This was the final weekend in
which the draw was based on the principle of
trying to avoid the stronger teams meeting each
other before the closing two weekends. Buoyed up
by our previous weekend, in which we achieved
maximum points, we had confidently decided that
we were one of the stronger teams, and obviously
under-seeded - which did not prevent the
controllers from offering us a tasty pairing
against 3Cs 2 (on maximum points at this stage)
on the Sunday. This was a slight dent to our
self-esteem, though justified by the outcome.
Our warm-up for this challenging
encounter was a match v 3Cs 3 on the Saturday,
one which we were favourites to win comfortably,
not least because several late withdrawals had
constrained our opponents to avail themselves of
several ‘wild cards’. Thus we comfortably
out-rated our opponents.
The match very much followed
expectations. I won quickly against an
inexperienced opponent. When I returned from the
gym an hour later, there was only one game still
in progress, and that was John’s, by then a won
ending in which he had an extra piece following
his opponent’s unsound sacrifice in the middle
game. Colm had won two pieces for a rook and
pawn, and his three minor pieces combined
effectively to create a mating net. Tom had
opened the centre to devastating effect on his
opponent’s un-castled king, and Mike had
utilised an old ‘trick’ to win a pawn and
shatter his opponent’s centre, and then
king-side.
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Rounds 5 & 6,
Weekend 3, 2018 |
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On Board 1, Mike Taylor, a ‘wild
card’ from Stockport displaying no obvious signs
of wildness, had restored some pride for 3C’s by
drawing with Dave Phillips after a complex
middle-game arising from the Budapest Counter,
in which the latter refrained from tempting but
unsound sacrifices. So much for the chess, which
had very much gone to plan, but one of the great
joys of the 4NCL is the continuing potential for
aged players, of which we are many, to meet
acquaintances from the past. I was a teaching
colleague of Mike more than 40 years ago, and
had not met him since!
Sod’s Law remains a potent
principle, and because we had been unable to
reserve a table no earlier than 8-30, naturally
all games finished early. Our meal in the
vibrant Cherry Tree was as enjoyable as ever,
but we are becoming creatures of habit, and
there may be curry in the air at the next 4NCL
weekend.
Just as Saturday’s match had
conformed to expectations, so did Sunday’s,
and we were convincingly beaten, though to
achieve three draws was quite creditable.
Mike’s usually dependable French Defence was
blown away by his young opponent Robert Mc
Lean, who had inflicted similar punishment
on Colm some years ago before losing his way
and conceding the draw. John Cooper attacked
his opponent’s French defence with vigour,
but Black’s defence held firm and, after
further manoeuvring, a draw was agreed on
the basis of balanced positional strengths
and weaknesses.
I ultimately succeeded in
holding a difficult minor piece middle-game in
which my opponent had a dangerous queenside pawn
majority, and Colm agreed a draw after a fairly
tame encounter when the match had been lost. On
Board 1, John Hall managed to get a piece
trapped on the edge of the board. Although he
generated aggressive counter-play, this led to
other positional concessions that ultimately
proved fatal. Tom attacked his opponent’s
English Opening aggressively, but, following the
exchange of queens, was left with a rather
passive position which led to devastating rook
infiltration on the queenside by his opponent.
We still occupy an elevated
position in the table, and it is probably fair
to say that - unusually - we have played to our
potential so far. There are different views
about what the “spirit” in The Spirit of Atticus
really means.
Robbo’s visceral view that it
entails sacrificing your health, regular meals -
your family if necessary - to grinding out
results for hours on end, but some of us are too
old and socially inclined for that to be an
inflexible mantra. At the team’s inception,
however, an important focus was the Saturday
meal and related pre-and post-prandial
activities. With only three people attending the
meal this weekend, is it time, one wonders, to
base team selection on criteria other than pure
chess playing ability? Some would argue that
such a policy is partly in place, which is why I
continue to book tables at restaurants, collect
money, and write frivolous reports.
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
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