Walker Shield v Bridge (a)

                                                 Broadstairs   2½      Bridge 1½                       

1 Andy Flood (115) 1-0 Peter Blundell (115)
2 Reg Pidduck (99) 0-1 Gary Hilleard (107)
3 Bob Cronin (90) ½-½ John Dickie (e90)
4 Mike Doyle  (87) 1-0 Ian Redmond (81)

Mike Doyle writes:

Going into this match, Bridge were flying high with seven wins out of seven but suffered a defeat against a well-drilled Broadstairs team. Bridge were going all out for the Walker Shield until Andy, President of the Thanet Chess League, and our captain Mike clinched wins to secure a 2½-1½ victory.

We arrived ten minutes late because our driver Andy took a re-directed route due to flooding and road maintenance. Our opponents did not press the clocks on time, thank goodness, and the match started out with a draw for Bob. He was frustrated after the game because he had a win against newcomer John with two pawns ahead but squandered his pawns in the end game. On the other hand, Reg, President of the Broadstairs Chess Club, had a tricky opponent in Gary Hilleard, who lost to him last season. Gary, playing White, amassed a pawn structure in the middle of the board and ground down Reg’s Dutch Defence.

At this stage Bridge were a point up, well on the way to winning the shield, but our captain, Mike, got the match squared up with a win against Ian Redmond, a neurologist consultant, who was all at sea with his pieces. He threw away his bishop and I capitalized with a queen and rook invading his king and he resigned. It was all up to Andy on the top board, who lost to Peter Blundell last season with both grades tied. Playing White, Andy was full throttle at the outset with his opponent’s king playing walkabout. He resigned after Andy checked with a rook on the seventh rank about to lose his bishop.

Reg said that after the match if Bridge and Folkestone lost one of their matches, Broadstairs had a chance of winning the Walker Shield with a match behind. Before the match I predicted ‘tables will turn’. Unlucky to Bridge for a well-fought match and here’s hoping that Broadstairs will win the remaining matches and bring home the Walker Shield.

Steele Cup v Woodnesborough (h)

                                      Broadstairs   2½      Woodnesborough    1½                       

1 Trefor Owens (164) ½-½ Harry Sharples (149)
2 Bob Page (133) ½-½ John Thorley (120)
3 John Couzens (108) 1-0 Mark Towlson (101)
4 Bob Cronin (90) ½-½ Michael Davies (93)

Paul Carfrae writes:

We welcomed Woodnesborough to Broadstairs for our latest Steele Cup match, looking for our first win in the competition. Harry always brings a competitive team even though we outgraded Woodnesborough on three of the four boards.

Bob C on board four was slightly outgraded by his opponent and had a tight, tatical game. With neither player wanting to give an inch, they agreed a draw. Next to finish was John on board three. He was playing Mark Towlson, who is renowned for his rapid rate of play. By the time I got to see the board, both players had a queen, rook, knight but John had a pawn advantage 7 to 6. After the queens and rooks were swapped off, John cleverly managed to get a passed pawn promoted and won the game.

Trefor on board one was also involved in a close game with Woodnesborough’s captain Harry Sharples. All seemed to be even so after John’s win, Trefor offered a draw that Harry gladly accepted. This meant we would get our first points whatever the result of Bob P’s game. Bob on board two was up against John Thorley whose grade of 120 belies his quality and experience. It was another close game, John possibly having an advantage in the opening but Bob with a clear advantage later on. Time was ticking on and although there was a lot of play left in the game, a draw was agreed, thereby confirming Broadstairs’ first win.

Well done, everyone, and thanks to Harry and his team for a well-fought match.

 

Meet the new boss

As was mentioned in an earlier post, Alan Atkinson has been appointed Manager of Arbiters by the ECF. We were able to meet the new boss who, contrary to what The Who might have said, is not the same as the old boss, to learn a bit more about his new role and what it is like being an arbiter at some high-profile events.

