Broadstairs first home match in the Steele Cup gave Broadstairs an early opportunity to turn around the convincing result and win by Bridge in the Millar Cup less than a week ago.

Michael Jenkinson on Board 4 was again the first game to finish, but this time it was a win for the home team to go 1 – 0  up.

Board 1 result went with the players’ ratings with George Hollands securing a win against Chris Stampe to level the match at 1 – 1.

Both boards 2 and 3 saw the initial positions favour Bridge, whilst Paul Carfrae opening with white was not ideal, Andrew Flood on Board 3 with the black pieces, although going two pawns up quickly, found his pieces in an awful position. Paul strengthened his position and secured a point to guarantee at least the draw for Broadstairs.

Black on Board 3 fought back to even up the position with 6 Pawns and a Knight facing White’s 6 Pawns and a Bishop and having the time advantage. White offered a draw, which was accepted to secure a Broadstairs win by 2½ – 1½

This position was reached yesterday, playing with the  Black pieces was the talented youngster Eli Gallamoy. Eli’s opponent has  pushed his pawn to d4, with the intention of d5 forking Knight and Bishop; Can you find the destructive attack unleashed by Black?

Black to Play

Broadstairs first match of the season commenced with a short trip to nearby Margate. Past seasons always resulted in a close match and Thursday night proved no exception.

The League’s new time control meant that the match finished a little earlier than normal just after  10.00 pm.

The games on all 4 Boards were close , a tactical positional game was taking place on Board 3 with no exchange of pieces until around mover fourteen. A blunder in a constrained position resulted in the loss of a pawn and then a Knight fork on the Queen and King and a black resignation and an early point for Broadstairs.

Broadstairs were out-rated on Board 1 where Peter McGill was improving his position going one and then two pawns up, and finally developing a winning position to square the match at 1 – 1.

In the remaining games Broadstairs (B2) with Dominic Blundell playing black was a pawn up and Paul Verrall (B4) with black was struggling in what was fast becoming a lost game. On Board 4 Margate (Roy McAloney) advanced his pawn to convert it into a Queen and Paul had to sacrifice his Queen for some minor pieces as white sought to get checkmate. Like Monty Python’s black knight Paul was battling on, and miraculously turned the game around pinning his opponents white Queen against his white King forcing an exchange of the Queen for his rook followed by a Rook and King fork with his Knight to capture his opponents, Rook. With some clever manoeuvres Paul was converting his own pawn to Queen upon which his opponent resigned, and so an almost certain lost game was won and Broadstairs were 2 – 1 up.

Attention then turned to the final game on Board 2 where Dominic (Broadstairs) remained a pawn up with the only other pieces on the board being the Kings and Queens. Colin Gregory’s (Margate) m offered up his Queen for exchange, which unfortunately Dominic accepted, which resulted in the white King and Margate having the advantage of the tempo and a more centralised position enabling the King to take the two black central pawns and soon after black resigned.

The result was a 2 – 2 draw and another close match between Broadstairs and Margate.

The Goodall Tournament kicked off last night with some very exciting chess. There were many close battles and eventually Dominic, Ian, Manoj, both Pauls and Reg all scored wins.

Here is a position from the tough fight between Steven and Paul Verrall

Black (Paul) to play, can you find the unusual finish?

Show Solution

I was watching a fascinating game online earlier today. GM Daniel Naroditsky had the White pieces.

The following position was reached  after his opponent had played …. Qg6

can you find the tactic that wins at least a piece?

White to move