The thick end of the Wedge

Dave Wedge has left for
pastures new

Hebden Bridge Chess Club members may well be aware that during the course of the summer break we have lost one of our very best and most experienced players. Dave Wedge has taken up an exciting career opportunity that means he will be down in Cambridge during the week and unable to continue playing for us. He will be sorely missed. Dave has been the ‘A’ team’s top board player for a lengthy period of time and has collected multiple honours both with the team and individually. We wish him the best of luck with his career and hope to see him out and about in Hebden Bridge when he’s home at the weekends.

Shortly before he left I asked Dave if he would be so good as to send me some of his most memorable Hebden Bridge and Calderdale games from his archive. I’m delighted to be able to present the first two of those games today. Dave is hoping to send me a further two games later in the summer and I look forward to being able to publish those here as well. I’ll let Dave introduce these exciting games in his own words.

“I’ve attached the first game, which is a short miniature that I played in 2005, when representing Calderdale ‘A’ on board 2 against Bradford in the Woodhouse Cup. My opponent was James Dannenburg who was graded 175 at the time (his current grade is 186). In terms of grade this must be one of the ‘best’ games I’ve played. I was reluctant to count it as one of my best games, however, since the play is flawed and many of my moves were fairly obvious. The deciding consideration was its entertainment factor – I think your readers might enjoy the game and it shows that strong opponents can sometimes be soundly thrashed with very little effort!”



A fine swashbuckling effort with the White pieces there. Time for another.

“Here’s the second of my ‘best’ games. Again the play was flawed (on both sides) but this game was one of a series of memorable tactical encounters with David Firth and shows why the Benoni is seen as a fighting defence for Black.”



Personally I think this second effort really shows what Dave's game is all about. He sets himself up actively and grabs the initiative when the opportunity arises before finishing the game off in an attractive fashion. I can also vouch for the resiliance of his Benoni Defence as I have myself failed to score against it on multiple occasions!

Many, many thanks go to Mr Wedge for taking the time to prepare these for publication. I hope readers will enjoy them and be able to learn something from them. Flawed they may be (how many perfect games have any of us ever played?) but they are still of a high standard and offer plenty of food for considered thought.