 

Congratulations on your appointment, Alan. First question and an obvious one, what does the role of Manager of Arbiters entail and is it a new appointment? No, it’s not a new post; I took over from Tom Thorpe just before Christmas. The Manager of Arbiters’ main task is to arrange courses for, and keep records of, the progress of Arbiters as they move through the various grades up to International Arbiter level.

 

When did you first become an arbiter and what attracted you to the job? I had helped at events decades ago, and when, more recently, I was told that all leagues would need an arbiter if the games were to get graded (it will happen soon), and we were also having problems finding arbiters for the Thanet Congress, I resolved to get my paperwork in order to become a qualified arbiter. Strangely, since, I’ve done almost no arbiting within Kent, and certainly none in Thanet since then! It is just about making things happen; if I did not offer to help, some events would probably not happen. And then with the grander events, there is the fact that I now get to be there with some great players. Say like a World Cup football referee, or an F1 pit steward, etc.

 

Which is the most high-profile tournament in which you have been involved? This last year or so I was an anti-cheating referee at the Georgia Olympiad in Batumi so probably that or the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss on the Isle of Man. I was also at the British Championships in Torquay, and Hull the previous year, and I played in the Mick Croft Cup. (Ha ha! Arbiters clearly do not lack a sense of humour – the Mick Croft Cup is a minor Thanet League competition as far removed from the Olympiad as you can imagine. – Ed)

 

An arbiter can sometimes have to deal with controversial situations. Are there any that you can talk about without naming names?! The best events are when nothing unusual happens! But I was one of the two arbiters at the British Championships when a player left the hall in possession of his phone; sadly, his game was still in progress, so we had to default him. That made the newspapers which was a pity, I thought. Some players were moved at the Isle of Man 2019 which raised a few questions. But usually, “things” do not happen: most players are fairly sensible, and the British arbiters are fairly good and reasonable, and the players understand that. So when an arbiter decides something, it is accepted with good grace.

 

 

What is the most amusing or unusual incident you can recall? At the British Championships in Torquay, after the end of the day, when all the work was done, and the next day’s pairings had been published, the arbiters went for their dinner. We then had a phone call about a senior member of the English chess establishment’s game from earlier that day. I had recorded the game result incorrectly, I was told. I had put down a win for Player A, when it had been a loss for him. We had already done the draw for the next day, so I was utterly embarrassed, in front of the whole arbiter team.

Player B was contacted; yes, he had won, the result I had put into the system was certainly incorrect. But he conceded that he might have written down the result the wrong way around on his own score-sheet.  Well, from Player A’s point of view, that was still not good enough, I should have checked both score sheets against each other of course. And Player A knew that, for he is an International Arbiter too! So I had my dinner spoiled, in my embarrassment. And breakfast the next morning too.

Later that next day, when we could get to check the previous day’s actual score sheets, it transpired that both players had recorded the result of their game incorrectly. Both players had shown a win for Player A when Player B had in fact won. I did swear. But just in the Arbiter Office; no apology from the players though. So after that, I could start the next round of the Masters by asking that the players hand in the same result to the arbiters, and, ideally, hand in the correct same result.

 

Do you still play much chess or have you had to cut back in recent years? I hardly play at all now. And when I do, I am out of the habit, and yet still have to play in grade order, so it seems that my grade is falling out of the sky.

 

Which of your own games has given you the most satisfaction? Well, since becoming an arbiter… see above! Hardly any games to choose from, and they are error strewn. But at the IoM the organiser arranged for Hou Yifan to play local players and the arbiters in a simul: I am happy that I managed a draw against her; it’s probably good for the players to know that the arbiters can play a bit sometimes!

