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Friday 28 November 2014

TOP IS THE LIMIT as Martin makes the cut!

Our Limit League team went back to the top of the table with an excellent win against a strong Denton team at the Navi last night.  Martin Cutts played his first game for the club and faced Tom Ireland. You don't expect to face a player graded 103 on Board 3 of the Limit League, as the rules stipulate the 4 boards must total 400 or less.  However Martin won easily going two pieces up early on - well done!

I was white on 2 and faced a Pirc Defence for the first time.  I fell for a simple trap in the opening,  an insignificant  one but I would have liked to see it coming!  Eric had his king castled behind his fianchettoed bishop, but I managed to create some pressure as my pieces where all pointing kingside.  I created a few threats which opened up a hole or two and nearly blew it thinking my rook could not have been taken, when it should have been.  Once I escaped that I finished the game nicely.

I didn't see much of the other games, but Tony was two pawns up and won comfortably I think.  Joseph lost an endgame when he couldn't stop a passed pawn although I'm reliably informed he played very well.

We play Denton for the third game next Wednesday; I heard them say they will field the same team.  We will continue with our squad rotation policy!

                         MARPLE 3 - 1 DENTON

1.  120               Tony Kay 1 - 0 Phil Boyd         117
2.    99           Neil Dainty  1 - 0  Erik Lesnik      114
3.  e80         Martin Cutts  1 - 0  Tom Ireland     107
4.    44  Joseph Anderson  0 - 1  Lee Maycock   e30

Sunday 23 November 2014

Daniel is the British Blitz Champion!

I'm very pleased to report that Daniel has just won the British Blitz Championship (11 rounds played at 3minutes +2 seconds increments) at the Excel Centre with the superb score of 9/11.

Glenn.

Saturday 22 November 2014

Match result: Marple B vs Denton B: 20th November 2014

Match result: Marple B vs Denton B: 20th November 2014

1.     Chris Baker       (129)      0-1       Laszlo Antal        (170)
2.     Terry Cowl        (127)      0-1      Tim Hilton           (158)
3.     David Preen     (125)        0-1      John Ryan            (165)
4.     Jeff Barlow       (124)       0-1      George Kolbusz  (155)
5.     Trefor Thomas (100)        0-1      David Holt           (146)
6.     Neil Dainty       (99)         0-1      David Boulden     (143)

Total                                         0-6

A wipe out I'm afraid,  though we were heavily out-graded on every board.  I can't comment on the other games as I was too busy keeping my head above water playing our former colleague George.  I enjoyed the game and even thought I might get something out of it at one stage.  I made the first blunder and thought that would be it but let me back in, giving me good prospects if it went to an endgame.  At this point he launched a sacrificial attack, which, though dangerous I thought I could hold it. We were both short of time and I failed to defend it.

[Date "2014.11.20"]
[White "Barlow, Jeff"]
[Black "Kolbusz, George"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C01"]

1. e4 e6 2. Nf3 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. d4 Bd6 5. Nc3 Ne7 6. Bg5 f6 7. Bh4 c6 8. Bg3
O-O 9. Qd2 Bg4 10. Be2 Re8 11. O-O Bxg3 12. fxg3 Nd7 13. Bd3 Nf8 14. Rae1 Qb6
15. Na4 Qd8 16. Nc3 Nfg6 17. h3 Bxf3 18. gxf3 Qd6 19. Kg2 f5 20. f4 a6 21. Nd1
b5 22. c3 Rad8 23. Re2 Rf8 24. Rfe1 Rf6 25. Qe3 Nc8 26. Qf3 Qd7 27. Re3 Nd6 28.
Qe2 Ne4 29. Nf2 Qd6 30. Bc2 Rdf8 31. Nd3 a5 32. b4(?? embarrassing!) Nxc3 33. Qh5 axb4 34. Bb3
Ne4 35. Rc1 Kh8 36. Qe2 Qb8 37. Qe1 Nc3 38. Nxb4 Ne4 39. Nxc6 Qd6 40. Nb4 Nxf4+
41. gxf4 Qxf4 42. Rc6 Qg5+ 43. Kf1 f4 44. Rxf6 Rxf6 45. Rf3 Rg6 46. Ke2 Qg2+
47. Rf2 Nxf2 48. Qxf2 Re6+ 0-1

Thursday 20 November 2014

They had Tony Jinks, BUT WE HAD ANDY JENKS!

