A dramatic win at Altrincham: the victor explains ....

After a dramatic win away at Altrincham on 13th December '11, Edwin writes:
Finally after three matches I won my first game for East Cheshire and what a ripsnorter it turned out to be! Playing white and after a steady opening from both players, my gambit was to clear the diagonal so that I could capture his rook with my bishop. This involved a careful and extensive piece exchange disseminating the middle of the board to open up the channel. In response my opponent took my bishop with his queen allowing my queen to charge forward and reek havoc through his defenses. However once I was so far ahead, a little complacency crept in and I almost allowed myself to be mated after a careless move. In desperation to avoid check mate I lost both my rooks and ended up in an inferior position. Enter the end game, I had 3 pawns, 1 knight and 1 queen versus 5 pawns, 1 rook and 1 queen. After being perpetually checked and having pawns picked off, my opponent ran out of steam and I finally had a chance. I returned the salvo of constant checking bringing my knight into the game to assist the queen for the kill. A thoroughly enjoyable rollercoaster of a game. Victory at last!

C Team draws away vs Altrincham B

Andy Buckley (Captain) writes:

Alan on board one played a Q I D, lost a piece early on and was ground down.

Paul's game led to an all pawn finish and a draw was accepted.

Bill won on board 3 with a strong finish despite being a knight down.

Andy lost after a poor middle game left him three pawns down.

Edwin made sacrifice after sacrifice for position and a good win.

Scoresheet reads:
1. Callum McNulty 1, Alan Stokes 0
2. Pete Arland 1/2, Paul Bamford 1/2
3. Stephen Ward 0, Bill Tait 1,
4. Tom Hague 1, Andy Buckley 0,
5. John Roff 0, Edwin Cooke 1.
Total 2.5 2.5 (Draw)

Denton B 3 ECA 3

East Cheshire A earned its first point of the season on Wednesday night in a dynamic match against a relatively weak Denton team.

Dave T and I had a night to forget, losing with bad blunders, but Tudor and Keven had smooth wins to equalise the match for us.

1. K Ahmadi (155) 0.5-0.5 J Reed

John had to take on a stodgy Czech Benoni and managed to build an impressive pawn centre but his opponent created sufficient counterplay to draw the game.

2. D Boulden (146) 1-0 P Ramsey

I had a good opening and won a pawn but then got into time trouble. I played a combination that didn't work, panicked and allowed a mate in one! Not my finest hour.

3. D Holt (139) 0.5 - 0.5 D Newall

Dave N built up a winning attack but misplayed the execution of it and ended up a piece down for nothing. Fortunately Dave H offered a draw as he was about to lose on time.

4. P Boyd (123) 0-1 T Rickards

Tudor gradually outplayed his opponent in an even middlegame and built up a strong attack on his opponent's King which he finished in fine style.

5. D Taylor (114) 0-1 K Holton

Keven systematically turned the screw against his elderly opponent and eventually found a narrow path to victory.

6. D Cook (107) 1-0 D Taylor

David T won a pawn early on in a strange French Defence. However David's King's Rook was hemmed in the corner and, under some Queenside pressure, David blundered his other Rook.

We have a couple of months off now until 24th Jan when we are away to Macc. A.

C Team 2, Macclesfield B 3.

An outgraded C Team (our average grade 111, theirs 134) lost 2-3 at home to Macclesfield B on 23 November 2011, but with an excellent win by Andy B and draws against strong opposition by Paul (fighting the opponent featured in Tudor's game vs Macc A (blog, passim)) and Sion.

The scoresheet and grades are:

B1 Paul Bamford (130) 1/2 G Laurence (150) 1/2

B2 Bill Tait (120) 0, R Pomeroy (137) 1,

B3 Sion Howells (110) 1/2, R Murphy (134)1/2,

B4 Andy Buckley (100) 1, A Brough (131) 0

B5 Ian Vaughan (93) 0, A Sime (117) 1.

(Nerd alert: the C Team's grades are almost an arithmetic progression.)

The return match away, on a Tuesday, will be postponed probably until early January 2012.

Tudor gives up his Queen

Here is a recent win of Tudor's playing for our A team against Macclesfield A.

One thing for King's Indian players to note is that Tudor's move order allowed White to transpose to the Pirc (playing e4 without c4.) If you want to avoid this you should play 2. ... g6 so that you can reply to 3. Nc3 with d5.

Now over to Tudor.

The game involves a bishop sacrifice as only way to keep attack going. Then I found a nice queen sacrifice which was not just a variation of a known one.

The interesting thing for me was the very thematic way the game unfolded with black backing the Q side pawn storm against white’s superior centre. ICC analysis suggests white was always slightly ahead until 21 Ka3 (Kb1 leaves black having to find a win for his pressure and B sac. ).

During last few moves I was trying to get all my pieces coordinated into attack. I had noticed possibilities of Bf8 pinning White’s Queen but it did not quite work. Only then did I look for something better and noticed the very satisfying Queen sac (which seems a bit more obvious after the game.)

EC C 3, 3Cs 2

This was only the second match for 3Cs in the Stockport League: this keen team deserve their place. Bill notes:

"It was a really friendly club with photos of every World Chess champion on the walls and an impressive cabinet full of silver trophies etc. Tea was on offer on arrival ( no John Willie Lees) and the team played against young but strong competetion.30 mins home - an easy run. Worth giving this young team a go but travel could be awkward on a really bad night (but would it be any worse than Buxton?)."

Ian (er, that would be me) miscalculated and never recovered. Mike won a hard fought French Defence. Andy won and Bill maintained a strong mid game advantage to seal the match.

Edwin writes:

"This was my second match for East Cheshire and roughly my tenth game of chess in the last twenty years. I am thoroughly enjoying the challenge! It has dawned on me that my openings need some serious work as in both matches I have conceded too much ground and played the middle game on the back foot, one piece down. I havemanaged to rally in each game during the middle game and seize the initiative, only to succumb to a foolish move giving away a match winning piece. Either that or I am kidding myself! (Must try harder D-)"

ECA 2 Chorlton A 4

Aaaaagh Aaaaagh Aaaaagh

If our loss to Macclesfield A was frustrating then this defeat was a kick in the proverbials.

We managed to throw away 3 winning positions against a strong Chorlton team.

Keven's game was first to finish with Keven being ground down in a Reti / Catalan. David then won his game, winning a piece in the middlegame. This left the match at 1-1 and at least three of the remaining matches were winning for us.

Paul played a great modern defence and was the exchange and pawns up but allowed a swindle.

Sion was easily winning with a strong Kingside attack but in time trouble lost his Queen.

I had my best scalp ever, winning on the Black side of a mainline Sicilian Dragon. Once we had banged out all the theory Hope went wrong quite soon, allowing a piece to be trapped. In bad time trouble I managed to find the right plan to close out the game efficiently.

This left Tudor needing to win to draw the match. As he had Queen against Rook and Bishop this looked achievable. However when all the pawns were traded except for the Kingside ones it became rather technical. Tudor wanted to accept the draw offer but gamely agreed to continue for the sake of the team. I still maintain that he had winning chances but unfortunately Tudor lost.

So two defeats out of two. The good news is that we should have Dave Newall and John back for the next game - away to Denton B in three weeks.

1. Phil Ramsey 1-0 Hope Mkhumba (184)
2. Keven Holton 0-1 Philip Olbison (162)
3. Tudor Rickars 0-1 Alan Beresford (150)
4. David Taylor 1-0 Steve Fogg (150)
5. Paul Bamford 0-1 David Kierman (143)
6. Sion Howells 0-1 Khalid Khokhar (128)