What the Gods Giveth..

 Just twenty four hours on from Dave earning us a miracle second point in his time scramble against Jason, I returned that bonus point in an end of game scramble against Gary Hope. This sadly saw us go down 2.5-1.5 to League leaders Olton.  Still lots of games to play and hope remains for our League challenge, but it clearly wasn’t the result we wanted.

As with the previous evening, things didn’t start well for us. Nick seemed to drop a piece early on against Robert Wallman. Whilst he made a good game of it after that, the end result was probably inevitable and Olton went 1-0 up. Mike and Dave were in action against the Reynolds brothers and both games looked pretty solid. It wasn’t a surprise when they ended in draws.

So we were 2 – 1 down. But the good news was I was having a great game. Everything seemed to click. I was very good out of a somewhat unorthodox Lopez and picked up a pawn and some pressure. It really looked like I was on the brink. Gary fought back and whilst my defence was fine, it cost me time on the clock which developed into a problem. In an ending with Queen, Rook and Bishop vs Queen Rook and Knight, my passed b pawn looked invincible, but Garry found the right defence. Afterwards we thought I’d made a mistake in taking the Queens off – it was actually easier to win with them on. I turned down a number of draw offers, but with both flags hanging, I just couldn’t see a way through. If I’d had increments I would have played on, but I just had a sense that it wasn’t my night. So not for the first time Gary escaped my clutches with a draw by the skin of his teeth…

Very disappointing, but these things happen. Incidentally, in the 8 individual games we have played against Olton in the League, 7 have been draws, so there is clearly not a lot between the teams.

We have an interesting few weeks ahead and we’ll look to put things right next time out.

Astonishing

We last night began our final push for the Division 2 title with a 3-1 win against bottom club Leamington, but that in no way tells the story of an extraordinary night. Going into the evening we were five points behind leaders Olton (who we play tonight) but with four games in hand. The kind of fixture pile-up that might incense a Premier League Manager, but for our squad just represented an opportunity…

The first sign that things might not go smoothly came when we saw the Leamington team sheet. They had out their strongest squad of the year, with a 160+ player on Board 3 and a combined average that was virtually the same as ours. When we got down to business, things seemed to go badly. Dave looked completely bust out of the opening and I was struggling (playing as those who follow the stats will know, my 47^th game in a row with Black.)

Then things started to turn. Mike seemed to be in a quiet position against Rob Gill and when they called it a night, I assumed they’d agreed to draw. It transpired Mike was well booked up and had landed a nice trap to pick up a piece for back to back wins. His reputation for draws is rapidly becoming a thing of the past and he really settled the team down. Bernard struck next, again with a nice tactical shot against Ola to win a piece and culminating in giving mate with King and Queen against King (with a bit of associated shrapnel, but not much.) Thanks to Bernard for guesting again and maintaining his 100% record for the team – a great contribution which is most appreciated by all.

So we were 2 – 0 up, but that looked like that would be it. I even had a philosophical discussion with Mike in the corridor as to why this wouldn’t be the worst result in the world, given their strength on the night… Dave was still completely bust. My position against Andy Price (who I don’t have a brilliant record against) was complex – I had three connected Queen side pawns for a piece and lots of Queenside opportunities. Andy actually said he thought I was winning at one point. I’d certainly gone done that line because I thought it would give me good chances. Unfortunately, he had some great squares to put pieces on and I struggled to hold my King side together, going down around the time control. So 2-1.

I bought a drink and stood back to watch what I thought were going to be the final few moves of Dave’s capitulation. But then it turned. Both in desperate time trouble, Jason seemed to navigate this, before blundering a pawn and a piece. Dave had shown absolute nerves of steel in an impossible position and suddenly he was winning – and not just a little bit! Very sportingly, Dave offered a draw given we only needed the half for the match. Equally sportingly Jason elected to play it out and went down in the end. All credit to Jason. He did play a really good game before the clock took its toll and he was very gracious afterwards – a real gentleman. Massive respect to Dave too though. Most would have crumbled, but his determination and resilience earned us both the points and kept our title charge on track.

So a fantastic effort. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so happy on a night where I’ve lost, but it was a fantastic evening for us.

Bring on Olton!

Super Watson Goes Ballistic - Gradings Are Atrocious!

