Hebden Bridge Chess Club

We've moved house!

2011-11-08T14:19:00.001Z

The Hebden Bridge Chess Club website has moved to a brand new home. Please go to www.hebdenbridgechessclub.co.uk where we hope you will find that nothing has been broken en route!

An all hallows gambit!

2011-10-31T21:49:00.001Z

I couldn't possibly let Halloween pass by without taking the opportunity to publish another game in the Halloween Gambit. This one comes with as many horror-ridden cliches in the commentary as I could muster. It was played at a recent edition of the Victoria Gardens Blitz Tournament in Leeds where one can justify and get away with playing such bilge. Happy Halloween!

Brave 'B's hold their own

2011-10-29T22:03:00.000+01:00

Martin Syrett and his team donned their best war paint
for Monday's match with Hebden Bridge 'A'

On Monday night the Trades Club hosted the first derby clash of the season as Hebden Bridge ‘A’ played against Hebden Bridge ‘B’ in Calderdale League 1. In the past these ties have been the first to take place in the fixture list in order to avoid any suggestion of collusion later in the season. This season the sides met in round 3. If there had been any sceptics invigilating this fixture they can rest assured that the ‘B’ team gave their comrades no quarter and were rewarded for their trouble as they ended up stealing a hard earned point.
Both sides fielded changed lines ups from their previous fixtures. The ‘A’ team have been handed a blow to their title hopes by the withdrawal from league competition of their top board, Matthew Parsons. The side still have a strong line up but it looks very different from the team that finished runners-up last season. Dave Wedge, Matthew Wedge-Roberts, Alastair Wright and now Matthew Parsons have all gone. As a result of this new set-back ‘A’ team Captain has drafted in Dave Sugden from the ‘B’ team to play on board 5 and everyone else has moved up the board order.

Martin Syrett’s ‘B’ team thus had to deal with the loss of Dave Sugden and, furthermore, the unavailability of several regular selections due to the fixture being played in half-term week. In the end Martin recruited three ‘C’ team stalwarts in the form of Josh Blinkhorn, Steve Priest and Neil Bamford. They repaid his faith in them by performing admirably on the night.

An early warning shot was fired across the bows of the ‘A’ team has Dave Sugden perished at the hands of Neil Bamford after barely half an hour’s play. Playing a Vienna Gambit, Dave made an uncharacteristic tactical oversight and was dispatched instantaneously by Neil, who is having a wonderful start to this season.

This surprise result left the ‘A’s needing to win 3 out of the last 4 boards to take the match. They weren’t able to do this. First of all in the battle of the team Captains on board 2 Dave Shapland and Martin Syrett agreed to a draw in a lifeless pawn ending. Dave and acceded to the exchange of all the heavy pieces on the basis that he felt the resultant ending was winning for him. He was wrong and Martin held the draw easily.

The remaining three fixtures went right to wire at the end of the evening and could have gone either way. At one point it even seemed that the ‘B’ team would clinch an astounding victory. On board one Darwin Ursal was held to a draw by Andy Leatherbarrow who defended himself stoutly and took advantage of Darwin’s exposed king by giving him perpetual check. Shortly afterwards Pete Leonard and Josh Blinkhorn also agreed to share their point in fascinating, fluctuating battle. The endgame of this encounter is worthy of study as it contains lots of interesting points. Both players had to play very accurately in order to maintain their chances and a draw was a fair result.

This meant that the ‘A’ team had to win the final game of the tie in order to draw level. On board 4 Nick Sykes kept hold of a strong initiative throughout his game against Steve Priest. He developed a raging attack in the middle game and, although he missed a couple of quicker kills, the result was never really in doubt and he duly collected the point at the end of the evening.

The final match score card looked like this then:

Hebden Bridge ‘A’ vs. Hebden Bridge ‘B’

D.Ursal ½-½ A.Leatherbarrow

D.Shapland ½-½ M.Syrett

P.Leonard ½-½ J.Blinkhorn

N.Sykes 1-0 S.Priest

D.Sugden 0-1 N.Bamford

2½-2½

Congratulations to the ‘B’ team for this excellent result. All their players were all out-graded by 20 points or more so this really is a tremendous achievement.

At the end of the evening the next question to ask was “how much has this draw hurt the ‘A’ team’s title challenge?” The answer was, “not as much as it might have”!

Champions Huddersfield ‘A’ have had a terrible start to the year with consecutive loses to Brighouse and Courier ‘A’. They needed to win to have any chance of fighting their way back into contention and they did just that in a heavy-weight encounter away to Todmorden ‘A’. Both sides fielded phenomenally strong line-ups but it was the visitors who took the spoils. Wins for Chris Booth against Andrew Clarkson, Mitchell Burke against Alastair Wright and Richard Boylan against Chris Edwards were enough for Huddersfield to win 3½-1½.

The season’s early leaders, Courier ‘A’ and Brighouse, both pinched their third successive wins to maintain their 100% records. Courier beat Belgrave 3½-1½ at home and Brighouse, also at home, beat Huddersfield ‘B’ 3-2. Courier and Brighouse now share a 2 point lead at the top of the table although both sides are still to play Hebden Bridge ‘A’ and Todmorden ‘A’. The two race leaders play each other next Monday for the rights to sole leadership.

Hebden Bridge ‘A’ climb over Todmorden ‘A’ into third place in the league. The ‘A’ team must next face Huddersfield ‘A’ away and could therefore soon be caught again. Already this next match is set to be crucial to Hebden’s title challenge. Win, or even draw, and they will be right in the battle. Lose and the champions will draw level with them. If Huddersfield turn up with the same side that won this week it will be an uphill struggle.

Hebden Bridge ‘B’ occupy the lower reaches of the table but should take heart from the fact that they have now played Courier, Todmorden and Hebden Bridge ‘A’ and can look forward to an easier run of fixtures before Christmas. The fact that they have taken a point from these first matches should be a source of some consolation to Captain Syrett. Their next match is away to Huddersfield ‘B’ and they should be optimistic about getting a result against one of their fellow strugglers.

Tune in again next week for further updates as both leagues are in action next week. Our division 2 teams play on Monday and our division 1 teams are in action on Thursday.

The playful side of Bobby Fischer

2011-10-26T00:07:00.000+01:00

"Bobby felt very at ease with animals and children,
but not adults", Harry Benson

Like many chess enthusiasts I was fascinated by the prospect of seeing the recent biopic about the greatest of all chess enigmas, Bobby Fischer.

I am a member of the post-Fischer generation in that I started playing long after he had disappeared from public life. Of course I've heard so many of my elders talk in rapt terms about his genius and one can get a feeling for this by playing through his legacy of great games.

Unfortunately, what you can't do is get any kind of impression of the man himself or the astounding impact he made on the world (not just the chess world) in 1972 when he played Boris Spassky for the World title in Iceland. It was this aspect of Fischer, as a man, and a global phenomena that I found so enthralling about the film.

The Director, Liz Garbus, had gone to great lengths to pull together as much archive interview footage of Fischer as she could and this really gave you a feel for the kind of man he was. Quite a lot was made of his lonely and damaged child-hood. This was put forward as the predominant reason why the stubborn, self-reliant streak that helped him become so successful also transformed him into a rampant paranoid delusional in later life.

Many of the photos taken by Benson in Iceland give a real feeling for the
"loneliness and isolation of the position he was in".

Probably the aspect of the film that captivated me the most was the photography of Harry Benson. He was chosen to shoot Fischer for LIFE magazine at the Buenos Aires Candidates Tournament the year before Reykjavik and became, if not a friend, then at least a companion to Fischer during that period of his life. Evidently Garbus had approached Benson during her preparations for the film and had been amazed to find that he had a large collection of photographs that had never been published. They are amazing, a real window into Fischer's soul. Much more than the interview footage, in which Fischer always seems so guarded and defensive. After I'd watched the film I was delighted to find out that Benson had subsequently published a book of his Fischer photographs and I immediately rushed to Amazon to buy it.

I'd certainly urge anyone who has an interest in chess to see the film when you get the chance. Just don't expect lots of involved chess content. There is plenty about the 1972 match in Reykjavik but it is covered mostly from a personal and political angle. All-in-all it's a really superbly made glimpse into the life of this brilliant, complicated and damaged man.

All of this thinking about Bobby Fischer put me back in a frame of mind to look at some of his games and then I remembered the game and comments published by Walter Polhill in The Independent on Sunday back in the late 1990's. Polhill selects a very unusual Fischer game that has a real splash of humour in it. Playing against Ulf Andersson, who had a reputation for labarinthine strategic and manoeuvring play, Fischer chooses to adopt the style himself and delivers a masterpiece. Enjoy!

"By far the greatest player the world has ever seen, Bobby Fischer was also a superb parodist. The following victory of his is often dismissed as a mere display of attacking imagination. Yet making such an assessment would be to overlook one of the finest acheivements of the parodic art this century."

I'll finish this post on another light note by re-telling the famous Fischer anecdote of Hungarian Grandmaster, Laszlo Szabo. At the Buenos Aires international tournament of 1960, he and Fischer had adjacent hotel rooms. One night, someone brought a young woman to Bobby's room. The following morning it happened that both Fischer and Szabo left their rooms at the same time and Szabo shot an enquiring glance at Fischer who responded by simply saying: "Chess is better."

Round up

2011-10-20T08:30:00.000+01:00

There’s a lot going on across the Calderdale and Yorkshire chess circuit at the moment. Today I’d like to take a short pause for breath to round up some of the news and results you may have missed.

Calderdale Individual Championship 2011-12

This year’s championship is being hosted by the Belgrave and Courier Chess Clubs at the Belgrave Social Club on Claremount Road in Halifax. As always there are 5 rounds and these take place on the first or second Monday of the month from November through to March. This year’s schedule is as follows:

Round 1: 7th of November, 2011
Round 2: 12th of December, 2011
Round 3: 9th of January, 2012
Round 4: 13th of February, 2012
Round 5: 12th of March, 2012

Pairings for each round will be posted at 19.30 and play will begin promptly at 19.45. Entry for this year’s competition costs £3.50 and £2.50 for juniors.

Anyone interested in registering to play in this event should contact this year’s organiser, Paul Edwards, by e-mailing him at: clic2012@gmail.com

Entry fees can be paid on the night of the first round but you must pay before the start of play.

As an aside from the details of the competition I must say that it’s great to see another club other than our own hosting this year’s competition and I’d like to wish Paul the very best with the organisation. Here’s hoping that Hebden Bridge players will continue to support the championship just as enthusiastically as we have done in recent years. I am hoping to once again provide extensive coverage of the competition as it progresses right here. Get yourselves signed up.

Yorkshire Chess Association website

Hot off the press is this new website that acts as a hub for chess players across the county and, in particular, the Yorkshire League. YCA President, Ihor Lewyk and his assistant website editor, Matthew Webb, have done a fantastic job to get this up and running. I’m looking forward to seeing how it develops over the coming months.

Yorkshire League Results

Adrian Dawson has once again been swift in furnishing me with the latest efforts from our two Calderdale teams.

“A mixed day for the Calderdale teams on Saturday. A great result for the ‘A’ team who thrashed Bradford ‘A’. It has to be said that Bradford had to split their side in an effort to keep their ‘B’ team in the First Division but it was still a very strong team as the grades prove.”

Bradford ‘A’ vs. Calderdale ‘A’

W.Williams (190) ½-½ P.Watson (189)

I.Lewyk (178) 0–1 R.Newton (181)

D.Barlow (176) 0-1 M.Hamer (177)

C.Wright (170) ½-½ M.Whitehead (173)

M.Bramson (170) 0-1 J.Morgan (173)

I.Hunter (165) ½-½ D.Ursal (166)

M.Ashdown (158) 0-1 D.Patrick (165)

J.Holliday (126) 0-1 M.Corbett (138)

1½-6½

“Calderdale ‘B’ were out-gunned on all boards and suffered a severe defeat. If they continue to play teams of the strength of the first two in this season’s campaign, they will struggle for sure.”

