Millar Cup v Margate (h)

Broadstairs 6 Margate 1

 

1 David Faldon (170) 1-0           Peter McGill (152)
2 Bob Page (141) 0-1           Harry Sharples (151)
3 Paul Carfrae (132) 1-0           Clive Le Baigue (118)
4 John Couzens (131) 1-0           Colin Gregory (117)
5 Andy Flood (e114) 1-0           Leon Garfield (101)
6 Reg Pidduck (104) 1-0           John Clarke (86)
7 Bob Cronin (101) 1-0           James Maskell (80)

David Faldon writes:

Our fifth match, our fifth … no … no … rewrite coming up … we actually won this one. Mind you, an hour into the match you’d have got a good price against that happening. We were a queen for bishop and knight down on board 4, a rook for knight down on board 7 and a whole rook down on board 2. True, we were a nice pawn up on board 3 but that hardly seemed sufficient compensation. The carnage started on board 4. John (white) sacrificed a knight on f7 with his ninth move, attacking queen and rook, but instead of taking the knight, Colin counter-sacrificed a bishop on f2 with check. John could have captured this bishop with his king with a roughly equal game but instead he tried Kf1, dropping his queen to a knight fork on e3. Oops. Amazingly, that wasn’t the end of the game. John regrouped and, after a few mistakes from Colin, he was back with a few threats of his own. Meanwhile on board 2, and also on move nine, Bob P (white) was faced with a knight sacrifice on his f2 square, forking rook and queen. Bob could have captured this pesky knight with his king, emerging just a pawn down, but instead he moved his queen, bravely sacrificing a whole rook …Three spectacular sacrifices on f2/f7 in two games, and a few moves later there came a fourth when Margate’s board 1 (white) couldn’t resist throwing in a Nxf7 sacrifice, attacking black’s queen and rook. This time the capture king takes knight wouldn’t have been good, nor would moving the queen, nor would moving the rook, nor would counter-sacrificing against white’s king, but instead David found a fifth way, a queen sacrifice. Amidst all the mayhem some calm chess was going on. Paul on board 3 was a safe pawn up, Andy on board 5 had a big passed pawn and Reg on board 6 had cleverly swapped both of his bishops for his opponent’s knights. In the blocked-up position that resulted Reg’s knights could hop this way and that while his opponent’s bishops just got in the way of his rook. Three much-needed wins for Broadstairs on the way? In fact two wins for Broadstairs did turn up pretty soon. The first came from an unexpected source, board 7. Bob C’s (unintentional) rook for knight speculation paid a big dividend when his knight popped out of the way of a discovered check to win his opponent’s queen. The second win came on board 1 when a long swap-off sequence left David a clear bishop up. 2-0 soon became 2-1 when Bob P’s swindling chances evaporated but Paul and Reg and John all cashed through for wins. 5-1. In the last game to finish Andy found a nice rook for knight sacrifice to defuse his opponent’s last flicker of hope. 6-1. In the end a comfortable win, but the lopsided 6-1 result was, in truth, a bit flattering. Still, we’ve played well and lost matches in the past, so we should celebrate this win while we can. I’m sure that the return match at Margate in January will be interesting.

Hargreaves Shield v Woodnesborough (h)

Broadstairs 2½        Woodnesborough 1½

1. Paul Carfrae (132) ½-½       Mark Towlson (101)
2. John Couzens (131) 1-0       Richard Hogben (91)
3. Andy Flood (e114) 0-1       Kit Blundell (e90)
4. David Wheatley (106) 1-0       Rens Bossers (e60)

 

Woody match

Bob Page writes:

A glance at the grades of the two teams suggests that this should not have been a close contest.  How wrong could we be….Woodnesborough played out of their skins and the result was in doubt right up until the end.

John was the first to finish and always seemed to be on top but his opponent defended stubbornly and threatened a nasty queen and rook mating combination if John went wrong. Heavy pressure from John’s queen, rook and bishop eventually proved decisive but only after about two and a half hours. On Board 3 Andy had been a pawn down for a long time. That single pawn advantage sufficed as his opponent gradually tightened his grip on Andy’s position, eventually forcing an error that lost a second pawn and the game.

Even at 1-1 there appeared no great danger.  David (shyly avoiding the camera in the picture above) always appeared in control and after swapping off the major pieces to be four pawns ahead, seemed to have a straightforward win.  Once again, Woodnesborough fought to the last and home supporters held their breath as David appeared to contemplate a move that would have resulted in stalemate. We should have known better as David finally wrapped up his win and Broadstairs were 2-1 up with one to play.