NEWSFLASH!! - Amazing news from the bucolic south west, where over the weekend our very own professional Northerner, Roy Watson (grade 118), put in a stunning - and statistics busting! - performance to win the Major (Under 155) Tournament at the Hereford Congress. My mole tells me that Roy was unbeaten with 5/6 against opponents averaging around 140, for a Tournament Performance Rating of over 170. As befits such a stellar (lifetime best?) show, Roy finished first alone. Truly astonishing. Roy 1 Statistical Probability 0.

This follows on from another tournament triumph (albeit less impressive) in early February when Roy finished tied first (with 6 others) in the Kidlington U-120, despite losing to someone graded 87 - try explaining that, Stephen Hawking!!  And on top of that Roy has recently helped the D team rise to the dizzy heights of 4th in Division 4. Rubbing shoulders with Anish Giri has clearly worked wonders.

Current world number 5 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave's user name on Chess.com is Lyon Beast - I think we now have our very own Fen End Beast!!

I feel almost ashamed at this point to mention another minor tournament triumph (of sorts) for KCC, namely my own second equal placing at the Perth Open (that would be Scotland rather than Australia) in February. Whatever next for KCC's intrepid tournament warriors - Paul becoming British Champion at Llandudno this summer perhaps? Or is Roy planning on making a surprise raid on that event too!?

1976 And All That...

We played Rugby C last night in the quarter finals of the Coventry Divisional Cup and ran out 4-0 winners to proceed to the semi-finals. Rugby C are a Division 3 team and as a result, we needed to win 3.5 – 0.5 on the night to go through. Given the saying about Chess being a game played on grass, rather than on paper (or some such) we weren’t taking anything for granted. Despite the massive rating difference between the teams, we knew one slip from anyone (or one mobile phone that wasn’t switched off) and we would be out. As it was, the upset never looked likely, once we got down to business…

Three Cup matches were going on in the Club, so it was a pretty packed room. From what I saw all the favourites were winning heavily, but that’s by the by. It certainly made for a good atmosphere, even if it was a little cramped. I was practically sitting on Carl’s lap at one point. Carl was the first to land a point. (Perhaps keen for some more space!) It looked like a lot of Carl’s games with White. Kings castled on opposite sides (Carl on the Queenside) with the Kingside ripped open. Pawns were sacrificed, Carl’s Kings side attack looked much faster/ more menacing than Malcolm Harding’s Queenside punt and so it proved. Carl’s Rooks and Queen broke through to mate. 1- 0.

I was next to finish. I played a new opening, but unfortunately forgot some of the theory and was actually a bit passive. However, after a bit of consolidation/ development and an ill-advised king side pawn foray from my opponent, which just seemed to give me a lot of targets, I regained the initiatives. I trapped a piece and bagged a Rook a few moves later and Jim Macdonald resigned.

On Board 3, Mike was doing a better job of remembering his openings than I had, as his opponent played down a line of the Queens Fianchetto that Mike had reviewed for a magazine in 1976. Well, hey, we’re not a first division team for nothing… (The Queen's Fianchetto Defence, Chess (Sutton Coldfield), p200-205 March and p234-237 April 1976  MJDonnelly, for those who would like to read more.) Mike said, “my opponent actually played the opening quite well and only went astray around move 20 weakening the white square (f7 and g8) around her king. This was exploited by the rather hidden idea of playing Bc2-b3 threatening the fatal c5 as White had pawns on a2-b3 and c4 and a queen on d5. This won a piece and the game… 

On Board 4, Dave looked like he was playing skittles rather than Chess, as we was roughly 800 points up when I first looked. Credit to his opponent for showing tenacity/ a reluctance to give up that even I wouldn’t have been able to match, but it wasn’t exactly a cliff-hanger and I’d left before Dave delivered the long inevitable kill…

So a semi-final against Coventry A awaits. We were the runners up in this competition last year. Here’s to going one better in 2017!

Cometh The Hour, Cometh The Man!

An amazing thing happened last night - Paul won a game of chess and it was, incredibly, his first standard play win of the season! Surely, you're kidding, I hear you say. Well, no, I'm not. And don't call me Shirley. Which neatly brings me on to last night's match in which, thanks in no small measure to Paul's heroics, we somehow scraped a 2.5-1.5 away win over fellow title challengers Shirley to put ourselves level on points with them and Olton at the top of the table.