Bradford Central vs. Calderdale ‘B’

P.D.Rooney (203) ½-½ M.I.Connor (154)

M.D.Crowther (174) 1-0 N.Suttie (148)

J.D.H.Milnes (169) 1-0 D.Colledge (143)

D.Breen (167) 1-0 A.Leatherbarrow (140)

N.J.Edwards (163) 1-0 M.Syrett (139)

P.G.Day (153) 1-0 D.Sugden (137)

DEFAULT 0-1 D.Milton (132)

G.Laszlo (130) ½-½ S.Priest (121)

6-2

Calderdale League 2 Results

Hebden Bridge ‘C’ were the only side in action in Calderdale League 2 on Monday night. Calderdale ‘D’ had a walk over as a result of Wheatley’s withdrawal from the league earlier this season. The ‘C’ team faced up to Courier ‘B’ and were unusually depleted for the match with regular Captain, John Kerrane, being away on holiday. As a result, stand Captain, Neil Bamford, led the side to a superb victory under the circumstances. After the match he was moved to remark, “The good guys came out on top thanks to some inspired performances from the ‘D’ team refugees”.

Here is the full match scorecard:

Hebden Bridge ‘C’ vs. Courier ‘B’

J.Blinkhorn 1-0 P.Hughes

S.Priest 0-1 D.Colledge

N.Bamford 0-1 J.Smith

C.Greaves 1-0 J.Whitehead

D.Crampton 1-0 R.Bottomley

3-2

Hebden Bridge Chess Club database

Last, but by no means least I would like to draw members’ attention to Nick Sykes’ blog on which you will now be able to find the latest version of this year’s games database. This is up to date to the 17th of October.

The French, fried (again!)

2011-10-17T19:45:00.000+01:00

On the 15th of October last year I reminded readers of an anniversary that any good Englishman should cherish - the anniversary of Henry V's victory over the French at Agincourt in 1418.

Well, this year I didn't quite manage to post on the 15th (which was on Saturday), but I did think it was appropriate to mention the anniversary (the 596th) again this year. On Saturday morning, as the brave men of Wales went down in a tight battle against the French in the Rubgy World Cup in New Zealand I couldn't help thinking how ironic it was that this fixture should have been played on the 15th of October. In 1418 it was the renowned longbow men of Wales who were instrumental in helping good king Harry defeat the French knights on away soil.

So, today, in tribute to the brave men of Wales who fought the French on two battle fields nearly 500 years apart, I would like to offer another thrashing of the French Defence. Something to warm the heart.

Special delivery from Courier

2011-10-14T13:28:00.000+01:00

Huddersfield 'A's title defence now looks even more fragile
than this parcel thanks to Courier's win on Monday night

On Monday night it was the turn of Calderdale's Division 1 teams to wade into action for round 2 of this year's competition. But, before we turn to our own teams' results, I should first relate the seismic result that has reached our ears from Halifax where Courier 'A' overwhelmed the reigning league champions Huddersfield 'A' by a score of 3½-1½.

In itself this would not necessarily mean all that much (Courier also beat Huddersfield in the second round last season) but, coming on the back of the champion's defeat away to Brighouse in round 1, this result leaves them bereft and cut adrift from this year's title race after only two matches! Last year they recovered from a draw and a loss to claim their victory with an perfect run of 12 won matches. This year they will have to do that again and it still may not be enough to save them.

Courier's excellent win deservedly leaves them top of the table with two wins from two matches. Brighouse join them on 4 points (they are second on board score) after they saw off Belgrave away in a tight match. The other two fixtures both featured Hebden Bridge teams and so, without further ado, over to John Kerrane who reports on the action from the Trades Club.

“Hebden Bridge Chess Club’s A team confirmed their status as contenders for the Calderdale Chess League first division championships on Monday evening at the Trades Club, Holme Street, when they hosted newly-promoted Huddersfield B, and beat them 4½-½.
The individual results were:

Hebden Bridge ‘A’ – Huddersfield ‘B’

M. Parsons 1-0 N. Hepworth

D. Ursal 1-0 N. Hepworth

D. Shapland 1-0 B. Corner

N. Sykes ½-½ E. Mellor

D. Sugden 1-0 M. Rojinsky

4½-½

Meanwhile, one of their rivals, Todmorden ‘A’, was dealing out similar harsh treatment to Hebden Bridge ‘B’ at the same venue. The 4-1 score line does not reflect the closeness of the match, as several of the Hebden players came close to causing an upset, but only Steve Priest on board five could win a point for the home side.

The individual scores were:

Hebden Bridge ‘B’ – Todmorden ‘A’

A.Leatherbarrow 0-1 M.Hamer

M.Syrett 0-1 A.Clarkson

J.Blinkhorn 0-1 A.Wright

J.Kerrane 0-1 R.Tokeley

S.Priest 1-0 C.Edwards

1-4

On the same evening, Hebden Bridge ‘C’ was playing away against Halifax ‘A’ in one of the semi-finals of the Calderdale Summer Team Knock-Out Competition. In this time–handicap competition, lowly Hebden Bridge ‘C’ had a genuine chance, but the Halifax side won the match in the end. The match featured the debut for the Hebden Bridge league teams of 9-year-old Kyle Sharpe, who came away with a creditable draw against old campaigner John Nicholson.

The individual results were:

Halifax ‘A’ – Hebden Bridge ‘C’

C.Velosa 1-0 T.Sullivan

R.Cully 0-1 N. Bamford

H.Wood 1-0 T.Wilton-Davies

J.Aldridge 1-0 D.Crampton

J.Nicholson ½-½ K.Sharpe

3½-1½

Halifax ‘A’ will now play Hebden Bridge ‘A’ in the final of this competition.

Hebden Bridge 'A's assured victory has left them in third place in the table hot on the heals of Courier and Brighouse and with Todmorden for company. These four sides have already pulled clear of the rest of the division and poor old Hebden 'B' find themselves rock bottom and with the unappetising prospect of facing their colleagues in the 'A' team in the next round of fixtures. Anyone interested in seeing the current league table can do so at the league website.

This just leaves me to introduce a few more of the games from Monday night. These ones all come with a little commentary. First up is another combative victory for Darwin Ursal on board 2 for Hebden Bridge 'A'. He showed his young opponent no mercy has he brushed him aside early on in the evening. I've used the "Show/Hide" function on Chess Flash here to try and ensure this post loads as quickly as possible. Just click below for the second and third game viewers to be revealed!

Next up, and also a board 2 clash, here is Andrew Clarkson's victory of 'B' team captain, Martin Syrett. My thanks go to Andrew for taking the time to send us this game.

Finally, here is 'A' team captain Dave Shapland's effort against Brian Corner.

Thanks to all the players who took the time to send me their games by e-mail this week.

Yorkshire League under way

2011-10-12T02:55:00.000+01:00

Today’s post comes from Adrian Dawson who reports on the first round fixtures from the Yorkshire League which began last Saturday with two tough away fixtures for Calderdale’s two teams.

"In this article it is time to give grateful mention to some of Calderdale's heroes for their out-standing work in, not only representing our League, but in the way they have shown out-standing fortitude by organising teams that can not just compete at the highest level but can compete at all! People such as David Patrick, who for years has kept a team in the Woodhouse Cup by consistently finding strong players who are happy to represent us and is also the Fixtures Secretary to the League; Dave Colledge who does a sterling job as the League's Secretary and also captain's the Calderdale 'B' team, who also perform admirably in the I.M.Brown (Yorkshire's Second Division). Both 'A' & 'B' teams finished mid-table last season and promise to improve this term. Finally, Dave Milton, a former Yorkshire Secretary, who has done what no chess player has done for many a year in organising, not just one Todmorden team but a thriving club that now boasts 3 teams, all of which are showing great promise in the local league.

The Calderdale teams had perhaps the toughest matches they will face in their campaign in the first round of the Yorkshire Saturday League. The 'A' team travelled to face the champions for the past 3 years, York, and it has to be said, gave a very good account of them selves, especially in the middle order. Being out-graded on all boards bar one the 'A' team battled hard and the score, although looking like a heavy defeat, does not give a true reflection of how the match went.

The Woodhouse Cup, Round 1

York 'A' – Calderdale 'A'

C.Ross (189) 1-0 P.Watson (189)

J.Weller (192) 1-0 R.Newton (181)

D.Adams (198) ½-½ M.Hamer (177)

J.Nicholson (183) ½-½ M.Whitehead (173)

A.Combie (185) ½-½ J.Morgan (173)

M.Carpenter (177) 1-0 D.Patrick (165)

R.Mounce (160) 1-0 M.Corbett (138)

R.Cowan (164) 1-0 M.Huett (123)

6½-1½

Although the 'B' team's result was the same this match showed the 'B' team can do battle with the strongest. Hull used to be the largest club in Yorkshire and won the Woodhouse Cup 13 years in succession, from 1987 to 2000. They soon after had some internal problems and withdrew from playing in Yorkshire. The present team is now fighting to try and replicate those glory days. Our 'B' team were heavily out-graded on all boards and had to default on bottom board. In the match Neil Suttie and Dave Sugden both had their opponents on the rack but couldn’t convert. Dave Milton was much better against his opponent but lost on time. Last to finish was Steve Priest who turned down a draw offer and tried to squeeze out a win but in the end had to give a perpetual check to avoid defeat. The rest of the side were outplayed by a much stronger team that seems to be on its way back to Division 1."

The I.M.Brown Shield, Round 1

Hull D.C.A. – Calderdale 'B'

E.Gardner (179) 1-0 M.Connor (154)

D.Stephenson (175) ½-½ N.Suttie (148)

J.Thackray (172) 1-0 D.Colledge (143)

I.Bell (163) 1-0 M.Syrett (139)

B.Hesler (157) ½-½D.Sugden (137)

R.Callis (162) 1-0 D.Milton (132)

A.Grice (133) ½-½ S.Priest (121)

D.Mills (153) 1- 0 Default

6½-1½

Thanks to Adrian for sending us this report. I hope to continue to update readers on the progress of both Calderdale teams as the season progresses. Both team Captains are always on the lookout for new recruits so if you are interested in representing Calderdale in the Yorkshire League leave a comment here or e-mail me at hebdenbridgechessclub@gmail.com and I'll send your contact details on to them.

Notice anything?

2011-10-07T08:23:00.000+01:00

One of the 40 or so chess boards on each
Grand Central train

On the way back from London to Halifax aboard a Grand Central train last Sunday night I was pleased to see that all the table tops had chess boards printed on them. “A great idea,” I thought, “to help bored travellers while away the interminable delays: a nice game of chess”. Then I looked more closely and laughed out loud. The boards were printed the wrong way round thus rendering them completely useless – unless you like playing at a 90° angle. Hilarious!

It wasn’t all that long ago that John Kerrane told me he’d had a similar problem with boards printed on table tops at a school he teaches chess at. It’s ironic isn’t it that when an organisation spends a little money on creating facilities for our great game they fail so miserably with the practicalities of getting the board the right way round.

Over at the “Chess Curiosities” website this was a favourite subject of Tim Krabbé who collected many instances of the work of a group he conspiratorially called the “dark-right-hand-corner-square-mafia”. See “Open Chess Diary” entries 259, 83, 51 and 30 for many more tragic-comic tales of chess boards displayed incorrectly. Perhaps we should revert back to the board that was used for “Shatranj”, the precursor to our modern game, in the Middle-East, which had no coloured squares on it at all.

League 2 Champions take control

2011-10-05T02:41:00.001+01:00

Neil Bamford: Strong start to the
season

John Kerrane has filed us this report on Monday night’s league 2 fixture.

