ECB 3.5 - 2.5 Altincham A

Our last match of the season saw us take on Altrincham A, which was effectively a play off for the runners up spot.

First to finish was the draw specialist, David T.  After touching the wrong piece (and having to move it) on move 5 he did particularly well this time to recover and earn a draw.  Tudor played a very active opening as black and in his usual swashbuckling style soon had a central pawn up to the 6th rank trapping a bishop.  My opponent allowed me control of the dark squares around his king which set me up for good attacking chances.

Meanwhile, man of  the night  Myles was putting up a strong show to clinch the important win that secured a win for us on the night.

We got edged out very late on on the top 2 boards.  Kev had set up a strong attack in his match  but just couldn't put his stubborn opponent away - fair play to Reg who always shows his bouncebackability.  Dave dave finished his match last of course and with seconds left on each clock he was in a losing pawn endgame.  Frustrating for Dave as he had a chance to settle for a perpetual earlier in the match.

Anyway it was an important win for us and virtually guarantees us the runner up spot in the league - a big improvement on recent years.  Many thanks to everyone who has turned out for us this season!

0 - 1  Dave dave N v Mark Hann (159)
0 - 1  Kev v Reg Clucas (146)
1/2    David T v Mark Whalley (136)
1 - 0  Myles v Nick Lowe (137)
1 - 0  Tudor v Vijay Kakarparthi (90)
1 - 0  Paul v Steve Ward (84)
3.5 - 2.5

Denton 2.5 - 3.5 ECB

On Wednesday night we made the trip to a cold Denton and managed to record our 4th win on the run.  Brief highlights below........

Dave N finished first.  I didn't see anything of his game but he appeared comfortable and got us off to a good start.  Tudor finished next and felt as though he had been high jacked by a player who performed well above his grade on the night.  I was a pawn up in my game but things were still tight until my opponent went for a tactic which went wrong for him and gained a rook for me.

Keven's version of his game:

"An unusual Trompowsky with Black volunteering for a broken pawn structure, in return for play along the open g-file. In a tricky game I managed to neutralise his king-side threats and break through in the centre to deliver mate."

So, we were 3 - 1 up on the night and looking good on the 2 remaining boards.  Jim was a pawn up and cruising and looked like nothing could go wrong.  Unfortunately it did.  He walked into a knight fork which lost his queen.  A pity for Jim who's been in great form recently.

Everything now was hanging on David T's game.  He had 5 minutes left and his opponent was down to a minute in an exciting double edged game.  Ever the team player, David asked what the match score was.  I told him that he just needed a draw.  He immediately offered a draw which was quickly accepted and meant we collected the points on the night.

0 - 1  David Campbell (139) v Dave N
1/2    David Boulden (144) v David T
0 - 1  Phil Boyd (130) v Keven
1 - 0  Vasileiros Pasialis (125) v Tudor
1 - 0  Ivan Urwin (122) v Jim
0 - 1  Julio Calcina (114) v Paul
2.5 - 3.5

Chorlton B 2 - 4 ECB

ECB's good form continued last night with the 3rd win on the bounce.  Stand in Capt David T reports on the escapades below followed by Tudor's version of his game!:

"After instructing the team to ensure they had circulation all the way down to their toes, and deafened by the sound of a table-top heater beside the next climber below me, I embarked on a “Fort Knox” defense of the French variety, which proved to be unsound against a titanic avalanche on the left hand side, with rooks and queen and bishop tearing at my grip on the ice-wall.  Alas, my best efforts failing, when all the powerful pieces had exchanged, a mere snowball of an h-pawn swept past my king and knight.

 

This gave me time, fallen to earth, to watch the other climbers.  Of particular note was Steve, who allowing his rook to be skewered (do climbers use skewers?) I gave up as lost, only to find him triumphantly scaling the peak of Mt Mate, disdaining to fork K and Q, but trapping his opposed king between h- and g-pawn pairs and impaling him mercilessly with a Q disguised as an ice-axe.

 

And so to Jim...... what can I say?  His assault on the peak of “King in Castle” having failed, and to my despair allowing a predictable discovered check to set up a family fork of K Q and R, he fearlessly struggled on, virtually ropeless (- hopeless), until as light failed and the awful darkness of the venue closed in upon him, his well clad opponent slipped and dropped his flag, losing on time.

 

And Dave B  - the backup man?  He sailed to the top behind a barrier of advancing sherpa pawns, as if to say “What’s the problem?”

 

Of course, we did outgrade them!"

 

Tudor's game - explained as only he can.... 

 

"The team assembled to check their puffa jackets at paraffin lamps. All in good order. The assault on the South face of Mount Chorlton was underway.