This was a brutal encounter in which there were no more than 6 grading points separating the opposing players on three of the boards. And then there was my board, where I had a 24 point edge. So no prizes for guessing who really needed to win to give us a chance of victory!

In a 4 board match, its generally not a good idea to go one point down, as the margin for error disappears to almost nothing. But that's what we did. And it was our normally reliable points machine Andrew P who bit the dust, losing to his 4NCL Warwickshire Select team-mate Phil Purcell on Board 2 after a Dutch that went horribly wrong. He lost a pawn; tried an exchange sac to try and get his queen and bishop lined up against the White king; and then resigned at the time control when it didn't happen.

I then brought the scores level with a win from a very slow Ruy Lopez against my 4NCL Warwickshire Select team-mate and long-time friend, Keith Ingram. I wasn't too happy with my opening play, but things started to get a bit better for me when I managed to get in b4 and c4 pawn thrusts which brought my Spanish bishop to glorious life from b3. However, this came at the cost of allowing the Black rooks to gang up on my king on the f and g files. I'd like to say I had everything under control, but I'm not sure if I did. Anyway, I stormed down the c file with my rooks and then found a nice combo which seemed to open up my own king, but gained enough time for my queen to get to f8 for an unstoppable mate.

But let's get back to the main dish of the evening - Paul's victory on Board 1 against his 4NCL Warwickshire Select team-mate and long-time friend Jeremy Fallowfield. (BTW, are you spotting a theme here?) Now we all know that Paul hasn't been playing much this season, either for us or for anyone, because of his other commitments, and that when he does play, the opposition tends to be seriously good, but even so ..... Can it really be that he hadn't won a long play game until March 6th?? And if you had seen the game, you'd be amazed that his unfortunate record isn't still intact. Because this was Paul Max; Paul Ultra and Uber Paul all rolled into one as far as his time trouble habit is concerned. (Even he admitted afterwards that this was his worst ever!!) He had an agonisingly long think on about move 4 and didn't really speed up much after that. He had to stop writing the moves down due to lack of time on about move 15 - yes with 20 moves to the time control! - and by the time his clock showed 1 minute he still had 12 moves to make. I had to leave the room, especially as his opponent had seemingly engineered a big invasion of Paul's kingside with a queen and bishop. But minutes later it was all over. Paul had had it pretty much under control all the time. He nabbed a pawn with a neat tactic (how did he see that with no time to think??) and then rushed his queen back to defend along the second rank at the crucial moment, and almost as soon as the time control was reached Black had to resign And did I mention that this was another Dutch Defence? So 0/2 for our friends from the Netherlands so far.

And now everyone left the room to leave Carl in play against Jonathan Dale on Bd 4. While neither player is in the Warwickshire Select 4NCL team, they didn't want to feel completely left out, so they also played another Dutch. Three in one night!! (Plus the Spanish in my game, so take that you Brexiteers - KCC has seemingly nailed its colours firmly to the European mast.) Thankfully for us, this turned out to be the one game where Black didn't lose, though it certainly looked nasty for Carl at a number of stages. Carl's problem wasn't so much time trouble, as time zone trouble, as he had only got back from a 2 week business trip to the US a couple of days earlier.  He defended well for most of the game, retaining enough counterplay to offset a weak, backward e pawn, and in fact his structure was better as he had inflicted doubled e pawns on White. But close to the time control he allowed White to make a breakthrough from absolutely nowhere, which ended up with a White pawn on h7 defended by a white rook on the seventh rank and Black's king on h8. White just needed to engineer a check from his dark squared bishop and it would have been Goodnight Vienna, but Carl's defences held firm and he was able to simplify down to a draw to win the match. Quite an achievement with his brain still on Pacific Standard Time!

Phew, that was a hell of a match and one where we just made it over the line thanks to some tremendous fighting chess against very strong opponents. If it's really true that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, then we should have a team of Supermen this morning! Olton remain in pole position for the title with their games in hand, but they still have to play Shirley, so its not cut and dried yet. In the meantime all we can do is try to keep on keeping on!

This Is The Way, The Season Ends .......

........ not with a bang, but a whimper. (If I remember my TS Eliot correctly.)