"The players of Hebden Bridge Chess Club’s D team set off on Monday evening to play away against the current Calderdale Chess League second division champions, Todmorden B, knowing they had a tough task ahead of them. Their own senior colleagues in the C team had only managed a draw against them in a home match a fortnight before.

The games all followed a similar pattern – after getting into difficulties in unfamiliar openings, the D team players fought back, but only Neil Bamford, on board 2, managed to overcome his initial disadvantage and won a complex rook-and-pawn endgame against his highly-rated opponent, Paul Logan. Finally, Todmorden emerged winners by a score of 4-1, which reflected the much greater experience of the Todmorden side."

The individual results were:

Todmorden ‘B’ – Hebden Bridge ‘D’

P.Edwards 1 – 0 J.Blinkhorn

P.Logan 0 – 1 N.Bamford

M.Huett 1 – 0 C.Greaves

R.Stoelman 1 – 0 M.Levy

R.Pratt 1 – 0 P.Dearden

4 – 1

I should add that both Josh Blinkhorn and Neil Bamford on the top two boards would normally have expected to play for the ‘C’ team. Unfortunately, Wheatley’s late withdrawal from League 2 has left only 7 teams in the competition and so Hebden Bridge ‘C’ had a walkover this week as their scheduled fixture was against Wheatley. I understand they will be awarded a 5-0 win.

Elsewhere in League 2: Courier B put an early dent in Halifax ‘A’s plans to return to League 1, after relegation from the top flight last season, by beating them 3½-1½. Courier won on all of the top 3 boards to seal the match.

Todmorden ‘C’ won their match at home against Halifax ‘B’ by an impressive 4-1 margin with Tom Webster, Dave Milton, Geoff Bowker and JP Ellis all winning their games. This win carries Tod ‘C’ to the top of the table as the only side in the league to have managed 2 wins from their opening fixtures. Their next match is away at Halifax ‘A’ in a tie one suspects Halifax are already under pressure to win.

I’ll end this post by saying “Well done” to Neil Bamford who has started the new season strongly with 2 wins from 2 games. He also won with White against Bob Pratt on board 5 in Hebden Bridge ‘C’s draw at home with Todmorden ‘B’ in the opening match of the season. As I don’t have his game from this Monday and didn’t publish that win at the time I will publish it now.

Neil has a straight-forward and uncomplicated style with an eye for exploiting a tactical opportunity which makes him particular dangerous with the White pieces. In this game he plays sensible developing moves in the opening and gives himself the best chance of capitalising on his opponents mistakes. The nice sacrifice 26.Bxf7+! wins at least the exchange and is the kind of combination some players of higher grade would easily overlook.

Keep up the good work Neil!

Jorvik Chess Congress Diary

2011-10-01T08:05:00.000+01:00

Pete Leonard reveals the secret of his early successes
for HBCC: an ice cream sundae before every match!

Today’s post comes courtesy of “T.M.W.D.W.M.T” (a.k.a. Pete Leonard). Who took part in the Jorvik Chess Congress in York back at the beginning of this month. Pete has been through all his games and annotated them so my thanks go to him for taking the time to prepare this report for us.

"Intermezzo was not the only person to have entered a chess tournament this summer, though my choice was a much less prestigious affair than the British Championships. However, I followed similar reasoning to his, when I saw the flyers for this event at the HBCC. We have friends who live in York, so I could stay with them and have a pleasant walk to and from the hotel each day.

This congress is in its second year. According to the organiser, Peter Cloudsdale, he had just ten entries last year; this time there were 34, which is a healthy increase. We were divided into two sections: A for those graded above 130 and B for those on 130 or below. A five round Swiss would suffice for such numbers, but I didn’t have his problems of managing the draw, so could simply enjoy an extra game for my entry fee.

Unlike the British Championships, the time allowance was quite short: just an hour apiece for the entire game. As my first game lasted over 60 moves, that was quicker than a minute a move! My target was to achieve a 50% score overall; not unreasonable, as my grade placed me pretty well in the middle, between a highest of 187 and a lowest of 131. I should be disappointed with less than 3/6 and pleased with more.

Everyone else was a stranger to me; in the first round, I drew White against Eric Key. A pleasant chap, I think we both had similar ambitions: to play as well as we could but chiefly to enjoy the experience. He confessed to not having touched a piece in anger for four months; together with my lack of match practice, this probably accounts for the less than perfect, though close, game.

So, I won each morning with White and lost each afternoon with Black. It must be my age; I’m missing my afternoon nap! Still, I can take satisfaction from the fact that I achieved my target and could even have had 3½ or 4/6.

It was a friendly, informal, tournament, held in a pleasant atmosphere; my thanks and congratulations to Peter and Claire Cloudsdale for their excellent organisation. Also to the various winners: of course Alexander Combie won Section A, with Adam Ismail joint second, so it’s no disgrace to have lost to him, either. Section B had joint winners and a five-way tie for third; there would probably have been a clearer result, from 16 players, if there had only been five, or even four, rounds. However, I can understand why six rounds were played; I certainly plan to enter the Jorvik Congress again."

The dark art of games(wo)manship

2011-09-28T08:25:00.003+01:00

Rudyard Kipling: Somewhat less deadly than his wife

“The female of the species is more deadly than the male.”
Rudyard Kipling

“If cunning alone were needed to excel, women would be the best chess players.”
Adolf Albin

A couple of weekends ago, as I watched live coverage of the FIDE World Cup Final in Khanty Mansiysk my wife took an interest (most unusual) and asked about the lady commentator, GM Anna Sharevich. We started to talk about women in the game and I explained that there was a women’s World Champion and that most top female players played in specific, women only tournaments. Quite rightly she asked me why there were separate women’s events and titles when the game of chess conferred no physical advantage to men as it does in most sports. “Surely men and women should compete together” she said and cited show jumping (horse riding is her favourite pastime) as an example of a sport where men and women compete on equal terms.

Of course my wife is right (she almost always is I find) to point out this strange state of affairs in chess. I must admit I struggled to justify why women competed separately from men although I did point out a very significant exception to the rule. Judit Polgar. When I provided my wife with Judit’s potted curriculum vitae and went on to add that she had performed very well at the same World Cup in reaching the quarter-finals and losing to the eventual winner she simply nodded and said “Well, there you go”.

That discussion caused me to reflect a little on the differences between women and men and how they think. I don’t want to get embroiled in a gender debate and I’m no scientist but, I reasoned that physiologically, there must be some attributes that are more prevalent in one gender or the other and that those attributes must have an impact on the workings of the mind even if it’s at a trivial level. I’m fairly sure that male and female GMs approach preparation and in-game-analysis in the same way but at an amateur level, perhaps different approaches are more apparent.

Of course there was only one course of action for me to take at this point and I immediately logged on to exchange instant messenger correspondence with this website’s most illustrious contributor, Lady Cynthia Blunderboro. Our chat progressed thusly:

Intermezzo: Do you think women approach chess in a different way to men or display any attributes more or less prominently then their male counterparts?

Blunderboro: Generally I’d say no because such a blend and balance of skills are required to excel and the best players, men and women, tend to demonstrate these universally. However, remembering the words of Rudyard Kipling, I’d suggest that maybe we ladies bare chess grudges longer than men do, and, baring in mind the words of Adolf Albin, perhaps we occasionally display greater levels of imagination in our deviousness.

Intermezzo: I assume that you have examples in mind?

Blunderboro: Of course. Shall I write you a blog post?

Intermezzo: Yes please!

So now, I’ll hand you over to Lady Cynthia who, as always, has an intriguing tale to tell.

Hello again fellow chess-heads! The gender debate surrounding the royal game has long been a cause of heated discourse. Personally I find such chatter to be rather dull as generally speaking it is, like the game itself, dominated by male opinion! Questions such as “Why don’t more women play chess?” and “Why are women not as good at chess as men?” tend to be questions that men ask when they want to pontificate about the perceived masculine intellectual attributes they possess. The truth of the matter seems to be that, proportionally, we women are at least as good at chess as men. Should any of my undoubtedly overwhelmingly male readership be interested in a more balanced female perspective on such matters then I can hardly do better than to direct you to the excellent Goddess Chess website.

From a Lady’s perspective, I’m not convinced that our approach to chess or the attributes we display are really all that different to men’s. Certainly I’m unable to recall any examples that would support such a theory. What I certainly can provide evidence to support is that when it comes to clear thinking, cold-blooded ruthlessness and down-right craftiness at the chess board, we ladies can behave in a most ungentlemanly fashion!

Today’s story begins in 1932 when I was 10 years old and attending St. Ethel’s boarding school for girls. Of course I was a member of the school chess team and we regularly played matches in the local chess league as well as against other schools around the country. At this early stage in my career I was not by any means an expert but the fire of competitive spirit was certainly stoked during my school days. This was never more evident than when St Ethel’s played our annual match against our great rivals, St Agnes’ Catholic School for Girls. By the time I represented St Ethel’s for the first time in this fixture it had already taken place 35 times previously and our school held an 18-17 lead. In 1932 then I had, for the first time, been offered the opportunity to defend the honour of St Ethel’s in this unfolding legend of inter-school rivalry. I was selected to play on the bottom board, board 10.

If further incentive to succeed were needed that day it was provided when I arrived for the match (which we played on a Saturday afternoon in our school library that year) and discovered that my opponent was to be Prunella DeLauncy. I knew this girl and we already detested each other. Prunella was the daughter of Sir Stephen and Lady Margaret DeLauncy who owned DeLauncy Castle, the nearest estate to my own family’s holdings. Although our families were not especially friendly we did operate in each others ambit on numerous social occasions and so I had already had numerous run-ins with this odious little girl. Prunella was three years older than me and took every possible opportunity to belittle, bully and taunt me for being smaller, weaker and younger than her. I reasoned that, on this occasion at least, her physical advantages would be of no use to her and resolved to take full advantage of the fact that the controlled conditions of the competition would prevent her from cheating. An deep irony baring in mind what was to take place that day.

When we took our seats at the board she looked at me as if I were something unpleasant and smelly that she had stepped in on the street and could barely bring herself to shake hands with me. When the handshake did come it was half-hearted and limp. At this point, as I looked along the two lines of players on my right, I noticed to my amusement that she was stationed beneath several girls who looked to be about my age whereas I was clearly the youngest in our team. This gave me a fresh injection of confidence for now I felt that my playing abilities would be a match for hers.

Sadly, on that wet autumnal afternoon I was to be disappointed and even devastated by my own naivety. The game started off well enough. She responded to my king’s pawn advance with the Sicilian Defence. I chose an anti-Sicilian line I’d been studying and elected to play it safe by swapping the queens off very early in the game. I felt confident of securing at least a draw from my enemy until we reached the diagram position below where Prunella was to play.

By now Prunella had begun to openly express some dissatisfaction with her position. Perhaps she felt that she ought to have already secured a decisive advantage against a player three years her junior, perhaps she had simply staged these emotions in order to prepare the way for what now came next. After a relatively short think of only a couple of minute she aggressively bashed out the move 18…Bc6, whacked her clock and then sat back smugly with a sneer on her face and her arms folded across her chest.

As I considered my response I noticed that her facial expression was slowly changing from smugness to concern. After a couple of minutes her face reddened, she muttered something to herself under her breath and then suddenly stood up, her chair scrapping noisily on the wooden floor as she did so, and stormed out of the room in disgust. The eyes of all the players followed her as she left. Amazed and excited at what had just occurred I studied the board again looking for the error that she obviously felt she had committed. It didn’t take long to for me to realise that she had left her pawn on f5 unprotected.

“A free pawn!” I thought. “Is there a trap?”

