getting the opening all wrong and lost heavily. I didn't see much of Bernard's game on Board 3 against Harry, but Bernard spared the D team's blushes by holding the draw and avoiding the whitewash. On Board 4 Rhys seemed to march his pawns up the board in a very nice line against Dylan, to bring the C team home with a 3.5 - 0.5 victory. 

It was hard to know who to route for, and I'm sure many others felt the same, given the number of us who play for both teams. Absolutely a case of spinning around!

Then last night the D team were back in action against Banbury B, where we managed a 2-2 draw. On the one hand, we are higher up the table than them. On the other, with Paul and Rhys unavailable we weren't at full strength. It still amazes me that our depth as a club means our D team can still play Banbury B on even terms, but this was by no means the first time that we've got something from games against Banbury.

It was lovely to see Carl Portman back in action for Banbury on Board 1 against Dhairya. In some ways this game had echoes of Dhairya's game against Dave Ireland the previous week, in that it was very very tight. This time though, Dhairya's defences were rock solid and he held the draw.

I also drew on Board 2 against Nathan Manley. I had slightly the better of it, but we both ran short of time (especially me) and chickened out. Analysing afterwards, most lines led to a draw. I might perhaps have been braver a little earlier in the proceedings, but it felt like a fair result.

On Board 4, Nick Martin seemed to drag Dylan's king into the middle of the board straight out of the opening. I don't know how this came about, but I expected Dylan to lose very quickly. To his credit, he survived the middle game, but ended up material down in an endgame, which made it 2-1 Banbury.

So all eyes were on Bernard. Having not been happy with his play and performances before Christmas, Bernard is playing like a new man in 2025! He followed up his excellent effort in the D v C match by beating Mal Waddell in brilliant fashion. The game was wildly complicated and it looked like Mal was winning, when Bernard unleashed a series of tactical blows (that he had calculated more accurately than this spectator!) Fritz showed that Mal potentially did have a defence but it was a very difficult one for a human to find, and Bernard brought home the victory in glorious style to secure us a useful point. 

So two very interesting matches. Lots more to play for, given the C team are top of the table and the D team are in third. Picking our teams can be challenging, but we'll keep things spinning, and hopefully the C team will maintain our title challenge in the weeks ahead. 

2024 KCC Christmas Quiz - the Solution

This is probably a completely unnecessary blog post, as the full solution to the latest KCC Christmas Quiz could be readily seen by anyone attempting the connecting wall problem. But in case the link to the wall gets broken for some reason in the future, I thought it was only right to post the solution within the KCC website for the sake of those generations yet to come!

It also gives me a chance to apologise to the 4 grumpy old men, when its quite clear that there are so many KCC members I could have chosen to be in that specific category! Indeed, its almost inconceivable that such a group could be put together and not include me. But such are the benefits of being the content creator - I got to choose the 4 grumpies, so I was a red herring for anyone trying to find that group.

Hope you enjoyed this year's quiz - at least it was a bit different. Now, I just have about 347 days to come up with another original idea for the 2025 edition. Thinking cap on, Mark, that's not a lot of time - and at my back I always hear, time's winged chariot hurrying near. Which reminds me of a song!

Up For the Cups

Following the Christmas break, Kenilworth were meant to be back in action with two cup games this week. On Tuesday we travelled to Nuneaton in the CDCL Open competition. On Wednesday we were in Solihull for our rearranged LDCL U8750 quarter-final, as the first step in our title defence.

The first sign that we might have a problem on Tuesday came when I entered Nuneaton's venue at 7.20, to find the club room in darkness and not a chess player in sight. By 7.30, I had been joined by the rest of the Kenilworth contingent - Paul, Mike, Keatan, and of course, Nash - but still no sign of any opposition. We phoned Colin Green who was not aware of the game. Following further calls that he made, it soon transpired that none of the Nuneaton B team were either. Colin was very apologetic and there wasn't anything he (or anyone else) could do, so we were awarded the match by default.

I guess there might be people out there who enjoy nothing better than a winter evening drive to Nuneaton for no reason whatsoever (Dominic Cummings/ Barnard Castle style) but our team were not amongst them. We had a nice chat, and went home. Colin could not have been more helpful, and it wasn't his team who had missed the fixture, so really a case of these things happen. I do think though that the Coventry League could have done more to publicise the game. It did somewhat "appear" on the fixtures list and it's better practice if clubs receive an actual email about subsequent rounds of cup competitions, to avoid things like this happening. Moan over!

Myself and Paul were the only two players from Tuesday who were also in the team for the Solihull game on Wednesday. We agreed that we could not face another wasted journey, so I did confirm with Julian that Solihull hadn't forgotten about this one - fortunately they hadn't!

On the night we ran out comfortable 4-1 winners, despite the teams being very evenly matched on paper. I did not see much of the other games. Dhairya had a very good win on Board 2 against Tony Sadler - continuing his excellent form and making another great contribution to the team. So I'll give him the award for "performance of the night." Dan Bayliss also brought home the full point on Board 5 against Mike Nevin, having been in full control throughout the proceedings.

I was our third winner, on Board 3 against Paul Silverman. For the first time in an OTB game, I got to play a gambit line (sorry, no spoilers) that I have played quite a lot in online blitz. Almost as soon as I played the move, I could hear the instructional video ringing in my head. "Don't play this in a must win game, especially if you are playing for money." While of course we weren't playing for money, I did immediately wonder if I had taken an unnecessary risk.  However, Paul declined the pawn, I got a terrific lead in development and the tactics flowed from there. I've had some interesting games with Paul in the past, and while this one was too, it was pretty comfortable.

In relation to the draws, Paul Badger did a good job of neutralising Ray Carpenter on Board 1. They were ultimately the last to finish, with honours even. Perhaps the most interesting story of the night was on Board 4, where Dylan was playing Antony Mccool. I had long since accepted that we were going to lose this one, as frankly Dylan's position looked terrible. However, a little resilience and a bit of a plan can go a long way. Down to just king and rook, Dylan noticed that he could place his king on a square where it could not move. Antony did not take long enough to consider the implications, hastily pushing a pawn in what he must have assumed was a won position. Instantly Dylan checked Antony's king with his rook. The rook could have been taken, but this would have left stalemate. Wherever Antony's king went, Dylan's rook was going to follow, so Dylan had clutched a draw out of nothing!

So a very good night! We did not lose a game and had put up a good start to our title defence. We'll now look forward to the next round, ever hopeful that our opponents will turn up.