We failed to cover ourselves in glory at our final Coventry League Division 1 match of the season, last night. We had to play University A, whose record before last night read:-

Played 11, Won 11, game point difference +29

So against those odds, the last thing we needed was to be a point down before we started, but unfortunately we could only muster three players on the night. Kenilworth chess playing folk were instead to be found in the USA, Yorkshire, Liverpool and Peterborough, while others were otherwise unavailable or uninterested. This did not bode well for a positive result, and even though our opponents tried to take pity on us by fielding a rather understrength team by their standards, a grade of 175 on Board 4 is hardly weak by Coventry League standards.

So a 3.5-0.5 victory for the students could hardly be classed as a surprise. There was, however, just a glimpse of an upset for a few minutes quite early in the evening. On Board 3 Nick F was material up after Morgan Blake sacrificed a piece for a couple of pawns and a big mess. Nick's king was not happy in the middle of the board, but as well as his extra bit he also had a passed pawn on f6. I suspect he was probably winning with anything like careful play. Unfortunately, he was in his high speed mode (these youngsters, eh?!) and instead of stopping to think in a very double edged position he tried to win more material but found out that it actually blundered a rook. It must be the low attention span of kids these days, I think. As you get older, Nick, you'll understand the attraction of spending ages over each move - because life is so empty there's nothing better to do with your time!

For once I was not last to finish, as my game on Board 1 against the very strong Dimitar Daskalov (ECF grade 233!) ended in a repetition in 22 moves. He knew the opening variation better than me (no surprise there), and went into an early forcing line that seemed to win the exchange for a pawn. But then he found that it was too dangerous to take my rook, as I had two massive threats of Bc4+ (mating or winning a rook) and Nd5 (attacking Black's queen and threatening Ne7 mate). He was forced to keep attacking my queen on e7 and e8 with a rook from f7 and f8, and it was a draw. That put me in a club of just two people (with Paul) who have managed to draw against him this season in 10 league games! This was the fourth time this season that I've secured half a point to spare us from losing 4-0. When we crash and burn, we really crash and burn!

So before nine o'clock I was on my way home and there was only one game still going - though I doubt it lasted very much longer. Ben was getting well pulverised by Ioannis Lentzos on the black side of  a rather brutal advance French. He dropped an exchange and then White decided to sac a piece on h7 so that his queen could pick off all black's kingside pawns with check. I left as White played what looked like the killing move e3-e4, clearing the way for a rook on c3 to swing over to the h or g files to put the boot in decisively.

So there we have it. The Coventry League season is over and we've done OK (fourth place) in what has turned into a very tough competition - thanks to Warwick University its much stronger than Division 1 of the Leamington League at the moment. And now its on to the KO Cup, with Rugby C as our quarter final opponents next week.

Deja Vu, All Over Again

Another Tuesday; another Cov League Div 1 match against Nuneaton (their B team this time); and another 2-2 draw. On the upside this means that we secured at least a 4th place finish (two higher than last season), but on the downside, it means we won't finish any higher than 4th, either.

Things didn't go too well to start with, as the first decisive result saw Dave lose on board 4 against Mike Maher. Dave seemed to be fine after a quiet London System (booooo!), with a seemingly powerful pawn front, but things were not so straightforward. Mike cleverly sneaked a pawn to a6 and then deflected one of Dave's rooks from the defence of a key pawn. A white rook got to the seventh and nabbed the black pawn on a7, and a weak back rank meant Dave could not stop the white a pawn from queening.

In the absence of Ben (in Italy) and Carl (in Trumperica), Nick F made his Coventry League debut on Board 3, and confronted Dave Kearney with his patent Bird's Opening. Nick got into quite a mess on the queenside, and then mistimed his e4 break, so things weren't looking great. But when Dave snatched a white pawn on f4, Nick's position sprang to life. Pessure down the e file won the pawn back and after Dave had made the time control by the skin of his teeth a draw was agreed. My very superficial assessment was that by this time, Nick's rook and bishop were better than Dave's rook and knight, but it wasn't clear and there was certainly nothing decisive happening in the short term. So a solid debut result for Nick.