It took only the briefest of moments to check that after I captured with 19.Rxf5 there was nothing unpleasant that was going to happen to my king and saw that if she played 19…Rd1+ 20.Kh2 Bb8+ then 21.g3?? would be a dire error on account of 21…Rh1 mate! However, I soon saw that instead of this I could play 21. f4, or even better 21.Bf4 and would have simply gained a two pawn advantage.

“She must have missed 21.Bf4”, I reasoned and then wrote down the move 19.Rxf5, played it and pressed my clock confident that I had secured a decisive advantage.

Five minutes passed by and then another five. There was no sign of Prunella, where was she? I began to get restless, had she given up in dismay or been rendered physically unwell by her error? I was about to go and speak to the match referee when the door of the library creaked open and Prunella slowly crept back in. She looked like she had composed herself and she returned to our game tight lipped and serious. She sat down at the board, looked at my move and sighed meaningfully and then with a depressed air about her she responded as I had anticipated with 19…Rd1+. I played my only move 20.Kh2 and then she rocked back in her chair her expression completely transformed once again. Suddenly she was leering at me with a malignant twinkle in her eye. She paused only long enough to let me register that something was a miss before reaching forward and playing not 20…Bb8+ but the move 20…Be4!

I stared at the board in disbelief. My rook and knight forked by the bishop. How had I missed it? It was clear I had been duped by an acting performance of consummate skill. She had wanted me to think that she had made an error and so all I had done was look for one. It was a brilliant diversion. Looking only for a mistake I had found one and completely missed the best rejoinder! I couldn’t even escape with 21.Ne3 as Bxe3 simply reinstated the threat.

At that point, I confess that my world fell apart. I have never again since felt so abject at the board. Playing on in a mist of demoralised inertia I continued on auto-pilot until Prunella finally ground me down with her extra piece in the end game. To make matters even worse St Ethel’s lost the match by a score of 4½-5½! My naivety had lost us the match and it took me months and months to recover from the trauma of losing that game to Prunella DeLauncy who I should add, I never played again in the annual encounter as my game improved rapidly enough to stay above her in the board order in subsequent years. Never the less, in each year that I took part I had to endure her hard, sneering gazing on me every time I caught her eye.

I thought I would never have the chance to avenge that painful defeat. But then, over twenty years later, in 1953, fate dropped an opportunity into my lap. I received a letter from the St Ethels’ Head Mistress of that time informing me that the annual chess match against St Agnes’ had reached it’s 50th edition (the fixture was not held between 1940-45 on account of World War II) and, to commemorate this, a special anniversary match between chess-playing alumni from each school was to take place alongside the traditional match for the pupils. Of course I accepted the invitation to take part as, by this point in my life, I was an accomplished player and wanted to repay in some way the chess education I had received from my old school.

The day of the match arrived. Once more the venue was St Ethel’s School Library. I had arrived early and was enjoying chatting to several old friends who I hadn’t seen for years when suddenly on of them drew my attention to the library doorway. Prunella DeLauncy had just arrived. I hadn’t expected her to attend but I would guess that she wouldn’t have wanted to miss another opportunity to flaunt her success of 21 years previously. There she was, as tight faced and smugly superior as ever. She glared at me as she made her way over to her team mates and I found myself yearning for a re-match even though I imagined that she would not be their top board player.

When we saw our Captain’s match card I couldn’t believe what I saw, for Prunella was indeed playing on board 1 for the St. Agnes Alumni team. Her game must have improved somewhat over the last twenty odd years for I was sure there were others in the St.Agnes line up who had previously been her betters. As we sat across from one another I could sense her disdain but forced myself to be polite and looked up smiling at her.

“Good luck”, I said as I shook that limp, cold hand.

For this return game I was fortunate once again to have the White pieces. My improved skills as a player in the intervening years between our encounters had given me the confidence I needed to play for a small but enduring advantage out of the opening. I played solidly, possibly too solidly and Prunella, to her credit defended staunchly, and at times, resourcefully. As the game meandered on my advantage dwindled and I began to realise that Prunella, whilst having no winning chances herself, had succeeded in neutralising my attacking potential completely.

Stubbornly, for in all other circumstances I would have offered a draw, I played on, politely declining her curt offer of a draw when the queens came off the board as the end game began. We were now the last board playing and the match was tied at 4½-4½. Vainly I scoured the position for any opportunity to create complications and managed to find a clever way of sacrificing a pawn to reactivate my pieces. I conjured up some significant problems for my opponent and she began to spend more and more time trying to solve them. Finally though, she dug herself out of trouble yet again and, with both our clocks down to their last two minutes, we reached the position below.

I had just checked the Black king and Prunella moved it with 61…Kh6. I sat staring intently at the board. The position, with equal material and opposite coloured bishop was drawn I had to accept it and offer to share the honours. My clock was almost spent. But then, a glimmer of an idea came into my mind, perhaps there was a way and I could try to win it without any risk of losing. Quickly I checked it again and glanced at my clock. One minute left. Prunella had a little more but not much. To make this work I had to blitz her and rely on her disdain of me and need to belittle me. I could use that to my advantage.

Very swiftly we now both banged out the moves…
62. Bf4+ Kg7
63. Be5+ Kh6
64. Bf4+ Kg7

I’d made a point of calling out “Check” throughout this sequence. First of all because I knew it would annoy her and secondly because it was integral to my plan. I paused here for a couple of seconds with my hand hovering over the bishop. Prunella, flushed with adrenaline looked at me intently expecting that the repetition of moves would follow and enable her to thwart me again and draw the match. However, I now played 65.Bd6 and called out “Check” again. Immediatley Prunella’s hand darted out to her king and moved it back to h6. She pressed her clock again and then said, mockingly, “That wasn’t check.”

“Sorry! Yes, you’re right. My mistake” I replied as I paused again for a few seconds. I must have had about twenty seconds left. I used ten of those to allow Prunella to realise the full horror of her mistake before playing 66.Bf8!

“But that,” I said “is checkmate. If I’m not mistaken.”

And so it was that on this occasion it was Prunella who was left devastated. My vengeance felt very, very sweet and my team mates crowded round to congratulate me on my play. Later on, at the local pub they also congratulated me on my gameswomanship. The ultimate compliment.

As a post script to this story I should add that recently I was most surprised to find this last little set piece (listed as being played by NN and NN) in Christian Hesse’s new book “The Joys of Chess:Heroes, Battles and Brilliancies”. The position features in a chapter named “Gamesmanship” and I will end this article with a quote that features at the beginning of that chapter which seems very appropriate to the subject and an object lesson for all chess players regardless of their gender.

“As a medium for demonstrating one’s mastery of the game the board and pieces are, in fact, most unreliable.”
William Hartston

Addendum: 01/10/2011
Since I published this post (by a bizarre coincidence) Chessbase have put up a very interesting related article on their website which I would commend to all readers interested in the gender discussion. It turns out that some research now suggests that there are differences between men and women when it comes to how they approach their chess playing. Or, rather, there are differences to their approach when men play against attractive women! Evidently a man playing a game against an attractive woman is much more likely to essay an aggressive opening system and take more risks to try and win the game. On the other hand, women are unlikely to change their approach when playing against men, regardless of whether or not they think they are attractive! So, there you go, some kind of answer to the original question I posed in the introduction to this post.

Half full or half empty?

2011-09-22T21:44:00.001+01:00

Which one are you?

It’s all about your frame of mind isn’t it? I mean, whether you perceive the proverbial glass to be half full or half empty. Sometimes it’s a close call though. Monday night’s first round match of the Calderdale Evening Chess League left me puzzling over which view to take. Ultimately I think I’m a “glass-half-full” kind of chap. Perhaps I should explain my dilemma.

I’m new to this team Captain business and whilst the logistical dealings of organising a team and getting them to a venue come to me easily enough I hadn’t anticipated some of the thoughts and feelings I’d experience on game night itself. I found myself paying quite a lot more attention to the status of my colleagues’ games and at the end of the night I found myself weighing up the value of the result much more extensively than I might have done if I’d just been participating as a player.

As I prepared Hebden Bridge ‘A’ for the season I did so with the goal of winning the League 1 title in my mind. Huddersfield won last season with our team a close second and I wanted to create a team capable of winning the title back from them. I think we have such a team but we’ve had to re-build. Dave Wedge has done sterling service for the ‘A’ team on board 1 for many years, but a career opportunity has taken him away to Cambridge. His son Matthew, coincidentally, has achieved a place at Cambridge University studying Mathematics and he was one of the ‘A’ team’s top performers last season. In addition, last year’s Captain, Alastair Wright, has decided to offer his services to Todmorden ‘A’ this year. That left just Nick Sykes and Matthew Parsons from last year’s squad.

So, we’ve started again. Matthew Parsons is now on board 1. He would have been even if Dave was still here due to his higher rating. We have managed to secure the services of Darwin Ursal on board 2. He was a board 1 player with Halifax ‘A’ last season but, as they were relegated, he wanted League 1 chess so we’ve have him on a “season’s loan”. Darwin hopes and expects to go back to Halifax next year assuming they can get one of their two teams in League 2 promoted. Last season I was in the ‘B’ team but playing on board 1 or 2. This year I’ve switched teams but will operate on board 3. Finally, we have drafted in Pete Leonard who was probably the club’s surprise package last year as he returned to league chess for the first time in many years and performed admirably in the ‘C’ team. In the end, on paper anyway, we actually have a stronger line up than last year so I’m confident that we can compete.

Round 1 took us away to Todmorden for the first tie of the new campaign. I suspected they would be able to generate a strong line up. Martin Hamer and Andrew Clarkeson (both very strong players) were only guest stars last season but this year I suspect they will be regulars. The addition of Alastair Wright on board 3 gives them a powerful top order. And so with my new Captain’s head on I suspected we’d have to win on the lower boards to win the match. In my experience this is always where things are decided in League 1 as the best teams can all field very strong and evenly matched players on the top 2 or 3 boards. Baring in mind that we’d all have the Black pieces this fixture seemed like it would be one of the season’s toughest encounters.

Half way through the evening I admit I was worried. On board 1 Matthew appeared to be under pressure but was holding his own against Martin. On board 2 Darwin was playing his favourite Sicilian Dragon variation but Andrew appeared to know his way about and was playing accurately in the opening phase. My own game against Alastair had begun disastrously as his chosen move order completely flummoxed me. I had ended up with a terribly uncoordinated mess (king forced to f8 by a massive White knight on d6 (!), queen’s bishop trapped at home with no prospects of escape, rooks disconnected and a knight on the h-file) and was reduced to hunkering down to a long night of misery grovelling for a draw.

Boards 4 and 5 appeared to offer the best cause for optimism. Pete had achieved a huge passed pawn on the c-file straight out of the opening against Chris Edwards and seemed in control of things and Nick seemed to have a very satisfactory position from another Sicilian Defence against David Innes.

There was a brief moment mid-evening when disaster seemed imminent. Darwin had his queen trapped in the centre of the board and, to my eyes at least, there appeared no way out without giving up material. As you’ll see from the game analysis below, it turns out my assessment was correct (most unusual) but Darwin found a tricky response and Andrew overlooked the correct reply. Darwin went on to play the resultant endgame very actively and accurately and deserves great credit for overturning a -2 previous score against Andrew (admittedly one of those losses was in the lightning chess format).

By the time Darwin had won his game Matthew had agreed a draw against Martin Hamer, an excellent outcome given he had Black, and I had finally given up the fight against Alastair who played accurately and without fuss to convert his huge positional advantage. My queen’s bishop was still on c8 when it was trapped at the end of the game! All of this left the scores even from the top 3 boards, proving once again my opinion that League 1 games are decided on the lower boards.

Pete Leonard put our noses in front with his first League 1 win against Chris. That left us a point up with one to play and it appeared we would win the match as Nick seemed to be well in control of his game. Sadly he then overlooked a tactic that left him with too much ground to make up and he resigned in disgust.

