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The Northern 4NCL
4th Weekend, 26th-27th Mar 2011, Wychwood Park
by John Carleton
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De Vere Venues, Wychwood Park, near
Crewe |
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There was a feeling of familiarity on our
return to Wychwood Park on the outskirts of
Crewe, not only for the prospect of the
welcoming venue, but the awareness amongst the
the Spirit of Atticus team of a tough match in
prospect on the Saturday. Our opponents were to
be locally based Holmes Chapel placed third in
the league and as such hot on our heels. There
were other interesting tussles in prospect, not
least the bottom of the table collision between
Aigburth and Manchester Manticores.
The Saturday round did have one novel feature
and that was the posting of regular updates from
the other major sporting event of the weekend
[the Sri Lanka versus England quarter final tie
in the cricket world cup]. These were provided
by controller Alex McFarlane, who was, as ever,
sensitive to the feelings of the players, but as
he admitted, having no interest in the contest.
Amazingly, Alex's interest seemed to grow as the
afternoon wore on, and, as the magnitude of the
disaster facing England became more and more
apparent, the regular updates were almost a ball
by ball commentary. Absolutely no sour grapes on
my part obviously.
The actual games started uncharacteristically
brightly for us and after about an hour and a
half's play we had great looking positions for
myself on board 1, for Dave Stuttard on board 4
and for Andy Mort on board 6. In addition Peter
having started passively on board 2 was
approaching equality, Mike Driscoll was equal on
board 5 and only Dave Robertson's game was just
starting to slip towards his opponent on board
3. After another hour or so normal service was
resumed and we were in a really close fight,
with the final outcome impossible to call. Andy
had unleashed his threatened attack and netted
an overwhelming material preponderance which
forced resignation. However, my thunderous
position had settled to a nagging edge after a
fine piece of startling castling from Patrick
Bennett.
In addition Dave Stuttard was finding
opponent Mike Hancock's queen putting on a
Rambo-style act of defiance, singlehandedly
tying up much of Dave's firepower as he tried to
close in on the slumbering white army. Further,
by now Dave Robertson had progressed to genuine
discomfort and celebrated grandmaster-slayer
Chris Doran was winding up the pressure on Mike
Driscoll. The next game to finish was Peter on
board 2 following a slightly confusing sequence
of events: Peter seemed to avoid the natural
equalising sequence, confidently played a few
moves and offered a draw which was immediately
declined. Just a couple of moves later his
opponent returned the draw offer which was
immediately accepted; the general view is that
the final position was extremely dicey for
Peter. The denouement, as is frequently the
case, came round the time control; firstly my
nagging edge yielded the full point when Patrick
blundered his queen but Mike's colours were
lowered on board 5 as the pressure on his king
became unbearable. Dave Stuttard had sacrificed
a piece, got it back and arrived a slightly
better ending which turned into a slightly worse
ending when he dropped his most dangerous pawn
[All in a day's work for Dave!]. The draw was
not long delayed once the players arrived in a
dead position with just rook and one pawn each.
Dave Robertson gradually broke out of his
cramped quarters and a flat knight and pawn
ending was agreed drawn just a few moves after
the first time control.
Thus, with this win by the narrowest of
margins, we had achieved possibly our best
result of the tournament to date. Other results
were significant: a thumping win by Bradford A
against the usually resilient Jorvik, a shock
win by Bradford B against Cheddleton 2 and,
again against the odds, victory for Manchester
against Aigburth in the battle of the basement.
Saturday evening saw us visit the Thai
restaurant in one of leafy Cheshire's finest
towns, Nantwich, and as usual our research
officer [Refreshments and Sicilian defence]
Robbo had provided a venue providing fine food,
drink and we of course provided the convivial
company. We were pleased to welcome a fellow
addict from another team, who perhaps aware of
our close connections with other chess
conditioning coaches [Yermolinsky and Dvoretsky
principally] followed our preparation methods
assiduously and, showing himself a quick learner
was the sole victor in his team the following
day.
And so Sunday duly arrived; an inexplicable
fatigue, the lost hour, a team captains or
interested parties meeting and of course the
jamboree format with the team spread round the
room meant, for this captain at any rate, that
it was extremely difficult to keep tabs on what
was happening. Fortunately, my opponent lost the
thread of our game early on and my position took
on overwhelming proportions and resignation
followed inside a couple of hours. This meant I
could have constant updates ready for my players
still embroiled in battle, or could do what I
actually did and go for an energising walk round
the golf club and wild life areas in the
beautiful vernal sunshine. I returned to find
that Andy and Mike had each had somewhat the
better of draws; Mike had been playing smoothly
and efficiently but was not alone on this day in
feeling real determination from an opponent from
Aigburth. Andy had an edge but was an hour
behind on the clock. Just before my walk, Dave
Robertson on board 4 against Martina Flint from
Jorvik had been offered an interesting [and
difficult to evaluate] change of pawn formation.
After considerable thought Dave declined the
offer and "got on with the game". Unfortunately
this immediately lost the exchange to a knight
fork. On my return, Dave had dug in, grabbed a
pawn and generated some counter-play.
Eventually, the players set up a repetition
and after about 5 repeats one of them spoke and
a draw was agreed. Peter Ackley played a
queenside against kingside strategy and kept his
king in the middle ready to run if the going got
tough. His strategy was completely vindicated
keeping a black knight shut out of the game on
b8 and thus effectively playing a piece ahead.
Gradually exchanges came emphasising Peter's
advantage; his opponent gave up the trapped
knight for a pawn but to no avail. Faced with a
pawn on the verge of queening he bowed to the
inevitable and Peter had delivered the point to
ensure us the "match" points. Dave Stuttard
sacrificed a pawn in the opening for nebulous
compensation and then generated complications
which always offered good drawing chances but
little more. After 5 hours play his opponent
gave up trying to chase the elusive win,
agreeing the draw in the lifeless, despite his
extra passed pawn, bishop of opposite colour
ending that had arisen.
The afternoon provided two fine examples of
bouncebackability: Jorvik after being crushed on
Saturday were leading scorers with 5 game points
and Aigburth opened their account with 4 game
points to move away from the bottom of the
league. Bradford deservedly pushed on at the top
although we've kept chasing. It just remains for
me to wish good luck to our new friends and
rivals from the North as we venture together
into the unknown for the final weekend.
• Rd7
results •
Rd8
jamboree results
•
Spirit of Atticus team page
• Northern
league Table •
Games in
PGN
This report can also be seen
here.
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