The controllers’ strategy this
year is to avoid pairing strong teams against
each other until the Swiss System kicks in, with
the intention of making final rounds more
dramatic. This has meant that in each of the
first two weekends we have been matched against
one relatively weak and one relatively strong
team.
On Saturday, we out-rated
Bradford C, and anticipated a fairly comfortable
win. Having been rotated, a not too painful
experience, I was sitting out the match and
arrived after about 2 hours’ play, at which
point our theoretical superiority was not that
evident, though we were ahead on Boards 1 and 6.
First to finish, surprisingly, was Tom on Board
2, downed abruptly by Robert Dean, a thorn in
our side on previous occasions, after Tom had
failed to follow up accurately what the
post-mortem showed to be a superior position.
Richard agreed a draw as Black in a sterile
London System middle-game shortly after. By now
John had exploited his space advantage in the
form of control of the d-file and advanced
kingside pawn phalanx, and he won a piece to
convert to an easily won ending.
Having left the room for ten
minutes with Lloyd a comfortable piece to two
pawns up, I returned to find that his opponent
had ‘thrown the kitchen sink’ at his king; a
rook up, he nevertheless had pieces and pawns
menacing his king. With precise defence Lloyd
repulsed the attack, however, and his extra
material soon forced resignation. The position
of Colm, our ‘Mr. Reliable’, was difficult to
assess, in that he appeared to have a bad bishop
versus a monstrous knight on e5. Ultimately,
however, the knight was not influential, whereas
the bishop raked his opponent’s defences. A
doubling of rooks on the b file led to
penetration on the first rank, and a decisive
attack on White’s king.
|
Rounds 3 & 4,
Weekend 2, 2018 |
|
At this point we had won the
match, and had only one player in action,
and if I say that he was the last in the
room to finish (not for the first, or
probably even the second time), and describe
the progress of our Board 4’s game, few
regular 4NCL North players will be in doubt
about his identity. As White, he achieved no
more than a minimal edge in the opening,
deliberately ceded the two bishops, and
converted to a rook and pawn ending which
spectators thought was clearly drawn.
Our
player’s dogged determination was rewarded
when after about six hours’ play he squeezed
out a win, sadly not witnessed by his team
mates, who had abandoned him for the
restaurant with instructions to book his own
taxi. There are times when tough love is
necessary. This scenario is not unusual,
and, of course no satirical observations
were made about the side-effects of his
tenacity for the rest of the evening, his
team-mates being a sensitive bunch.
Having enjoyed our meal at
The Cherry Tree gastropub last year, we
repeated our visit to this deservedly busy
pub, and were rewarded by good real ale,
excellent food, and friendly service.
An efficient job done on
Saturday, but Cheddleton 2 would be more of a
challenge on Sunday, if possibly vulnerable on
the lower boards.
The balance was tipped in our
favour when the controllers informed us that our
opponents would have to field a reserve on Board
3, but we took no delight in this development,
as Simon Edwards, one of our longest standing
4NCL friends, had spent most of the previous
evening in A & E with a very painful back. On
asking his father about Simon’s indisposition,
however, we were relieved to hear that he was
O.K. At least that was what I inferred from
Roger’s “He had better be in work on Monday”!
We achieved a position of
superiority when John won a piece with a tactic
after an opening that had not seemed to yield
him much advantage. I won an inaccurately played
game when my opponent lost on time when the
exchange down but still with counter-play.
Richard worked to exploit his opponent’s
isolated Q pawn and won two pieces for a rook
but was constrained to agree a draw in the light
of his opponent’s aggressively placed pieces. On
Board 1, Lloyd faced a strong opponent
apparently well prepared as the Black side of a
Catalan. Though he had material parity, Lloyd‘s
doubled e pawn shut his g2 bishop out of the
game and his opponent capitalised on his
queen-side majority by promoting a strong passed
pawn, finishing the game with clinical
precision when his king was beginning to be
opened up.
Meanwhile, our resident
time-trouble addict had taken about half an hour
on half a dozen opening moves in a line he knows
well, eventually to play Russian Roulette with
his clock. By forceful play he won a central
pawn, but for the last quarter of the game was
surviving on sub-one minute increments. Having
conceded two pieces for a rook, he eventually
drew a rook and pawn ending. On this occasion
his captain felt that he needed to offer some
friendly advice, which might have been harsher
if he hadn’t needed a lift home from the
unidentified miscreant.
The match now looked to be
heading for a draw, as Tom, following a game of
complex manoeuvres, lost the exchange and faced
a threatening passed pawn on the b file. In
addition, he had little piece harmony. In an act
of supreme resilience against an opponent more
than 50+ years his junior, he succeeding in
winning the passed pawn, went on the offensive,
and, with both players having little time on the
clock, he eventually pinned his opponent’s queen
against his exposed king.
4-2 was a satisfying result, and
The Allerton Archivist will tell us when we last
won two games in a weekend. Sorry to disappoint
Spirit of Atticus groupies, but there are no
prizes for identifying our socially problematic
‘grinder’. Should you need a clue, he is a good
friend and club-mate of mine, and I am, in
reality, jealous of his powers of concentration.
But brinkmanship has its perils … positioned
where we are, we will face at least one top seed
in the next weekend, but we have riches in
personnel.
In the above games you can
activate the engine analysis board by clicking
the E8 (assuming White on bottom, D1 otherwise)
shortcut square on the main chessboard.
-
explore variations by
clicking the from and to squares for the
intended move
-
click the arrow buttons to
move back/forth through the variation being
analyzed
-
click the plus button at the
right of the arrow buttons to force the
engine analysis board to auto update
following the position of the main
chessboard; this is useful for instance when
following a live broadcast; limitations:
some pages might not offer this
functionality and some browsers do not
support this functionality
-
click on the side to move
indicator to switch the side to move; this
is useful to check for threats in the given
position
-
click on the principal
variation to execute its first move on the
engine analysis board
-
click on the evaluation mark
to activate/deactivate the engine
|