At the time it felt disappointing to draw the match when we seemed to have it in the bag despite my own abysmal contribution. The glass was half empty. Nick was gutted at blundering in a winning position and I felt thoroughly dispirited from the molestation I had suffered. However, by the time I had gotten home and tucked myself in I was feeling a bit more positive. Looking at the Todmorden line up before the match I’d have taken a draw if you’d offered me one and the other three members of our team had all performed extremely creditably. I also reasoned that other teams (even our closest rivals) would struggle to achieve a drawn match if Todmorden put the same team out for every home tie.

A few days later I’m now convinced that my optimism is well founded for the champions, Huddersfield ‘A’, stumbled to a 3½-1½ defeat away to Brighouse in their first match of the season. Suddenly our draw seemed all the more like a point gained rather than a point lost. Recent history suggests that Huddersfield are more than capable of recovering to challenge for the title. Last year they draw their first match and lost their second but then went on a 12 match winning streak to claim victory. They’ll hope to do the same again but for the moment my glass stays half full.

Whilst we are on the subject of optimism let us pause to appreciate this quality in Martin Syrett, our ‘B’ team Captain, under whom I served with great pleasure last season (and in previous years also). Martin has been the ‘B’ team Captain for a number of years now and he labours under the most difficult circumstances. He knows that the best he can hope for each year is for his team to maintain their League 1 status. He knows that if the ‘A’ team find themselves a player or two short he will be expected to weaken his line up to support their title bid. Yet despite these travails he maintains a jovial and easy-going demeanour no matter how desperate the situation appears to be.

Last year the ‘B’ team appeared doomed for the drop and yet he led the charge to safety as we rallied to win our final two matches and stay up at Halifax’s expense. This season I think he has cause for a little optimism. In contrast to the ‘A’ team he has only lost one player. Me. In addition he also has access to some players who distinguished themselves in League 2 last season. On paper they like a big hitter on board 1 to help protect the rest of the troops but all of his regulars are rated within 5 or 6 points of each other and that should provide him with the chance to rotate them a bit in order to give them all the chance to win some games and test themselves on higher board.

Sadly, on Monday night at least, it didn’t work out for the ’B’s. Matthew Wedge Roberts guest starred on board 1 for his final match before heading off to university and he did well to draw with Courier ‘A’s number 1, John Morgan. John was last season’s individual super star as he collected not only the Calderdale Individual title but also the prize for best individual score in the league. I posted their game in the express report on Monday. John appeared to have most of the pressure in the game but Matthew knuckled down and held his position to prevent his opponent breaking through.

On board 2 Andy Leatherbarrow played tenaciously against Dave Patrick and pushed him all the way to the end of the night’s play (when does Andy ever play a game that is over in an hour or less!) but in the end an extra pawn in a rook ending wasn’t enough for a win.

It was further down the order that the ‘B’ team’s night went sour. Captain Syrett seemed to be doing well but then lost a piece as the endgame approached and went down swiftly to Robert Clegg after that. On board 4 Pete Olley seemed to be a certain winner before he also capitulated in dramatic fashion. Finally, Dave Sugden, so solid and dependable on board 1 for the ‘C’ team in League 2 last season, seems to have had an early catastrophe in his game and also lost.

Hebden ‘B’ matched up favourable grading-wise on the bottom two boards so (having drawn boards 1 and 2) the margin of the 1-4 score was disappointing. They next face Todmorden ‘A’ at home before playing their derby match with the ‘A’ team later in October, so they may already be looking at another slow start to the season. Martin’s side should be able to compete and pick up points against the likes of Brighouse, Belgrave and Huddersfield ‘B’ later in the Autumn. They’ll need to if they are to help Mr. Syrett is to continue performing his little miracles.

Let battle commence!

2011-09-21T02:42:00.001+01:00

Today John Kerrane provides us with a report on Monday night’s Calderdale League round 1 matches. Match score cards and some of the games from each fixture have also been added. I'll be publishing some annotated games from these matches later in the week.

To use the game viewers simply select the game you wish to view from the drop down list above each board. Each viewer displays a random game from the selection. The games are presented at a rate of one move every 3 seconds. To play through them at your own pace select the "=" button and then move forward and back with the arrow buttons.

Hebden Bridge Chess Club started the new Calderdale Chess League season with a bang on Monday evening, with all four of their teams in action.

The A team, playing away against Todmorden A, were held to a draw by the home side, who were aided by a win for Alastair Wright, former Hebden A team captain now playing for Todmorden, against the new captain, Dave Shapland. However, a win by new A team member Pete Leonard evened the account. The individual results were:

Todmorden ‘A’ vs. Hebden Bridge ‘A’

M. Hamer ½ – ½ M. Parsons

A. Clarkson 0 – 1 D. Ursal

A. Wright 1 – 0 D. Shapland

C. Edwards 0 – 1 P. Leonard 1

D. A. Innes 1 – 0 N. Sykes

2½ – 2½

The B team, playing at their home venue, the Trades Club, Holme Street found it hard going against Courier A and went down 4-1. Matthew Wedge-Roberts and Andy Leatherbarrow, on boards 1 and 2, managed creditable draws, but the visitors’ lower board players proved too strong for Hebden B. The individual results were:

Hebden Bridge ‘B’ vs. Courier ‘A’

M. Wedge-Roberts ½ – ½ J. Morgan

A. Leatherbarrow ½ – ½ D. Patrick

M. Syrett 0 – 1 R. Clegg

P. Olley 0 – 1 D. Colledge

D. Sugden 0 – 1 G. Thompson

1 – 4

The C team, also playing at home, held a strong Todmorden B side to a 2 ½ - 2 ½ draw, this time with strong play on the lower boards. The individual results were:

Hebden Bridge ‘C’ vs. Todmorden ‘B’
T. Sullivan 0 – 1 R. Tokeley

T. DeLuca 0 – 1 P. Logan

J. Kerrane 1 – 0 G. Bowker

S. Priest ½ – ½ R. Stoelman

N. Bamford 1 – 0 R. Pratt

2½ – 2½

As these game viewers are still relatively new to this blog I'd like some feedback from readers. Can everyone see these ok? Do they display correctly? Do you like them? etc.

Parsons knows

2011-09-16T13:33:00.002+01:00

Matthew Parsons will be filling the
Dave Wedge-shaped vacancy on
board 1 for the 'A' team this season

Today’s post comes courtesy of Hebden Bridge Chess Club’s highest graded player, Matthew Parsons. In a post from earlier this week we covered off his successes at the Huddersfield Rapidplay and the Club Lightning competition but Matthew had started his warm up routine for the new league season even earlier as he explains below.

Over the Bank Holiday weekend in August I played in the Major Section (Under 170) at Leyland Chess Congress. With my ECF grade of 167 taking preference over my YCA (174), which would have placed me in the Open, I could have expected to be one of the favourites for the 1st prize. There were two other players with the same grade as me and one higher, Abigail Pritchard, who was graded 168. She, like myself, did not have the best tournament. I finished on 3.5/6, with 3 wins, 2 defeats, and 1 draw.

As you will see from the games below, the 2 defeats were nothing to do with my opponent beating me, but rather foolish errors from myself. In round 1 I over-pressed against a weaker opponent, searching too hard for a win, only to blunder in time trouble and lose. In round 4 I had a totally won ending which I messed up in terrific style.

My play was sporadically good, but I was definitely very rusty having not played over the board since March, where as many of the other players in the tournament had played in various sections at the British Championships in Sheffield earlier in the month. I also found myself exhausted each day, much more so than normal. That said, it was a good warm up for the league season and hopefully any rustiness is now out of my system.

In fact I finished 2nd at the Huddersfield Rapidplay Open Section last weekend, beating the top seed Peter Shaw in round 1 in the process, a player graded over 200. My play on this day was at another level to how I played at Leyland.

Here are the games from Leyland with my own annotations.

My thanks go to Matthew for taking the time to provide this report and annotated games to us. I hope that other players will find his thoughts enlightening and entertaining.

The Calderdale League season begins next Monday the 19th of September with all four of the club’s teams in action as both leagues 1 and 2 kick off. A full list of the season’s fixture can be found on the new Calderdale League website and all fixtures pertinent to Hebden Bridge teams can be found by visiting the “Calderdale League Fixtures 2011-12” page on this site.

Lightning victory for Parsons

2011-09-14T14:45:00.000+01:00

The new Calderdale Evening Chess League is just around the corner (it starts next Monday) and, in the time honoured tradition, Hebden Bridge Chess Club held its annual Club Lightning Competition to give club members the opportunity to limber up in a light-hearted yet competitive way.

In addition to this contest several members of the club joined other Calderdale players at the Huddersfield Rapidplay on Sunday the 11th of September.

Today’s post reports on the outcome of both competitions and we begin with John Kerrane’s report for the Hebden Bridge Times.

Report by John Kerrane

As the new Calderdale Chess League season approaches, Hebden Bridge Chess Club held their regular warm-up, the annual Lightning Chess Trophy competition, on Monday at the Trades Club, Holme Street.

With the current lightning champion, Dave Wedge, retiring from active play for the club, the competition was wide open, and several of the stronger players were in contention from the outset. The early leader was Matthew Wedge-Roberts, but he was overhauled by Matthew Parsons, who finished the evening with 5/6, while Wedge-Roberts, with 4½/6, came second.

This result confirmed Matthew Parsons’s fine form for the beginning of the new season, after he finished second in the Huddersfield Rapidplay Congress the previous weekend in a very strong field. He managed to beat the strongest player in the competition, Peter Shaw, in the first round and was, in fact, the only player not to lose a game.

Next week, the club’s players, after limbering up, must get down to some serious business when the league matches start in earnest, with all four of the club’s teams in action on the first night.

So, Hebden Bridge Chess Club has a new Lightning Champion in the form of Matthew Parsons. He was a worthy winner. The final ranking table of all entrants is published below.

I know that some contestants were very interested in the software I used to generate the pairings and enter the results. It’s a piece of free software called Sevilla and I found it very easy to use. It probably saved us 30 minutes of time working out the pairings in between rounds so I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to run a competition at club level.

The format of lightning chess often leads to some quite comical circumstances that you simply wouldn’t see in any other form of the game. In particular the rules dictate that there is no need to announce check and that any king left enprise can be captured to end the game. Likewise, any illegal move that isn’t picked up on before the next move is due to be made has to stand. When you only have 10 second to make each move these idiosyncratic rules come into play more often than you might imagine. I won two of my games on Monday night by capturing my opponent’s king and I've witnessed a game of Lightning chess that ended with one player having two bishops operating on the same colour squares! Neither player had the slightest idea when the error had occured.

A particularly amusing episode took place on Monday in the final round as two of the club’s less experienced players battled it out for the final point of the round. Tim Wilton-Davis was playing White and was up an exchange and several pawns and appeared to be cruising to a win when Tim Whelan, playing Black, gave check with his one remaining piece, a knight. When the buzzer went 10 seconds later Wilton-Davis advanced a pawn and, immediately realising his blunder, actually got up from the board in disgust to storm off. Meanwhile, Whelan, totally absorbed in proceedings, didn’t seem to notice Wilton-Davis' distress and didn’t notice that his opponent's king was enprise! When the buzzer sounded again he also advanced a pawn at which point Wilton-Davis returned to the board with a smirk to move his king out of check and he went on to win the game. Whelan meanwhile remained completely oblivious of his oversight!

