GM Bashing

More GM bashing from a Marple player today

Summer League v Denton

This match, which was postponed because of the British Championships, has been rearranged for 11th September.  Put the date in your diaries!

Summer League: Stockport -v- Marple

The match result from last night

Stockport                                 Marple

Alan Smith (200)            0          1          Alex Longson

Paul Cawley (189)          0          1          Michael Fernandez

Jeff Mason (153)            0.5        0.5      Sarah Hegarty

Dave Toole (169)            0.5        0.5      Paul Kirby

Mike Crowther (156)       0.5        0.5      Glenn Trueman

Jill Barber (146)              1          0         Tony Kay

                                    2.5        3.5

Marple players at the British Championships.

Congratulations to all the Marple players who took part in the British Championships. A magnificent achievement as they all performed above their ratings -

Sarah 5.0/11 (2170) and the (shared )  title of British Womens Champion

Keith 7.5/11 (2468)

Daniel 7.0/11 (2429)  (No draws!)

Alex 7.0/11 (2392)

It's perhaps worth pointing out that 7/11 has on occasion been sufficient to come 1st equal.Also Sarah was in my view desperately unlucky not to be  sole champion as her rival received a full point bye in Round 11.

Glenn.

PS As pointed out by Terry - Daniel is  also British Under 18 Champion!

 

Keith v Daniel

Have two Marple players played each other in the British Championships before?  I'll let wiser sages than I answer that, but it happened yesterday when Keith Arkell beat Daniel Fernandez in a rook and pawn ending (what else) at Torquay.  Here's the game.

 

Marple Players at the British..

When I joined Marple Chess Club in 1980 it would have been considered a fantastic achievement for a club member to be on 2.5/5 in the British Championship. That is the position Sarah is currently in, but she finds herself, incredibly, fourth in the Marple "Mini-League".  Alex is playing very solidly and is incredibly theoretically well prepared. He is somewhat unfortunate to "only" be on 3 points.On 3.5 is Keith,  his games are a constant education to me, for example his game in Round 5 seems a brilliant exposition of the toughest task in chess - beating the London system with Black. 

Leading the way is Daniel with 4/5. To beat GM Simon Williams and GM Danny Gormally  in succesive White games is 2600+ stuff and in both these games he demonstrated an Alekhine like will to win, In fact it's like watching Alekhine (without the alcohol!).

Saturdays  pairings include Keith v Daniel and although this is unfortunate in some ways, it's got to be worth watching. Alex against another GM in Chris Ward and Sarah playing the vastly experienced Neil Carr look fascinating too ..... ""

Glenn 

DUTCH BIRDS ARE A DRAW!

Our second team had a traumatic journey to Eccles last night due to a major hold up on the M60.  Alerted to the problem by the other car, yours truly impressed life-long taxi driver Barrie with a blinding diversion straight to Eccles, only to go past the exit off the motorway!  Anyway we arrived by 8, having alerted our friendly hosts by phone and got playing.
Barrie finished within half an hour but not in the right way.  He said he didn't want to miss his lift home!   Meanwhile my opponent spoilt my Sicilian Nimzovich on move 4.  He won a pawn early on and had an unsupported pawn on e6 which I couldn't eliminate.  He supported it cleverly and I was in a constant bind.  We went two down.
However Tony Doust, in good form recently, had played his Dutch in style.  He created a Kingside attack with all sorts of threats which led to Mate. 1-2.  On top board against a strong opponent, Tony the K had played his much loved Bird's and launched a pawn attack Kingside. He sacrificed a pawn then lost momentum, narrowly avoided Mate and forced a draw.  

Jeff had won a piece early on.  Both players had rook and 7 pawns, but Jeff also had a Knight.  His opponent seemed to get fed up with the constant pressure and resigned.  2.5-2.5; and just Peter left at the table. Both players had two rooks and a piece but Peter was two pawns down.  Next time I looked he had won an exchange, but then it was a rook and two pawns against knight and five pawns. The white pawns were strong on both wings and looked likely to Queen but Peter somehow eliminated  them all leaving just his Rook against Knight. He never managed to corner the King and eventually ran out of time in front of a large crowd.  The game and therefore the match was drawn as his opponent had no means to win.  

I suspected we were heavily out-graded, but it was only a few moments ago I realised to what extent.  Have a look at this!:

	Eccles 1		Marple 2
1	M. Fores (174)	1/2	T. Kay (141)
2	M. Pollard (146)	0-1	A. Doust (107)
3	L. Harrold (122)	0-1	J. Barlow (104)
4	N. Holland (103)	1-0	N. Dainty (86)
5	G. Whitehead (111)	1/2	P. Kelly (66)
6	M. Fox (105)	1-0	B Edwards (76)
Match result		3-3
	761		580