Dave Newell led us into battle, with Dave Taylor as captain and ropes man on board two.

Jim and I made up the next wave of attackers. We were stuck in a crevasse with an additional mobile heater which gave comfort if restricting our movements. I could only barely see the icy surface of the shelf. Beneath us I could make out the figures of Steve and Dave, the silent assassins.

I played an Alekhine defense and found a remarkable way of squeezing an advantage of a great bishop on the h8 a1 diagonal against a knight with less control over its footing than a weary climber. 

Some moves later I had marginal gains and hopes before blundering a pawn. Even then there were hopes of an endgame squeeze if I switched  into full complications mode. My king was advancing fearlessly, intent on mopping up a  queenside majority. Then horror, I had trapped my king, and was about to be mated by the two knights, the pawns I was attacking, and the cowering white king.

Time pressure for my opponent and I did not resign. He played a move which forced me to escape the mate at the expense of my beautiful bishop, now on  a shorter diagonal.

I was three pawns down, admittedly all on his crashed queenside, and with my king still active.  Much scrambling and huffing and puffing before we ended with two kings and me with my a pawn and a few seconds on the clock.

I accepted the draw offered about fifteen moves earlier.

I plead ice-sickness for my irresponsible play.

Fortunately the exemplary efforts of the others meant that the expedition was a success, with. 4-2 result."

 

CHORLTON B                       EAST CHESHIRE B

A Beresford (132)  0.5            D Newell  (160)      0.5

H Eskadari (124)    1                D R Taylor  (134)  0

P Horwell (130)      0                J McKie       (129) 1

H Hughes (123)        0.5            T Rickards  (139)  0.5

P Bennett (121)        0             S McCall     (130)   1

D Otto  (120)            0            D Broadbent (139)  1

 

Chorlton B:   2                East Cheshire B:  4

 

ECB 5.5 - 0.5 Denton A

Denton are lacking their stars this year in the Stockport League and fielded a team on Wednesday night that we were hopeful of beating.  As it happened they battled well but, with no blunders or slip ups from us, we managed to record our biggest win in the post Brexit Britain era - in fact probably post Thatcher.

Dave Dave's game finished quite quickly.  All pieces were off apart from double rooks each and in a Stonewall type formation a draw was agreed. I finished a couple of minutes later after my opponent had kindly allowed me to pin his Q with a B.

Kev employed a slow Catalan which Holty tried to spice up with a dubious combination.  Kev played it well and ended up a piece up with runaway pawns for a convincing win.

Jim played a patient game and after the Q's came off early allowed his opponent to gain space with pawn moves before picking him off and winning the exchange.  Jim's better placed K then led to a straight forward win.

So, a win was guaranteed for us on the night with the remaining 2 evenly matched games to play out.  Tudor had been slightly up against it in an open game but his opponent was entering time troubles.  This allowed Tudor to eventually find a very active defensive move which set up a fantastic tactical win.  David T then finished the night off having finally driven his opponent into the ground and his extra material won the day.

This win puts us up to the dizzying heights of second in the league with a (possible) promotion push for the remainder of the season.  Surely we won't end up replacing the A team in Division One...........

1/2    Dave N v David Campbell (148)
1 - 0  Kev v David Holt (142)
1 - 0  David T v Stan Bradley (119)
1 - 0  Tudor v Ivan Urwin (122)
1 - 0  Jim v John Tonkin (108)
1 - 0  Paul v Peter Shaw (50)
5.5 - 0.5

Marple B 1.5 - 4.5 ECB

After a few narrow defeats the B team were due a win and we managed it in style against Marple B last night.

The in form Steve was never unduly troubled in his game and chalked up another nice win.  Jim too played a good game for a solid win to put us two up.  Bill looked to be winning his game but then there was some fireworks and he had to settle for a draw.

The crunch game was on board one.  Myles was well ahead on time (unusual for an East Cheshire player!) and had 30 minutes left compared with just 2 for his opponent.  This was a tight game but Myles played the endgame well and clinched the vital win that saw us over the line on the night.

I'd had a good game, was completely in control and 2 pawns up.  I then completely lost concentration to let Terry back in the game.  To make it worse I went on to  miss an easy tactic to win in a time scramble but instead allowed Terry in for a neat finish.

Tudor ended up with a knight and 2 pawns against 4 pawns and with play on both sides of the board this could have been tricky.  But, after a few hairy moments, Tudor's horse proved agile enough to win the battle and put the icing on the cake for the team result.

So, all in all it was a good performance and the win catapults us off the bottom of the table.  Onwards and upwards.......  Well done lads!