As a parting shot for this post I'd like to publish Matthew Parson's excellent win against Peter Shaw from the Huddersfield Rapidplay. This was a notable scalp for Matthew and he went on to be undefeated for the rest of the day tying for second behind Shaw who managed to win all but one of his remaining games to win with 4.5/6. The game below is published using a new game viewer (yet another!) by Casaschi. I'm hoping to use this viewer more often in future as hopefully I will be able to display all the games in a single league fixture through a single viewer. It's only draw back is that it isn't so good with annotations and commentary (there is a limit to the number of characters one can have in the PGN file) and so for single games with commentary I hope to use another viewer that is best for this purpose. As always I'd value feedback on the viewer below.

"Lost on time"

2011-09-10T05:40:00.001+01:00

Ok, so the cover looks like it was designed
by a simpleton, but don't let that put you off.
This book is superb!

They are the words chess players hate seeing at the end of a scoresheet. Yes, today’s post is all about time forfeits. It’s also a first opportunity for me to offer readers a bit of a book review for a title I purchased recently called “The Joys of Chess” by Christian Hesse. I purchased it last month and it was the first chess book I had bought in quite some time. My attraction to it probably reflects my changing needs as a chess player, or, to be more precise, a chess publisher. That’s because this book is not an opening treatise or a self-help manual. It is pure entertainment and there is a bucket load of material here for a chess blogger.

To be blunt, I can’t recommend this book heartily enough. Rarely has the title of a book so aptly reflected its content. This work is a gem that has been some years in the making. Hesse has been gathering material throughout his 30-year career as a chess player (he is a Professor of Mathematics by trade). The format of the book makes it very easy to dip in and out of and so you don’t need to spend hours at a time pouring over it with a board. In my household we call this type of publication a “good toilet book” because you can easily consume a chapter during the course of a call of nature! The chapters are mostly fairly short and there are enough diagrams in it to allow you to follow the course of any play without having to use a computer or a board. The subjects are many (there are over 50 chapters in here) and varied cover such diverse topics as “Chess and Psychology”, “Quantum Logic in Chess”, “Retreats of Genius”, “Brilliant Bad Moves” and “Provocation”. I already know that I’m going to be sharing and expanding on some of the contents of this book here on the blog for a long time to come. Fans of Tim Krabbe’s “Chess Curiosities” will love it.

Amongst the chapters is a section called “Time and Time Forfeits” and it is from here that I would like reach for some entertaining examples for today’s post. I’ve written about time management and time trouble on these pages before and the drama of "zeitnot" can be most compelling for spectators watching a game. For the participants however it is exceedingly stressful and yet, some players across every level of competitive chess get into habitual time trouble.

On occasions the likely outcome of a game can be completely turned on it’s head due to one player blundering in time trouble or even running out of time. I’ve only forfeited on time in competitive play once or twice and I can well remember the anguish of feeling like I had wasted my efforts on a game that I had “thrown away”. Let’s face it, most time forfeits are conceded when the game situation is still unclear and often complicated. Losing in such a way with the potential of the game unfulfilled can leave a deep psychological wound.

For example, Hesse mentions Nigel Short’s traumatic loss in the first game of his World Championship match with Garry Kasparov in London in 1993. I had not long started playing chess at the time of this match and remember it vividly. Short had a winning position at the board but over stepped the time limit and forfeited the game. He never really recovered from that loss and went on to lose the match by some margin. As a small diversion however I'd like to recommend the following You Tube clip to readers which is very funny indeed and cleverly made...

Right, back to the task at hand. Hesse references two further examples of time forfeiture that I was not aware of.

Position after 35.Bc5.
Spassky vs. Hort, Game 15
Candidates quarterfinal, Reykjavik, 1977

The position on the left was reached in the penultimate game of a Candidates quarterfinal match. With the match score level the Czech superstar Vlastimil Hort had succeeded in giving himself a wonderful chance of qualification after gaining a winning advantage with Black in this position. An eyewitness to the encounter, Australian Grandmaster Ian Rogers, picks up the story.

“Hort had 4 minutes left in which to reach move 40, and his hand was over the queen about to play the winning move 35…Qg4. Just one of several variations is 36.Rf2 (36.g3 Qh3 is just as bad) Rd1+ 37.Rf1 Rxc1 38.Rxc1 Qd1+ 39.Kf2 Bc5 and White must resign. But Hort’s brain refused to let his hand play the move and the numerous spectators witnessed the horrific drama as Hort’s clock ticked down to zero and he lost on time.”

This is a bizarre case that seems to be analogous to a golfer getting the yips and being unable to execute his putting stroke. Hort was later moved to say in an interview “It was the blackest day of my life”. Truly it scarred him deeply for he was unable to win the last game of the match with the White pieces and lost the match never again to qualify for the Candidates cycle.

Hesse then recounts another extraordinary rabbit-in-the-headlights case of time forfeiture.

Position after 39.Kh3
Larsen vs Gheorghiu, Olympiad
Siegen, 1970

This case (on the right) occurred in another high profile and high stakes environment, the Olympiad, but this time there was some history between the two players that seems to have effected the Romanian’s psyche. He had a terrible personal score against Larsen and admitted that he found playing the irrepressible Dane to be extremely wearing. Never-the-less, in the position above he had managed to secure a winning advantage and needed now only to play 39…Nf3 (threatening 40…Ng5 mate) and Black will be able to convert his material advantage after, for example, 40.Kg2 Ng5+ 41.Kf1 Qxc4+ 42.Qe2 Qxd5. Instead of doing this however, the history books recorded another point in Larsen’s favour. In their book about the Siegen Olympiad, David Levy and Raymond Keene described what happened.

“Eye-witnesses of this remarkable encounter report that Gheorghiu stretched out his arm to play the decisive move 39…Nf3, but just at that moment the said arm was seized by a convulsive shake to such an extent that the Romanian grandmaster was not able to move the piece to the target square. As he tried to summon up the willpower to overcome this unfortunate case of paralysis he over-stepped the time-limit.”

The Larsen hoodoo had triumphed once again.

At least in both of these two cases the victims were aware of their imminent plight despite their physical incapability to doing anything to mitigate against it. In this last case from my own files the victim remained blissfully unaware of what lay in store for him.

Position after 61...Kc5

This is the final position from my third round encounter at the recent British Championships. It had been a tough battle and I had had my opponent on the ropes for much of the game. Having missed some chances to convert my pressure into a win, White now had the better of an endgame that was however, most likely, still drawn. Both of us were down to our last 2 minutes to complete the game and I was expecting my opponent to offer me a draw or try and play for a win. As I sat and waited, along with a gathering crowd, it became apparent to me that my adversary was not aware of the time crisis he was facing. He sat looking at the board as his clock ticked. He didn’t look up, he just thought... and thought... and ran out of time!

When I informed my hapless foe that he had forfeited the game he stared at me with glassy, vacant eyes and then, as realisation dawned on him, he shook his head miserably and said "I didn't realise. The game is drawn. It's a draw." But unfortunately it wasn't, he had lost!

I would only like to add by way of a salutory note that my opponent had arrived 20 minutes late for the start of the game. I leave it to readers to draw the moral from this tale of woe.

Who is "T.M.W.D.W.M.T"?

2011-09-07T10:59:00.001+01:00

I’ve been light heartedly toying with the idea of referring to club members only through the medium of amusing pseudonyms during the course of the forth coming season. I probably won’t do it but it for a few minutes I enjoyed brain storming a few ideas. One idea came very quickly to mind and that was a 'handle' for one of our club's newest members, Pete Leonard. Pete joined us last year and quickly made a name for himself by scoring 6/7 for the ‘C’ team during the latter half of last season and ending it with a new Yorkshire rating of 158. Quite a debut!

Over the summer months I’ve had the chance to play a few games against Pete and chat to him about his ‘first’ chess career back in the 1970’s and 80’s. After an analysis evening at the club he mentioned that he’d once played in a simultaneous event against one of my chess heroes and member of the true all time greats, Mikhail Tal. When my jaw dropped open in amazement Pete proceeded to dumbfound me even further by telling me that he secured a draw against the former World Champion with the Black pieces and using Alekhine’s Defence! Now I was really impressed and asked him if he would send me the moves for publication here on the blog. Today I am delighted to be able to present Pete’s draw with Mikhail Tal.

As Pete himself points out the game was not particularly in keeping with the great man’s usual modus operandi. In fact it’s pretty dull and all those who attended the analysis evening that Pete was asked to host at the beginning of August to replay this historic game were probably a little surprised to spend most of their time analysing a technical endgame rather than a labyrinthine, tactical, atom bomb. Never mind. I did at least manage to dig out some further details of the simultaneous display itself with help of the chess historian par excellence, Edward Winter from Chess Notes.

I sent Mr Winter an e-mail and asked if there was any good way to find out about the details of the simultaneous display which, at that point, Pete thought had been played in 1977. Mr Winter kindly and politely responded that he couldn’t really help because if he did then he’d open the flood gates for similar requests that he simply didn’t have the time to deal with. But he did say that he’d had a cursory glance through some reference material and wondered whether I had provided him with the right date because the only simultaneous display he could find that had been played by Mikhail Tal in Luton was given in 1973.

Of course Mr Winter’s brief research turned out to be completely accurate and Pete later confirmed that on closer inspection of his handwriting it turned out his game had indeed been played in 1973. I was therefore pleased to be able to tell him that both Tal and Svetozar Gligoric participated in that simultaneous event at Stockwood High School in Luton on the 16th of July, 1973. Tal’s score that day was +39 -0 =3!

Now I truly am impressed because achieving one of only three draws out of 42 games played that day is a fantastic effort. In fact, ever since I found out about Pete's back story I have been jokingly referring to him as "The Man Who Drew With Mikhail Tal" or, palendromically, as "T.M.W.D.W.M.T" for short. Maybe we'll use that acronym to strike fear into the hearts of our enemies next season for if we can deploy "T.M.W.D.W.M.T" in the lower reaches of our 'A' team then how good must the rest of the side be?

Chess Improvement Carnival: September Edition

2011-09-05T05:21:00.003+01:00

This attractive pile of fruit and vegitables appears to have nothing
whatsoever to do with chess.

Welcome everyone to the September edition of the Chess Improvement Carnival! Hebden Bridge Chess Club are delighted to have been offered the opportunity to host this months feast of chess delicacies.

For this month's theme (as we approach the time of year here in the UK) I have chosen the "Harvest Festival" and, in the best traditions of this event, chess bloggers from around the world have brought forth the very best of their produce to share with the community.

There has been a bumper crop of material submitted this month so I've tried to divide it into sub-catagories for easier consumption. So without further ado, lets cast our eye over the pick of the bunch.

Training and Development

On the "Path to Chess Mastery" blog our host explains his methodology for analysing his own games and how this is helping him to improve his play.

Over at the "Empirical Rabbit" blog Bright Knight provides readers with the latest news on his tactical development programme and considers his future plans.

Back at the beginning of August I took part in the British Chess Championships for only the second time in my 18 year career as a player. It was a lot of fun, a fantastic development opportunity and also very hard work! I feel I learned something about the level of intensity required to be successful in tournament play. I posted a range of material about my preparations, lessons learned and (I'm afraid!) the games themselves. Anyone who is interested in this narrative can find them in amongst the August archive of this blog.

Reviews

The ever interesting and thought provoking Mark Weeks digs deeper into the contents of a YouTube video he linked to recently, distilling some of its lessons as he goes.

Seasoned chess blogger, Robert Pearson reviews Andrew Soltis’s book “Studying Chess Made Easy” and concludes that it’s well worth recommending. Prompted by reader feedback Robert then expands further on his review in this second post.

Robert also points out to us an interesting article and illustrative game on Grand Master Nigel Davies’s “The Chess Improver” blog in which GM Davies gives an insightful view on “unfashionable” chess openings. This one is a must for anyone who plays Philidor’s Defence.

Anyone looking for a decent chess engine for Playstation 3? If so then GersFan1982 seems to think that the new Fritz 3 package may be the answer to your prayers.

