This week’s game comes from the recent Millar Cup victory over Bridge B. A win against a player 30+ points stronger is always worth celebrating and while White’s play is hardly faultless, ultimately it is the player who makes the most mistakes who generally loses and that is the case here.
White: Robert Page (135) Black: Alan Atkinson (173)
Millar Cup v Bridge B
“I’ve got a new opening,” Nick said ahead of our club championship match the other night. After a few moves I realised I’d seen it before. “Oh, it’s a Réti,” I said. “Is it?”, he replied, “I thought I’d made it up!” Some years ago I experimented with the Réti until I came to the conclusion that either (a) it wasn’t very good, (b) I wasn’t very good or (c) both. Rather like W.G.Grace’s view on batting, at the time I considered all other openings then settled on 1. e4 and I have been yoked to the King’s pawn for good or ill ever since. Of course, it is also possible that I just didn’t know the Réti very well and here it is many years later returning to bite me on the bottom. Well, not so because as it turns out, Nick didn’t know it very well either….In the final position White resigned before the inevitable 33….Bb2.
White: Nick McBride (173) Black: Robert Page (135)
Goodall Cup
Here’s the only bright spot in our opening half-hour against Bridge (see David’s match report). This entertaining cameo from Nick is typical of his quirky style. Enough from me – what do I know?! – let’s hear how Nick saw it.
“We both had a blind spot. At black’s 15th move I was expecting Rd8 and then the Nxe5 works better. I hadn’t noticed that by instead playing Nc8, the black Queen now covered the d8 square. 16…dxe5 would have won for him I expect. But he had the same blind spot. Our prior analysis was still affecting our thought in that position. After Nc8, 16. Qa3 would have tied black up for a good few moves.”
White: Nick McBride (173) Black: Shany Rezvany (167)
Millar Cup v Bridge A
Congratulations to Michael Doyle for another fine win in our otherwise disappointing defeat to Margate in the Mick Croft Cup. Paul Ruffle used to be a member at Broadstairs and is certainly a stronger player than his estimated 117 so this was an especially impressive performance by Michael, who is also a much better player than his grade as I am sure you will agree after playing through this game.
White: Michael Doyle (81) Black: Paul Ruffle (e117)
Mick Croft Cup v Margate
David Faldon’s match report for last week’s Millar Cup match against Bridge made it clear that defeat isn’t everything and that every now and then you witness an “I was there!” game. Rather like the old story of London buses, you wait for one great performance and two come along at once. It’s a shame that the draw between Paul Carfrae (133) and Richard Eales (195) – which I hope we may yet feature on this site – was lost in the celebration of John Couzens’ victory over Alan Atkinson which provides us with this week’s Game of the Week. In the final position Black lost on time but by then the game was John’s. If you weren’t there – and I wasn’t! – play through the game below and see if you agree with John who said that it was ‘probably the best game I’ve ever played!’
White: John Couzens (116) Black: Alan Atkinson (175)
Millar Cup v Bridge B