0 - 1  Chris Baker (140) v Myles
0 - 1  Alan Hall (139) v Tudor
1 - 0  Terry cowling (135) v Paul
0 - 1  Jeff Barlow (121) v Jim
1/2    Toby Brown (112) v Bill
0 - 1  Tony Doust (102) v Steve Mc
1.5 - 4.5

Altrincham A 4.5 - 1.5 ECB

The first game of the season saw us make the trip to Altrincham - a club who we have a pretty good record against (which is unusual!).  The teams were very evenly matched and included a re-match of D Newell v Clucas.  In their last match Dave ran his clock down to one second but still managed to win, helped along the way by a soft error by Reg.  Surely their next encounter couldn't be as dramatic........

0 - 1  Reg Clucas (146) v Dave N

Most of this game seemed to be about the battle for a d5 pawn.  After a long struggle it suddenly sprang into life with Dave, of course, in extreme time pressure but using Fischer time well.  Down to 7 seconds and 2 seconds he found some really strong moves and won a piece.  His bishops were cutting the board up, had an active queen against an open king and had a spare rook on an open c file for good measure.  The engine would probably put him 25 pts up (or maybe even mate in 3).  He just had to worry slightly about his back rank but unfortunately thought about it for literally a second too long - his clock went as he played his move.  Revenge for Reg but really hard luck on Dave.

1/2  Bill McCartney (140) v David T

This game featured an isolated Q pawn each and in the endgame David faced a bishop pair.  He held on well though to claim a solid draw.

1/2  Mark Hann (140) v Keven

Keven comfortably defended his opponent's kingside attack and had more central space.  Seemed to be even and a draw was agreed.

0 - 1  Nick Lowe (137) v Bill

Bill was doing OK in this but seemed to misjudge his opponent's attack and ended up losing a rook pawn and then losing his way.

0 - 1  Mark Whalley (136) v Paul

I maybe had a slight edge against my fast playing opponent but then ridiculously placed a knight on a square attacked by 2 but only defended by 1 - pretty basic stuff!

1/2  Steve Douglas (123) v Steve Mc

Steve Mc made a good debut.  He had double rooks on the h file and swapped them off for a queen and maybe had winning chances but sensibly accepted a draw, particularly as he was starting to get low on time.

So we ended up losing 4 and a half to one and a half,  but feeling that we were a little hard done too.  I'm confident that our winning run is just around the corner......

Marple C 3 - ECC 2 (Thurs 21st April)

Edwin's match was quick and bloody as ever, with him setting up an advanced position on the queenside and lobbing his h-pawn up the board to get at the enemy king, but it must have not worked as expected, with him finishing with a loss a while later.

Ian was looking in good shape, with some promising minor piece activity, but his opponent found a sudden bit of counterplay to pin Ian's queen to his king, and managed to swap off enough pieces before finally grabbing the queen so that Ian was forced to concede.

Geoff got a nice opening set-up but found the Chigorin Defence he was playing against just a little too solid to break down, and seeing his opponent's doubled pawns as too small an edge to work with, he agreed a draw, getting us off the mark.

Terry Cowling played the Albin Counter-gambit against me... one I apparently need to brush up on. For want of any more imaginative ideas, I grabbed the offered pawn and hoped to prove his counterplay wasn't enough. But eventually he won back the pawn, and my middle unconnected pawn looked vulnerable for a while, until I found way to wriggle it out of danger, but with no real prospects of a win, agreed a draw.

With that, we'd lost the match but on the remaining board were benefiting from the B-team's rotation policy, with Paul rested and reasonably fresh after the B-team's nailbiter of the previous night. Seeing his opponent's position looking a little rigid and crowded on the kingside, he pushed on on the queenside, getting a runner on the a-file and slowly dominating on that side of the board before finding a nice tactic to overcome some desperate defence and decisively get the little guy over the line - nicely done Paul.

At this point in the season we seem to be just getting edged in the tight matches, but having had a great run mid-season (4 wins from 5!) we've already improved on last year's wooden spoon with our final, very late game of the season still to come away to Altrincham a week on Tuesday.

Board    Marple C                               East Cheshire C

1       Terry Cowling (135)   0.5 - 0.5  Myles Heywood 

2       Jeff Barlow (117)           0 - 1      Paul Bamford

3       Neil Dainty (100)           1 - 0      Edwin Cooke

4       Toby Brown (106)          1 - 0      Ian Vaughan 

5       Trefor Thomas (88)    0.5 - 0.5   Geoff Smith

Result Marple C                3 -  2   East Cheshire C