Games and Problems

Our thanks to “Chess Improvement Carnival” originator Blue Devil Knight who furnished me with a wonderful sweep of his favourite posts from the blogs on the Chess.com website.

First up, here is a classic masterpiece by Nigel Short (posted and commented on by ih8sens) which demonstrates the power of the king even in the middle game.

If you thought that game was interesting then you need to check out this one as Fide Master CharlyAZ continues the “Steel King” theme with a crazy game in the Poisoned Pawn Variation of the Sicilian Defence. CharlyAZ goes on to give several more examples of this phenomena including the Short vs. Timman game given above. An entertaining read! (On a similar theme, one of my favorite games by Alexei Shirov involves White launching an attack on the enemy king whilst his own monarch is perched precariously on d3!)

If it’s tests and puzzles you’re after then CharlyAZ provides another classic game for our education and enjoyment. This time readers are invited to participate and try to predict the moves played by Vladimir Kramnik against Garry Kasparov. It’s a challenging example of a “positional” sacrifice theme to test yourself with.

There is another nice tactical problem to solve in this post by mis3u where you'll have the chance to improve on the play of a Georgian Grandmaster. Double rook endgames are notoriously difficult to handle and this post shows that even GMs can mess up sometimes.

IM Daniel Rensch houses his own blog on the Chess.com site and in this post he reviews his performance at a recent tournament. There are three interesting games to look at too.

Jonny at “Smartblog” considers how playing chess can help boost your IQ and considers the intellectual benefits that players can derive from the game

That's all for this month. See you all in a month's time on another host site from October the 4th!

General Interest

A battle of wills

2011-08-19T08:14:00.000+01:00

Kasparov never had a problem with expressing his feelings
at the board

“He has an extreme capacity for work, extreme determination to win and extreme perfectionism.” Magnus Carlson on Garry Kasparov

I’ve been reflecting further on my recent experience at the British Championships and in particular thinking about the attributes required to be successful as a chess player. By ‘successful’ I don’t just mean winning the odd game in the league but winning tournaments and league titles on a regular basis.

In Sheffield I experienced first hand the levels of determination and fighting spirit that were required to carry me as far as the top board of my section in the final round. I had to play some of the best chess of my life to do it. I also needed to capitalise on the odd bit of good fortune and some bad mistakes from opponents at crucial moments. But, I’d say more than anything else, I found it essential to consciously collect together my reserves of will power and determination before every game in a way that I wouldn’t normally do before a league match. This was the first occasion on which I had asked myself to play two games a day for 5 days and I found that maintaining the necessary level of intensity was the most challenging and exhausting aspect of the whole experience. It made me realise what it must take for the professionals to compete successfully at the highest levels.

Last week I was interested to hear the thoughts of Michaels Adams who won the Championship after a play off with Nigel Short. He was pretty open about saying that had didn’t think he’d had a particularly good tournament.

“…the whole tournament was just really hard work actually. I mean, nothing went smoothly really… I thought Nigel was playing much better actually in general. It seemed to me Nigel was winning games quite smoothly a lot of the time.”

I’ve edited this quote from an interview Adams gave to “The Full English Breakfast” podcast (well worth subscribing to by the way) shortly after his victory. Adams clearly felt like he’d had to work very hard for his victory and also mentioned that he’d had to save a few desperate situations, particularly against his closest rivals, Short, David Howell and Gawain Jones. Despite this he still emerged the winner and that was in no small part due to his resilience and strength of character. Adams may have thought Short had played a better tournament but it wasn’t enough to take the title off him.

Of course Garry Kasparov was the arch competitor and made his will and determination physically manifest during play. Having seen video footage of Kasparov in action it is fascinating to see how expressive and energised he was at the board. It’s as if he simply couldn’t restrain his strength of character from seeping out. I’m pretty sure that will to win gave him an extra 10% against even the most talented opponents and may even have seen him through the tightest situations against Karpov, who was himself an iron-willed competitor.

So, maybe there is a lesson for me in all this. I need to try and find a way of bringing the intensity I found at the British Championships to my play in the coming league season. If I can succeed in doing this consistently then I think I can be confident that I will play to the best of my abilities and that my results will improve further in 2011-12. Now I just need the discipline to apply what I’ve learned game after game. That’s always the hard part!

Heroes of Swashbuckling #1: Brause

2011-08-15T09:12:00.000+01:00

Brause = German (noun). To fizz or pop in an effervescent way, like soda.

For this post I’d like to welcome back (after a slightly longer break than originally anticipated!) one of our guest columnists, The Swashbuckler. In his first post he set out his manifesto by sharing with us his “Rules of Swashbuckling”. In this second post he starts his very own “Swashbuckler’s Hall of Fame”.

“Hello readers. It’s good to be back to continue a series that I hope will become a monthly instalment in future. Today I would like to introduce you to the first of my swashbuckling heroes, Brause. Ok, so none of you have heard of him, if indeed I can call it a him! Readers will have gathered from the quote at the beginning of this post that the name is in fact, a nom de guerre – in this case the name given to a very particular chess engine.

Perhaps I should explain. Years and years ago (we’re talking mid to late ‘90’s here) I was playing chess on the Internet Chess Club when I happened to accept a challenge by a player called “Brause”. We agreed on a game of blitz and, playing with the Black pieces, I was most perturbed when the opening moves went 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3. “Oh dear”, I thought, “this is going to be a dull Four Knights Game. Perhaps I should have ventured the Latvian Gambit.” I paused for a moment’s thought as I tried to figure out how I could enliven proceedings in the next few moves and then played 3…Nf6. To my very great surprise the response was 4.Nxe5!?

Halloween Gambit after 4.Nxe5!?

What on earth was this? I paused again for a few precious seconds and then remembered that I’d seen this played before. It was a known gambit but I couldn’t remember what it was called. All I could remember was that it was supposed to be highly dubious for White.

“Ok,” I thought, “let’s just play natural moves and see what happens”. So I played 4…Nxe5 5.d4 Nc6 6.d5 Nb8 and thought; “This just can’t be enough initiative for the pawn”.

But it turned out I was wrong for Brause absolutely crushed me inside 20 moves! I couldn’t believe it. Ok, his rating was much higher than mine but he’d just played one of the most “swashbuckely” openings I’d ever seen and destroyed me. Wow!

A few days later I bumped into Brause online again. Again we played. Again the same line appeared. Again I lost a violent miniature. Now I was intrigued. Who was this Brause and how did he get away with playing this line? I researched the opening variation and found out that it was called the ”Muller-Schultz Gambit”. Every piece of writing I could find on it condemned it as tripe. Sure White could develop some initiative for his knight but not enough to offer real compensation. The line didn’t even seem to be held in high regard by the types of player who were willing to venture things like the Cochrane Gambit against Petroff’s Defence or the Traxler Variation of the Two Knights Defence. In the end I stopped looking at it. It just didn’t seem viable. Eventually I forgot about the Muller-Schultz Gambit and I forgot about Brause.

But then, this time only a couple of years ago, I stumbled upon an article by Tim Krabbé in which he described having had a similar experience on the ICC. He had faced a player who had taken him to the cleaners with the Muller-Schultz. Krabbé, however, had not taken it lying down. He’d done proper research (not like my half hearted effort) with databases and he stumbled on a gold mine of swashbuckling brilliance. Many of the games (over 300!) he tracked down were from online blitz games and lots of them had been played by, you guessed it, Brause.

But Krabbé went further. His interest piqued, he resolved to track down Brause and he succeeded. In his database he noticed something that I had not. Brause was an engine. Armed with that knowledge he tried his luck with the internet search engines and he got lucky. Arriving at a website he discovered that Brause was the fevered brain-child of one Steffen Jakob. This German is the chess equivalent of one of those guys who “pimps” their car. He’d taken an existing engine called “Crafty” and tweaked it. One of his tweaks was to adjust it’s repertoire so that it favoured lines like the Muller-Schultz. Over the course of two years Brause played the opening many times and, in between blitz sessions, Jakob built up a formidable understanding of an opening that he renamed the Halloween Gambit. In an e-mail to Krabbé, Jakob explained:

“Many players are shocked, the way they would be frightened by a Halloween mask, when they are mentally prepared for a boring Four Knight’s, they are faced with Nxe5.”

Visitors to Jakob’s website can chare the wonder of this crazy line because he has published his variation tree as well as a PGN database of Brause’s games. Jakob is clearly a generous man and I suppose that he is the real hero behind this story. The aspect of it that I find most interesting is that, through skilful and focused programming, Jakob was able to create an engine that played with the swagger and braggadocio of a swashbuckler on steroids! I’ve started to play the Halloween Gambit myself in blitz games – I published one such in my first post for this website. One day I might even try it over the board.

Personally, I think the opening should be renamed again in honour of the labours of Steffan Jakob and his swashbuckling chess engine. I think it should be called “The Brause Gambit”.

Here's one of my favorite games from the treasury in the Brause database.

British Chess Championship 2011: Final Diary Entry

2011-08-12T01:00:00.000+01:00

A busy scene during the final round's play at the British Chess Championship

The boards and clocks have been packed away and the players have returned home weary and battle scarred after (for those in the Open anyway) two weeks of exhausting action at Sheffield Pond’s Forge. Sadly, I’m one of a small number of players who will have left feeling slightly traumatised by falling at the final hurdle. I couldn’t write a diary post last Friday because the emotions were all still a bit too fresh. Readers will gather from this that, having worked so hard to get to 3½/4, I lost in my final round game in the Under 160 Championship. All I can say is that a simple straightforward loss would have been easy to take than what actually happened.

On Friday morning I found myself pitted against Roger Greatorex on the top board with an opportunity to take the title. I gathered that my opponent was a seasoned weekend congress veteran and I imagined that he would play solidly with the White pieces. This turned out to be the case as he deployed the Torre Attack against me. Normally this is the kind of opening that I’d just set myself up for in a solid fashion and accept a draw if my opponent decided to behave peaceably. I couldn’t afford to do that here so I tried to organise my play in a slightly more dynamic fashion by allowing him to double my f-pawns and then later exchanging my d-pawn for his c-pawn in order to open the centre and try and create an environment where I would get some winning chances.

You will see from the game below that I succeeded in my efforts and in fact my opponent seemed to get a little frustrated and struck out on the king’s side in a fashion that left him weakened there in the longer term. I was able to repel his sortie and then took the initiative eventually winning a pawn and then getting to a pleasant endgame. I got into a little time trouble again but handled it sensibly to reach time control at move 40 and felt confident enough in my position to decline a draw offer from my opponent even though it appeared it would be difficult to break through in a blocked position.

I found a way to achieve the break through and forced him to give up his remaining rook when I queened on f1. That should have been it. Game over. I had a rook against his two connected passed pawns and enough pawns of my own to be able to sacrifice this piece if I needed to and still win. But that’s when it all went wrong. I was struggling with the clock again and after nearly 4 hours play the exertions of the week finally caught up with me. I couldn’t find the right plan and my opponent managed to get both his d and e pawns to the seventh rank. The game was up. To make matters worse, as we were pretty much the last game to finish, I had a host of kibitzers demonstrating for me just how I could have won the end game in straight forward fashion.

That was that then. Off I sloped, feeling too sick with myself to eat anything before the final game of the second competition I had entered that afternoon. The last thing I felt like was playing another long game of chess but in the end I decided that I had to get back on the horse and try and win my last game so that I could leave Sheffield with the taste of victory in my mouth. I at least succeeded in this regard as I managed to win another game with my Classical Spanish. This game is also featured in the viewer below.