After last week's thrashing by Denton we faced a more evenly matched team in Heywood 3.  However we were still out-graded on the top two boards.

Terry's game finished in a very early draw, so he was very disappointed to find all the beer was keg!  My game also came to a quick ending when my opponent resigned after my eighteenth move.  I had played a Moscow Sicilian with white, exchanging bishops on d7.  My opponent blundered with Nc4, allowing Qa4+ , winning the piece.  He resigned  when about to lose more material.  For once I can tell you what happened in the other games.

Tony Doust moved into an endgame with 2 pawns v 2 queenside and 4 v 2 kingside.  He skilfully dragged the white king kingside then moved his own king queenside to win a pawn and promote. It was now 2 wins and a draw but the action elsewhere was clearly favouring Heywood.

Tony Kay was facing an attack from Tony Jinks on his castled king along an open h file which he saw off.  They moved into an endgame where both players had queen and five pawns.  Jeff was a pawn down, but this later developed into 3 connected outside passed pawns.  He did well to hang on as long as he did and how he produced such an immaculate scoresheet under the pressure is beyond me.

Chris also seemed unlikely to win - John Carrington (146) had four connected passed pawns!

Meanwhile Andy Jenkins was facing eleven year old Nugith Jayawarna whose grade is clearly not going to stay as low as 148!  Andy showed him the value of experience and had two rooks and five pawns against rook, bishop and three.  Nugith's demeanour suggested he knew what was coming.  Andy used his rooks to win more pawns and coped with Nugith's threats with cool aplomb.  When he won we needed half a point to win the match, but Chris's game was over and Jeff's was only going to finish one way, although he battled on.

So I showed Tony the match sheet showing that a draw would win the match.  The queens had now gone and it was now, I think, four pawns each.  Tony mopped up the two queenside pawns and the other Tony seemed to me (but necessarily to anyone else) to be in zugwang .  I thought Tony's king would march across the board and win, but the Jinks cleverly created an unstoppable passed pawn and our Tony resigned.

A good result nevertheless:

                   HEYWOOD  3.5-3.5  MARPLE 2

1.  148 Nuthin Jayawarna   0-1      Andy Jenkins 130
2.  146  James Carrington   1-0      Chris Baker 129
3.  131  Dave Almond      0.5-0.5  Terry Cowling  127
4.  124  Luboslav Socha      1-0      Jeff Barlow  124
5.  120  Tony Jinks              1-0      Tony Kay  120
6.  104  Dave Thorp             0-1      Neil Dainty  99
7.    58  Barry Thompson     0-1      Tony Doust 100

Friday 7 November 2014

Fortuitous Victory for Stockport League Team

Played last evening at the  Navigation -

Marple A            V         Denton A      Stockport Lge Div 1   06/11/2014 

1 A Horton       0.5/0.5    S Thestrup
2 M Fernandez  1-0        A Jaunooby
3 A Longson      1-0         S Abdullayev
4 I Craft             0-1         R Raychev
5 S Hegarty        0-1         T Hilton
6 G Trueman      1-0         L Antal 

                         3.5/2.5 

As one very strong Denton player after another trooped into the playing room I realised we were facing much more difficult opposition than we encountered in the Charnley Cup match.

Laszlo kept me fully occupied for the whole evening meaning  I saw very little of play on other boards so what follows may well be inaccurate.

Isaac was making his debut for Marple. I know from experience Rotislav is a very fine Alekhine player so it is a testament to Isaacs skill that after about 15 moves Blacks pawn structure was totally bizarre and his position looked basically untenable. Apparently Isaac missed a win but then something disastrous happened and the next thing I  saw was to my surprise Isaac resigning. 0-1.

I saw virtually nothing of play on board 2 but my special correspondent (aka  Andy H) tells me that Michael played a superb game replete with superb taking on f7 tactics and it was soon clear that Ali was losing. It's rare to see Ali lose at all but for him to have a lost position at such at early stage is something I have never seen before. 1-1.