Mike was engaged in a really complex Modern Benoni against Tony Green on Board 2. He always seemed to be holding against white's kingside pawn squeeze, though the normal black queenside counter-play seemed to be somewhat slow in developing. A lot happened while my attention was elsewhere (ie on my own game!), and when the players finally agreed a draw the position had exploded. Both sides had a passed pawn, and both had potential entry squares that needed perpetual guarding, so a draw seemed a fair result after a heavyweight encounter.

Which left me. Again. Trying to save the match. Again. But the good news is that this time I managed to secure the win that earned us a point. Phil Briggs played a very strange line in the Petroff that is a speciality of his. But surprisingly he almost instantly played a terrible move which allowed me to play 8 Nxf7. He had to take with his king, and 9 Qh5+ then won the Black knight on d5. I could have swapped queens, but I decided I should play against his weak king instead. This was a mistake, as my queen was driven back and it seemed to take me an age to get my pieces out. He had compensation, but two pawns are two pawns, and around the time control I started to get a grip on the position. Queens came off and I won more material, ending up with a veritable avalanche of pawns in the centre/kingside that bludgeoned their way decisively to the end zone.

So, a fair result in a tough match against a team of virtual identical strength to us. This latest draw took our unbeaten league run to six games, and if we avoid defeat in our final match next week against University A, we will have achieved the remarkable feat of going unbeaten in the second half of the season. By the way, on that point, did I mention that Uni A have won all 11 matches so far this season? Scoring 3-1 or better in 9 of them? Or that they have lost only two individual games out of 44? Wish us luck as you wave us goodbye! We may not all come back in one piece!!

Anti-climax

A 2-2 draw at home to second placed Nuneaton A last night, saw us remain one point adrift of them in Division 1 of the Coventry League in third place. A win would have put us in with a chance of finishing second, but as we have the inevitable pasting from University A yet to come, it means that one win from two will definitely see Nuneaton finishing ahead of us. As things stand, we have it all still to do to even finish third.

Showing himself to be a Kenilworth man at heart, Andrew Paterson kindly decided to give this game a miss, rather than take up his normal Coventry League position as board 1 for Nuneaton A. This should have given us a chance, but Nuneaton still fielded a more than useful team and we were ultimately more than a little fortunate to escape defeat.

Mike was first to finish with a draw, defending an inferior position tenaciously for some time against Bob Buckler, who looked to have played a rather good Czech Benoni as Black. Then Carl went down the gurgler against Paul Davies. When Carl's pet hack-attack variation goes wrong it really goes wrong. He sacked/lost a piece and the pawns he received in compensation gradually disappeared, leaving him just a piece down. Paul avoided a few cheapos and Nuneaton were in the lead.

Which is where I thought they were going to stay, until Ben delivered a full point for us in most unexpected fashion. He had been grovelling on the Black side of a Closed Sicilian all night against Colin Green, when Colin somehow contrived to walk into a fork from Ben's almost useless knight, that was simply defending  from the less than active square c8. And then to compound the loss of the exchange, Colin immediately dropped a piece leaving him a whole rook down.

I had earlier turned down a draw against Maurice Staples - even though I stood slightly worse - thinking I probably needed to win to save the match. Thankfully, Ben's fortuitous win relieved me of that burden, since when Maurice started to repeat moves attacking my rook with a bishop, I had no realistic alternative but to fall in with his plan.

This was our last home match of the Cov League season, and brought our home record to four wins, one draw and only one loss against the unstoppable University A behemoth. The Abbey Club has become as unforgiving to visiting teams as Turf Moor in the Premier League. Regrettably, though, we have also proved as flaky as Burnley on our travels - like them picking up just one point all season so far. I just hope the similarities end there, though, and I don't have to start talking like Burnley manager Sean Dyche. I can feel a sore throat coming on just thinking about it.

High Five

For the fifth time since Christmas we were in action in a Coventry League competition and for the fifth time we were undefeated. (Four wins and a draw.) The dream continues!

Last night saw us in action away to Nuneaton C in the Divisional Cup. Starting a three week spell for us against Nuneaton teams as our next two League games are against Nuneaton A and B. Who says there are no glamour fixtures?

So on paper, this was the easiest match of the three. Albeit, Nuneaton C as a Division 2 team started with a 1.25  lead (meaning we needed to win 3-1). Mark also doesn’t play in this competition and they were above us in the table before we started. So reasons to be nervous… As it was on the night our average grade was 154 to their 113, so the 4-0 end result was probably what would be expected. I did advise the team earlier in the day not to agree quick draws. If only we’d issued this edict earlier in the season, who knows where we might be now?

