Thursday 29 November 2012

ECA 4.5 Stockport B 1.5

ECA continued their winning ways against a decent Stockport B side last night. Wins by Phil, Tudor and Paul saw ECA to a comfortable 4.5 - 1.5 victory.


1. P Ramsey 1 - 0 J Mason (152)

I had a perfect King's Indian where my opponent managed very few threats on the Queenside and my Kingside attack won the day. My opponent would have done better to ignore my attack for a while but kept on making little pawn and piece moves that actually helped me. Better to make some threats of your own that obsess about what your opponent is doing.

2. D Newell 0.5 - 0.5 M Tunstall (147)

Dave seemed to have a trouble-free Bird's opening with a steady attack on the Kingside. He eventually won a pawn but Mike managed to hold the endgame.

From Dave: The opening went smoothly black doing all the wrong things against Birds Opening allowing me to win a pawn and reach a won ending. I immediately missed one opportunity to win easily by forcing an exchange of all the pieces and instead reached an ending where we had same coloured bishops and I had one extra protected passed pawn. Even though the win was more difficult it was still fairly straight forward but I chose totally the wrong plan and even worse chose it very slowly!

3. T Rickards 1 - 0 F Moan (139)

Tudor had a wild King's Indian trying to defend against the Four Pawn's Attack. Tudor's pieces were very active but Francis had two very strong centre pawns. In the end Francis managed to promote a pawn but ran out of time before checkmate. Luckily Tudor had a pawn left (mating material) so could claim the win.

4. N Flaherty 0.5  - 0.5 D Preen (136)

Nick's game was relatively quiet and after a solid Queen's Pawn opening and an even middlegame a draw was agreed.

5. D Broadbent 0.5 - 0.5 V Rushworth (135)

Dave played his favourite French Defence and got a slightly favourable middlegame. However his opponent played well and drew comfortably.

6. P Bamford 1 - 0 P King (128)

Paul played the King's Indian Attack and ended up in an unusual middlegame when his opponent castled queenside. Paul won a couple of pawns in the endgame and won easily.

We have a bigger test next week - Stockport A in the cup!

Wednesday 28 November 2012

Wilmslow 0 ECA 6!

ECA finally reached top gear on Monday night with a 6-0 whitewash of Wilmslow:

1. S Shepherd 0-1 P Ramsey

I played a rather dubious Queen's Gambit Exchange and after the opening my opponent had the initiative. However he allowed me to trap his Knight but played on as I was low on time. In the time scramble that ensued he ran out of time just before me.

2. K Moran 0-1 J Reed

A smooth Black win for John:


3. C Mills 0-1 D Newell

From Dave: I completely outplayed my opponent in the Birds opening and won a piece in the early middle game. Then ended up in complications with his 2 passed kingside pawns advancing towards me and decided to give up my extra bishop, reaching a completely drawn rook v rook and knight pawn ending, my opponent having the pawn. He was unaware that it was drawn and spent a lot of time trying to find a way to win it, in the end one second too long as his flag dropped. Makes up for the completely drawn game I managed to lose on time at Altrincham a few weeks ago.

4. C Jackson 0-1 T Rickards

Tudor won a pawn in the opening but ended up in a difficult position. However he kept battling until his opponent lost on time.

5. A Weinberg 0-1 K Holton

Keven played the opening rather passively and ended up a pawn down. However his opponent got rather carried away with pushing pawns and Keven managed to gobble a few up, leading to a comfortable win.

6. T Horrocks 0-1 D Broadbent

From Dave: My opponent was ungraded with est grade of 50 which is ridiculous - he played extremely well v my French and managed to mount a menacing attack. Under pressure, I once again seemed to find all the good moves and his time advantage slowly evaporated. Near the end, he had < 1min v my 2mins. It was his move but for some reason he pressed the clock before moving. I immediately stopped the clocks and asked for 2min to be added to my time. No one had any idea of the rule so I eventually played on because he was thinking of his move whilst both clocks were stopped- so he was being advantaged by the clock freeze. His flag fell soon after I restarted his clock.

