MICK CROFT CUP Tuesday 5^th October 2021 match report by Andrew Flood

At last! After an almost 20 months gap, Broadstairs chess club was able to field a team and play an over the board match against the newly formed Sandwich Chess Club (formerly Woodnesborough).

Out- rated (new terminology) on the majority of the 5 boards it was always going to be a difficult task to progress to the next round. Fredy, playing black was the first to finish finding it difficult against a very strong opponent on board 4. The match on board 2 saw the closely matched Blundell brothers battling it out against each other, with Dominic dictating the play, unfortunately a rook sacrifice, whilst forcing the play, proved inaccurate and resulted in victory for Kit and saw Sandwich taking a 2-0 lead. Broadstairs fought back on board 1 with Chris Stampe playing very solidly to beat and overcome a difficult and solid opponent.

With an outside chance of an overall win, Paul Verrall, making his debut on board 5, went right the way through to the end game with a slight disadvantage of being a pawn down, alas (a word we hope not to use much this year) some solid end game play from his Sandwich opponent meant that the game and tie was lost.

The middle board saw a solid match which was halved. It was the last game to finish and featured the most amazing move of the night when at the height of concentration, the Sandwich player with his A pawn not only took his opponent’s B pawn but followed through by then taking his own pawn!!

Great to be playing again, a loss but a most enjoyable evening and a chance to now concentrate on the league. Full results were.

This position comes from a game played in the recent World Cup, see if you can find the only way Black can get the advantage, even though he has his Queen and Knight under attack

Black to Play

In this recent game Black could have lashed out with

1….. Qxd1  2. Rxd1  Rxd1+  3. Kh2 Ng4+  4. Kh3  Rh1+ and Black is winning

Black is a pawn down and has some concerns regarding King safety.

However his pieces are better developed, can you find the best move?

Black to Play

Our game this week was played 90 years ago, but is topical because of the recent discussion regarding the superb Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit and Georgian GM Nona Gaprindashvili. GM Gaprindashvili is to sue the show for claims that the fictional Beth Harmon was the first female player to take on top male chess players.

However, maybe the ‘original’ Beth Harmon was in fact Vera Menchik.

Vera Menchik was the first Women’ World Champion, and, to my knowledge, played against at least 5 players who had been/were or would be World Champion.

These were Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Euwe and Botvinnik

Sadly Menchik was killed in 1944 when a German V1 rocket hit her home in London.

Here is one of her nicest games, played against the strong English player

 White:  Menchik, Vera     Black:  Thomas, George Alan

London 1932

   1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. f3 O-O 6. Be3 e5   7. Nge2 b6 8. Qd2 Nc6 9. d5 Ne7 10. g4 Nd7 11. Rg1 a5 12. O-O-O Nc5 13. Ng3 Bd7   14. h4 a4 15. h5 Qb8 16. Bh6 Qa7 17. Bxg7 Kxg7 18. Nf5+ Nxf5 19. gxf5 a3 20.   f6+ Kh8 21. Qh6 axb2+ 22. Kb1 Rg8 23. hxg6 fxg6 24. Qxh7+ 1-0