The most interesting match was on Board 1 where Paul was apparently cruising to a crucial win.  However, despite being a rook down, Mark refused to give up and his two bishops had threats of their own that gradually ate away at Paul’s time. Eventually, Paul managed to swap the pieces off to leave two rooks against rook and pawn. Still Mark held on and then…disaster…a sudden loss of concentration and one of Paul’s rooks disappeared for nothing – with only seven minutes left on his clock! Any chance of a win for Paul vanished and it was now a question of whether he could rescue the half a point that would would give us victory. His only consolation – and his saving grace as sanity returned – was that Mark’s pawn was on the h-file and by skilfully guiding the opposing king into the corner, the draw was forced with less than three minutes left. Phew!

World Chess Championship

White: Magnus Carlsen            Black: Vishy Anand

(World Chess Championship Round 6)

The World Chess Championship currently being played in Sochi has reached the halfway stage and Magnus Carlsen leads 3½-2½ after a fortunate win in Game 6.  If, like me, you are looking for the best site to follow the action, then I recommend Chess Base (en.chessbase.com). Not only does it have detailed analysis of each game, photographs, short video extracts of the games – look for the fascinating close up of Carlsen’s hesitation in scoring after his blunder on move 26 –  it also has an excellent post-match summary by Danny King and the opportunity for you to add comments like these:

” Worst WC match in the chess history? Anand seems to crack easily under pressure and Carlsen is far off his best play…”

“…and FIDE pays millions of dollars for these two for the patzer match.”

Judge for yourself by playing through the game above.

Game of the Week 4

White: David Faldon (170)               Black: Peter McGill (152)

(Mick Croft Cup semi-final)

 

David Faldon writes:

This was an exciting game, full of mistakes. Luckily for me my opponent made the last one. When Peter played 6… e5 I hit on the ridiculous idea of surrounding and trapping a black knight on d4 by playing g4-g5, Be2-c4, a2-a4, Nc3-b1 and c2-c3. Unfortunately Peter gets to play some moves too. After my 12. Nb1 I was completely lost as 12… Nxe4 13. fxe4 Qh4+ 14. Kd2 Qxe4 15. Ne2 Nf3+ is crushing. What Peter chose instead is pretty good too and if he’d found 15… Bh3+ 16. Nxh3 Qxh3+ 17. Kf2 Qxh6 then white is dead as black has the terrible threat of 18… Qxd2. Luckily for me Peter didn’t see how strong 15… Bh3+ was. Instead he went for 15… Nxe4 16. Nxe4 Rxf3+ which looks fantastic. The only problem is that there is no mate. After Peter’s 18… Qg4+ I managed to calculate right to the final position, which is quite impressive considering that I was short of time. Less impressive is the fact that it took me until move 19 before I started playing well.

Mick Croft Cup v Margate (a)

Margate    1½         Broadstairs   3½

1 Peter McGill     (152) 0-1           David Faldon (170)
2 Clive Le Baigue (118) 0-1           Paul Carfrae (132)
3 Colin Gregory (117) 0-1           John Couzens (131)
4 Leon Garfield (101) ½-½           Reg Pidduck (104)
5 John Clarke (86) 1-0           Michael Doyle (80)

Reg Pidduck writes:

Our first piece of luck in this semi-final was winning the toss for colours. We chose white on the odds.

RED HOT JOHN. First to finish was John Couzens who continued his run of fine form to dispose of Colin Gregory after an hour and a quarter. 1-0 to Broadstairs.

PAWN ADVANTAGE. Paul Carfrae went two pawns up early then slowly kept the advantage going to the endgame and duly wore down Clive Le Baigue. 2-0 to Broadstairs.

PILE UP ON C3. My game with Leon Garfield ended in a draw when I was attacking his knight with four pieces and he defended with four including his king which had to travel from g1 all the way over to d2 to prevent losing the knight. A draw was to our advantage so in this deadlock I offered the draw which he accepted. 2½-½ to Broadstairs

KITCHEN SINK.  Peter McGill, after being three pieces down, threw everything (including said kitchen sink) at David Faldon’s king and a wrong move by David could have spelt trouble but he parried all thrusts and Peter resigned. 3½-½ to Broadstairs.

UNLUCKY MICHAEL. Michael Doyle’s steady play was going so well until he fell into a trap set by John Clarke and lost his queen so Michael resigned. 3½-1½ to Broadstairs.

This win has set us up for the final against Bridge. (Watch this space).

Many thanks to John Couzens for the driving duty.