Friday 23 November 2012

Revenge! ECA 4 ECB 2

On Wednesday night ECA had their chance to avenge their defeat from the week before. This time we had Dave N back in our ranks so we were at least the rating favourites.

1. Phil 1- 0 Keven

Keven tried to lure me into accepting his Morra gambit but I declined and we ended up with a typical open Sicilian position where Keven had more space and I had the extra central pawn. Things were pretty even until Keven decided to sacrifice his Knight in return for some nasty threats to my King. However I successfully repulsed his attack and Keven resigned rather than let me start having some fun!

2. John 1 - 0 Dave B

Dave bravely allowed John to play his favourite Queen's Gambit Declined Exchange Variation but regretted it when he fell into a trap on move 8 that cost him two pawns. John didn't give Dave a look-in from that point.

3. Dave N 1 - 0 Nick

Playing against Dave's Dutch Defence Nick decided to go for all out attack and castle Queenside. This allowed Dave to break up the pawn structure around Nick's King and pick up a couple of pawns. It was all downhill from there for Nick.

4. Tudor 1 - 0 David T

The return of the swindler! Tudor was outplayed in the opening and David had nice pressure against Tudor's Kingside and Centre. David won a couple of pawns but drifted into time trouble and snatched one pawn too many, allowing a discovered check and mate.

Here is Tudor's version of what happened:


"Just to explain what happened in extra time last night. Score was ECA 3 ECB 2 . I was losing rather easily to David [Taylor]. David had outplayed me in the opening [I failed to work out over the board what to do against his Queen's Indian [I think].  I was forced into a speculative pawn sacrifice that seemed to give some complications. David continued to grind me down until I was forced to start making more speculative offers of pawns. 

The stadium had emptied as we slugged out extra time, and David in time trouble decided to save time by helping himself to a third freebie pawn. It was my last futile swindle attempt but it led to a discovered check and undeserved mate. But I can't replicate this masterpiece as we sort of didn't write the score down in the time scramble. 

Learning: never resign a lost game!"


5. Edwin 0 - 1 Paul B

Edwin struggled to cope with the activity of Paul's pieces and eventually lost the exchange to a nasty Knight fork. Edwin battled on gamely but couldn't save the endgame.

6. Andy B 0 - 1 Keith

Andy played his normal swashbuckling chess and rapidly won a couple of pawns. However he managed to lose the exchange and then ended up with a Bishop against 3 connected pawns. The pawns prevailed!

Next up Wilmslow away on Monday.

Wednesday 14 November 2012

ECB 4.5 ECA 1.5

Oh dear.

In an attempt to make this match more exciting I had agreed that the A team would get the top 4 players and the B team would get the pick of the rest of the club. This would have given the A team the advantage on four boards but a last minute reshuffle meant that we were only stronger on the top three. Hmmm.

1. Dave B 1 - 0 Phil

I surprised Dave in the opening and built up a strong position after Dave wasted some tempi. However I couldn't find a decisive breakthrough and spent too long pondering the problems. The game ended with a time scramble and me losing on time.

2. Keven 0.5 - 0.5 John

John had a slight advantage with a kind of Dutch system. However Keven played very solidly and managed to exchange off most of the pieces, eventually securing a draw.

3. Paul 0 - 1 Tudor

Tudor built up a big space advantage against Paul's Modern Defence and eventually won a piece.

4. Alan 1 - 0 Keith

Keith played solidly but ended up with a couple of backward pawns. Alan won some pawns and in the end Keith very nobly resigned rather than let Alan lose on time in a won position!

5. Nick 1 - 0 Andy B

Andy gave up two pieces for a rook and pawn and some pressure. However once Nick's two bishops started criss-crossing the board Andy was mincemeat.

6. David T 1 - 0 Edwin

Edwin lost some pawns early on and, despite battling hard, never managed to get back into the game.

The one consolation for the A team is that we will have a re-match next week. B team watch out!