 

White:   Hou Yifan     Black:  Alan Atkinson

Isle of Man 2017 simul

Is there any game that you witnessed as an arbiter that stands out? There are a few: the first time I realised that I was officiating with “the big names” was the game Shirov-Nakamura IoM 2017.I saw much of their game when I was in the playing area, and then I was sent for the early dinner. (We have to be there until ten or eleven at night, so we have split dinner shifts at the IoM). Shirov came in, having drawn, and sat with we two Arbiters, (place was empty otherwise, and he knew the arbiter I was with). “Hello, I’m Alexei”, so I discussed his game with him, and afterwards, when I was returning to the hall, I thought “Wow, I’ve just sat chatting to Shirov about his game; (and he’s not called me an idiot)”. People younger than me might not know of Shirov, but he was a super player. This year at the IoM he was one of the four players involved, when two games, played on adjacent boards, were identical for an unusually large number of moves. (See earlier comment about players being moved IoM 2019 -Ed)

 

White:   Alexei Shirov     Black:  Hikaru Nakamura

Isle of Man 2017 

½-½

 

If you could do one thing to improve chess in this country, what would it be? Ah, an easy question at last! Compulsory hour a week of chess in all schools for all pupils.

 

Finally, what advice would you offer to anyone with aspirations to be an arbiter?
Don’t expect to be treated well.
No-one tells you how to do anything.
Most people will assume that you are getting paid a fortune, which you won’t be.
You won’t get any of the glamorous events to do.
The players will always manage to do the wrong thing.
And it will be your fault.
But it might be a good laugh anyway!
Start by helping out at a few events, then do the ECF Arbiter exam, then do some more events.
And remember that the players have paid good money to get there and play and so they don’t want some power-crazed arbiter spoiling their weekend!

So you want to be an arbiter….?

It would seem churlish not to congratulate Magnus Carlsen for his victory in the World Blitz Championship that has just finished in Moscow but rather like Tiger Woods in his prime or Liverpool currently, one wonders who can ever beat him in the big tournaments? Sure, he’s lost a few but how many has he won and how many more will he win? On the way to his latest triumph, however, he did have a stroke of fortune in his game with the latest chess wunderkind, Alireza Firouzja (pictured). Firouzja was a grandmaster at 14 and earlier this year became the second youngest player (after our good friend, Wei Yi) to achieve a rating above 2700. He won the Iran Chess Championship aged twelve but in a dramatic twist last week, he announced he would no longer play under the Iranian flag as Iran issued a ban on its players competing against Israelis in competitions. (In light of recent events, is it possible that the USA might be added to the list?). Consequently, Firouzja now plays as a FIDE licensed competitor.   Anyway, in his game with Carlsen, the following position was reached with Firouzja (White) to play.

Ha! Piece of cake, you’re thinking. Even my cat could beat Magnus in this position. The problem was that while Carlsen had 19 seconds left on his clock – an age in blitz terms – Firouzja had only three. How did the arbiter get involved? Well, in his haste to move his king to g4, Firouzja knocked it over and in the time it took for him to stand it up, his flag fell. So, you want to be an arbiter, sort this out. Does Black win because White’s flag fell or is it a draw as Black does not have mating material? If you think Black wins, sign up for the next arbiter’s training course now because as you probably know, FIDE rule 6.9 states that “…the game is drawn, if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player’s king by any possible series of legal moves.”  The point here is that the player whose time has run out always loses unless his opponent has no possibility of giving mate, however remote that may be. The regulations make no mention anywhere of “having enough material to give mate” and as Chess 24 reports in its detailed account of this subject, “the false rumour of being able to draw based on the remaining material alone is widespread, and partly fuelled by the different conventions of internet chess.” And for those of you disbelievers who can’t envisage a position where Black could win in this particular game with just a bishop against a bishop and three pawns, click here to see the whole article.

Manager of Arbiters

Congratulations to Alan Atkinson (centre left) of Bridge Chess Club and former Chairman of the Thanet and East Kent Chess League on his appointment as the new ECF Manager of Arbiters. We all know what arbiters do and how indebted we are to them for their assistance but your correspondent is unsure whether this is a newly created position or, indeed, what the job entails. At a guess, it suggests that he will be the organiser of arbiter meetings, training and conferences. There is nothing on the ECF site about his role other than the announcement although there is an ECF Arbiters Course advertised which may or may not be within Alan’s sphere as manager. There is also an item headed ‘Opportunities for Arbiters’ which can be found here  which does carry his name. This is, however, aimed at existing arbiters. What if you fancy having a go at being an arbiter yourself? I think we need to contact Alan and find out. Watch this space.