Thanks to everyone for notes on their games, as I’d left before anything much actually happened. My opponent walked into an opening trap on move 7, which netted me the exchange and a pawn. I picked up another pawn a few moves later and he decided to call it a night. So 1 – 0.  

On Board four Dave’s game saw a London system. Inaccurate opening play from his opponent allowed him to equalize without too many problems. However Dave allowed White some queen side expansion which meant that the resulting ending was favourable for White who had a central passed d pawn. Dave’s superior technique then began to tell. Dave utilised back rank threats to make more of his pawns than his opponent could and ultimately snagged a Rook to win.

Board three looked like it was on something of a different level from Mike’s description. Mike said his game “saw a resumption, after 13 years, of a 16 year debate over about 15 games and from both players of different variations of the Dutch Defence. Oliver Cosham played the opening exceptionally well and by a series of clever transpositions reached a satisfactory tabyia as played by some of the world’s elite. However a plan to then hold the centre, Thermopyle-like, was foiled when the intended queens-side counter-attack was prevented by temporarily blocking that side of the board. With no counter-play Oliver began to run short of time. A 7 move tricky to envisage re-organisation of pieces plan was then carried out to bring additional pressure on the centre. Just as the time control approached a break through there occurred to win a piece as Oliver exceeded the time limit with 2 moves still to play.  The sort of game I imagine Tarrasch would have played effortlessly.” Sounds like one to remember!

I haven’t heard much about Carl’s game. However, I noticed that castling took place on different sides of the Board (Carl queenside). Carl seemed to have an open g file and well positioned Rooks to take advantage of that. Given his amazing form and the difference in grade between him and his opponent I wasn’t too surprised to hear that he won too!

So a good night. You can only beat the team that is in front of you and we did a good professional job. I just wish the Coventry competitions had started after Christmas!

If This is a Dream, Don't Wake Me Up

Amazing! 2017 has seen three games and three wins for our Coventry League team, as we held on to our recently acquired fourth place with a convincing 3-1 win over Coventry A this week. In fact we are only 1 point away from second place, though I think that we may have to concede first place to University A - which is not so much magnanimity on my part as recognition of the fact that they have a 100% record, are 10 points clear and have already clinched the title with oodles of matches to spare. Nevertheless, we're not too proud to fight it out amongst the also-rans for minor honours!

The squad rotation system came into effect this week, as Carl sat out our latest match (at home with his man flu symptoms and a cup of cocoa I expect!), and Dave came into the team. As he has the best percentage score of any of us, this wasn't too much of a problem! We started off with a quick win by Ben on Board 2 over our very own Bernard C after a somewhat offbeat variation of the Dutch. Bernard has been in excellent form since Christmas (we won't mention the few months before that!), so this was a good win for Ben who took advantage of some exposed Black pieces to snare a whole piece.

We cemented our position soon after when Mike drew on Board 3 against Ed Goodwin. A Modern Benoni was met by an early g4 and a capture on e5 which gave White a passed d pawn. Mike hurried to get a knight to d6 and to blockade it. The position was still very complicated when the players decided to share the point.

Dave had been pressing all night on Board 4 after a 2 c3 Sicilian, and he was the one who clinched the win. He got a space advantage, a grip on the c file and good squares for his pieces. Black seemingly had none of these things. Eventually he broke through in the centre and his queen and a powerful passed pawn won the day.

It was just left to me to close the match by drawing with Dave Ireland on Board 1. I played one of several basically unsound variations of the Sicilian that I now try once in a while and it got me a good game. We went into a rook, bishop and knight ending which was still tactical, but where my pieces were much more active and I also had a space advantage. Then Dave started to defend extremely well and gradually freed his position as I failed to find the right plan to exploit my edge. White's rook jumped out and started causing me much aggro. With time running out I called off my winning efforts and offered a draw. Dave initially declined, but a few moves later returned the offer and I accepted.

We still have to play both Nuneaton teams, who are vying with us for the silver and bronze medal positions, so its all to play for. We also have to play the monstrously strong University A team, but we won't think about that until we have to!