Sarah was facing Tim on Board 5. Tims recent results show he is very underated  and here he seemed to get a big advantage in a Kings Indian. Normally I see de: being a poor capture for White in the KID as the hole on d4 usually causes big problems later but that certainly wasn't the case here. Although Sarah fought hard there was nothing she could do to stop Tim winning in the end. 1-2.

Alex was facing Shami and from what I saw it seemed to be a very interesting Najdorf. This game was the next to finish although I was completely unaware of what was going on and eventually Alex triumphed. 2-2.

So scores might have been level but the problem was both Andy I were losing.  I had a contracted doubled c pawns early in a known theoretical line but Laszlo outplayed  me and from move 15 on my position oscillated between bad and lost. Eventually we reached a Rook Ending  where my Queenside pawn majority was totally crippled and Laszlo was a clear pawn up on the Kingside. Rook Endings are often difficult though and I was desperately clinging on as we both ran out of our original time and were playing on ten second increments. After about 70 moves the position was something like  - me (White) pawns at a4,c3,c4,d6 Rook h7,King b3 Laszlo (Black) pawns at a5,b6,h2, Rook at g2,King at g1. Here Laszlo promoted his pawn ...h1=Q but after Rh1: Kh1: c5! the pawns were simply too strong and I was able to convert some moves later. I really felt sorry for Laszlo as this was a total swindle. Terry thinks I am pessimistic about chess positions but I did feel one of my rules of "Negative Chess"  had come into play namely "Playing too hard for a win in a Rook ending, even an advantageous one, is very dangerous"  3-2.

So somehow we were ahead. Andy had seemed to me to be struggling against Sixtens well placed pieces and after recovering somewhat in the middle game appeared to be in big trouble as my game reached its end. According  to Andy Sixten then fell for one last trick which enabled Andy to force a draw. 3.5/2.5.

So a narrow and at times unlikely win. Many thanks to all who played particularly Andy and Isaac who helped me with moving all the furniture prior to the match!

The final event of the evening was the presentation of the Vic Knox Trophy (Expertly renovated by Neil) to Alex who was joint winner with Daniel as they both had magnificent 100% scores in the Stockport League last season. The applause was equally as strong from the Denton contingent as the Marple one which was very nice to see.

Glenn.

FIREWORKS AT DENTON

The Limit League team of Sparklers and Rockets travelled to Guide Bridge through dark skies with a noticeable lack of fireworks to lighten the gloomy night.  We arrived early which was just as well as none of the home team knew how to set the clocks!

It was my turn to take top board and quickly, in moves if not time,  I managed to box my white pieces in and give Phil Boyd a space advantage.  I don't excel in closed positions and it showed!

On bottom board Peter was facing a new, ungraded opponent and quickly won a couple of pieces and was first to finish.  Trefor unfortunately was next. 1-1.  On board 2 Tony was playing against Giorgio C. Below whose captain has told him he will not be selected again unless he changes his name!  Giorgio played quite forcefully but Tony went on to win comfortably.  2-1 Marple, but any hopes of the Charabanger bussing us home early were dashed by my slow and turgid play.

With Phil's knights on b4 and d4 threatening all sorts I went to the loo, as much to clear my addled brain as anything else.  When I returned the board looked completely different.  I had to do some quick thinking and realised he had exchanged one of his deadly knights for a bishop that resembled a limp hot dog that was about to meet it's end!  (is this another poor bonfire analogy? Ed.)

Most of Phil's advantage was now gone, although he still had much the better position.  Another exchange freed my position and my catherine wheels started to spin  (stop this now! Ed.).   My play improved dramatically and I managed to play a good attack helped by a rather nice Nh2-f3.
Phil resigned when I had only two minutes left but an overwhelming attack.

We are top of the limit league with 2.5 points from our 3 games.

    

1.  (117)                        Boyd, Philip A   0-1  Dainty, Neil C  (99)
2. (106) Menchelli-Lombardo, Giorgio   0-1  Doust, Antony  (99)
3. (104)                                Urwin, Ivan  1-0  Thomas, Trefor  (100)
3. (U/G)                           Maycock, Lee  0-1  Kelly, Peter H  (99)

Tuesday 4 November 2014

Another fantastic performance from Keith Arkell

Just to let everyone know Keith has just come 1st = in the World Over 50 Championships. I think I can here people celebrating outside.

Glenn.