I was at least in good company in my disappointment. Nigel Short tied with Michael Adams in the Championship itself after 11 rounds had failed to separate them by more than half a point at any stage and they had drawn their individual encounter. This meant they had to play off for the title on Saturday morning with two rapidplay games which Adams won by 1½-½. Short must have felt even more disconsolate than I after that. There must also have been other players who tasted bitter defeat in the final rounds of their competitions. For those of you who are looking for some slightly better quality games to digest than those of mine above then I can heartily recommend the bite sized chunks you'll find on Andrew Martin's "Game of the Day" pages on the Championship website. These are expertly annotated and very instructive.

In the end I have to look for some positive things to take out of my week at the British Championships. I think generally I played well. I scrambled to save games when I got into trouble and I won a couple of very nice efforts as well. In the U160 I calculate my performance to have been rated at approximately 174 which is a good result. Nevertheless, the game I’ve been thinking about the most since last Friday is that rook vs. passed pawns ending. I think I’ll be thinking about it for a while longer yet…

Just a minute dear

2011-08-04T23:35:00.000+01:00

For a married man like me, justifying the use of a whole week of annual leave to go and play chess is a big deal. Fortunately this year I have 5 days more annual leave to take than my wife, the British Chess Championship is taking place in Sheffield where my folks live and I’ve not played any weekend chess this year apart from the Brighouse Quickplay. I’ve built up a solid justification for playing in the British Championships this week then but it does make me think how much harder it must be for a chess player with a family to take part in this contest.

Usually, the Championships take place at a coastal destination in order to give the families of chess players something to do whilst they are feeding their addiction at the board. This year I think it unlikely that many competitors will have found it easy to persuade their nearest and dearest that a week (or even two!) in Sheffield was an enticing vacation prospect. Still I can’t complain as there is no way I would have wanted to spend the money on a week’s accommodation so being able to stay with friends and family is what’s enabled me to take part this time around.

Of course it’s always challenging for any amateur chess enthusiast to manoeuvre their chess habit into their marriage or family time. Chess is after all a fairly solitary, time-consuming and antisocial pass time. I’m sure many marital and family relationships have been put under strain because the royal game. I’ve written before about the short lived tribulations of the artist and chess addict Marcel Duchamp’s marriage. A short while ago I discovered another amusing anecdote concerning the novelist Vladimir Nabokov who was famously a chess nut (in fact his book, The Defence is about a chess master). Whilst grazing around Tim Krabbé’s endlessly engrossing Chess Curiosities website I found this quote:

"More than a few heads turned when, in the supermarket parking lot, Vèra set her bagged groceries down in the snow while she shuffled for her keys, then loaded the trunk. In the car her husband sat immobile, oblivious. A similar routine was observed during a move, when Nabakov made his way into the new home carrying a chess set and a small lamp. Vèra followed with two bulky suitcases."

Vera and Vladimir at play!

This is from Stacy Schiff’s biography of Vèra Nabakov which is titled Vèra (Mrs Vladimir Nabokov) - Portrait of a marriage. Krabbé also posts the picture I’ve put into this post of the happy couple studying together. What fortitude this lady showed in the face of chess widowhood! Perhaps Duchamp also harboured dreams of enticing his wife into the study of rook and pawn endings.

Of course I can see all too clearly that some of Nabokov’s traits could become bad habits for me as well. He may have had a pocket chess set in the car’s glove compartment to fiddle with whilst poor Vèra struggled with the shopping but I have an iPhone that goes everywhere with me and on it there is an app for accessing all my correspondence games on Chess.com and also the Chessbase Online app so that I can keep track of the latest opening theory. All of that is in addition to the RSS news feeds that go directly to my phone from a host of chess websites and blogs! I must admit that sometimes, when my wife is watching “rubbish” on the telly, I do reach for the iPhone. So far I haven't yet caught myself studying a chess game on my phone whilst my wife grapples with heavy objects but it must be said that I couldn't rule it out from ever happening in the future...

Intermezzo's British Chess Championship Diary

2011-08-03T01:13:00.043+01:00

Thursday the 4th of August

I think Alex Ferguson would have called yesterday at the British Chess Championships "squeeky bum time" as the penultimate rounds took place in all competitions.

Do not let appearances deceive you.
Kevin Winter was a very resiliant opponent!

It was all on the line in the Under 160 section in the morning where I had to win with White to give myself a shot at the title on Friday. I played against Kevin Winter who is seasoned weekend player and I knew he'd be hard to break down. That was exactly how it was as he played a closed variation of the French Tarrasch (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7). This opening has been kind to me and it was again as I played actively but solidly and managed to build a big positional advantage on the back of only a couple of small inaccuracies from Kevin. Eventually I won a pawn but once again I had used a lot of time to get into that situation and was left with only 6 minutes for my last 10 moves. Kevin sensibly went in for complications and so I was very pleased to have been able to refute his play despite my time shortage. The critical moment in the game came on move 29 when Black played Qh3, threatening my pinned knight on e6. I then found 30.Ng5 after which Qh6 runs into a pretty combination and so Kevin was forced to swap off the queens. He then fell into a little trap so that I was able to pick up an extra piece. Job done! The game is in the viewer at the end of this post.

So I now face Roger Greatorex on Friday morning for my chance to win the title. He and I and one other have 3.5 points so it's still all to play for.

Raymond Wynarczyk. Top bloke!

Having put myself in contention in the Under 160 the last thing I needed in the afternoon was a long drawn out struggle in the Open competition where a defeat and a draw had already put me out of contention. I had drawn another very strong player in the form of Raymond Wynarczyk (178) from Tyneside. I decided not to commit myself 100% to the game but to nevertheless have a go. He played a Sicilian Defence and confused me a bit with the move order. I tried to steer the position towards a sort of Classical Schevenigan and managed to do so but with some important differences. Raymond defended my desperado attack very accurately and in the end I was losing my queen. The game is also in the viewer below.

The game was over in 3 hours but it was exciting enough to merit some analysis and I didn't want to miss the chance to pick the brains of such a good player so we had an enjoyable 45 minutes or so of analysis which was really useful for me. Thanks to Raymond for being so generous with his time. After that I decided to go to the gym for an hour to let off some steam and left Pond's Forge feeling energised for action on Friday!

Wednesday the 3rd of August

A really tough day today and I left Pond's Forge feeling totally hollow despite having picked up a point and a half. The fact of the matter is that I stole my points today and made some bad mistakes that I was fortunate to avoid being punished for. On the plus side I've successfully negoatiated two more games with Black and my reasonable level of physical fitness was, I believe, a major factor in my success today. I managed to outlast two opponents over a total of 9 hours of play and benefited from tired mistakes at the end of epic struggles!

In the morning I played Graeme McCormick of Northern Ireland. He arrived 20 minutes late for the start of the game (a fateful error as it turned out) and we got down to business in a Classical Spanish (3...Bc5). He played 4.c3 and I decided to be brave and venture the Cordel Gambit 4...f5!? Objectively it's a bit dubious but, as with so many gambits, it's hard to meet over the board and I got a great position in the middle game as he played a series of inaccurate moves. Looking at the game tonight was a bit depressing though as I overlooked a simple trick to win a pawn early on and he then missed a golden opportunity to win a piece! I applied great pressure in the middle game but, in trying to find the best moves to put him under pressure I strated to chew up clock time and in the end I had to rush my last 7 or 8 moves at a critical point in the game and missed what would have been a very beautiful conclusion to the game (though it was hard to see even with lots of time) in the form of 38...Qe6!!

We ended up in an endgame where I had a nice bishop, queen and four pawns vs his temporarily passive knight, queen and four pawns. I missed yet another golden opportunity when could have played 44...Bxa2 winning a pawn (for some reason I thought he could play 45.Qe8+ but my queen is guarding that square! On we bowled into a bishop vs. knight ending and we both had just 2 minutes left at each by this point. To my utter amazement he then sat thinking for all of that time and forfeited. I couldn't believe my luck as the end game could only have been winning for White by that stage. He'd just "forgotten" about the clock. I think he needs to read my post from Monday! This game can hopefully be seen in the game viewer below (I've added it into the code so I hope it works.)

After this epic encounter I found it hard to get motivated for the afternoon game. Especially as I was playing Alexander Freeland again (I played him in round one of the U160) and was already out of contention for the prizes. We both played the opening casually and he avoided the theory books this time. Again there were lots of errors. He won a pawn and I failed to spot that I cold win it back immediately with 16...Nb4. Then things got tough as I desperately sought counterplay. I was pleased with my plan to get two connected pawns in the centre of the board but he should have been winning with his queen's side passers and made a pigs ear of it. At the end after 5 long hours (surely I must now be a candidate for my own "Obduracy Award") my resiliance paid off when he made a terrible error (my last throw of the dice) with 68.Kb7?? and the game was drawn!

Tomorrow's morning game is now massive as I'm one of 9 (!) players on 2.5 and there is one leader on 3. I have White and I must win...

Tuesday the 2nd of August

Well readers, I promised you a Championship diary and by jingos you shall have one! I had hoped to post every day but after travelling to and from Sheffield from Hebden Bridge yesterday (as well as playing for 8 hours!) I just didn't have the energy last night. Tonight, and for the rest of the week, I'm staying with family and friends and so I'll have the opportunity to tell my story and give you the news.

Before I dive into the action some general thoughts. The British Chess Championships is being held at Pond's Forge in Sheffield this year and there have been around 1,000 entries across the range of competitions taking place across the fortnight's competition. The venue itself is pretty good. My only minor compliant would be that it is far too hot in the sports hall. For such a big room capable of holding so many folks and a bunch of sweaty sporty types you'd have thought the air-conditioning would have been a little bit more effective. All the competitions are taking place in the same room and this lends the event a really nice atmosphere. In the afternoons when most of the competitors are in there is a real buzz in the room.

Of course the main event is the Championship itself in which the main contenders are GMs Adams, Short, Howell, Jones, Pert et al. It's a strong line up. Grandmaster Andrew Martin is providing expert and excellent commentary on proceedings in the analysis room and I managed to pop in there for a while this afternoon to try and get my head around some of the action. Today was Round 8 and a real battle of the big beasts was in prospect as Nigel Short played Michael Adams and Gawain Jones played David Howell. The action was not disappointing for Short put Adams under huge pressure before finally having to concede a draw and Jones won very nicely against Howell. This leaves Short and Adams in co-lead on 6.5/8 and Jones, Nicholas Pert and Jonathan Hawkins just behind on 6. Then come Howell and Simon Ansell on 5.5 and a vast army on 5. Anyone interested in the games can replay Andrew Martin's commentary or just look at the moves on the Championship website.

So what of me? I'm taking part in two competitions this week. In the mornings I'm contesting the Under 160 Championship and in the afternoon taking part in an Open competition for all comers. Lets start with my progress in the U160 which is the one I probably have the best chance of performing well in.

The draw with Mark Szymanski was no peace
treaty between club colleagues.

In yesterday's first round I drew the third seed, Alexander Freeland, and played pretty well to win with Black in a King's Gambit. I acceped it and found myself facing the Allgaier Gambit (where White puts his king's knight on g5). After a couple of months without competative chess I could have done without such a sharp opening to be honest but it worked out ok in the end . I didn't play the book line (which is to force White to sacrifice the knight on f7 early in the game) as I figured my opponent would be well prepared for that and instead gave back the gambit pawn and tried to develop as quickly as possible. Eventually my opponent forced off the queens and tried to defend an unfavorable ending but I managed to convert my advantage.

Today's round 2 draw me against the 5th seed and my club mate from Leeds Chess Club, Mark Szymanski.
Mark is a top bloke and an excellent player but I nevertheless gave myself a chance with White against him. Normally I'd have expected him to opt for the Caro-Kann against 1.e4 but today, perhaps weary of my preparation, he elected to play the Scandinavian. I built up a good advantage in the opening with some accurate play but then threw it all away on move 13 with one careless move which provided him with counterplay. We fought on in a middle game in which he always had a slight edge and my king's security was not great. Mark won two pawns in a queen and rook ending but then allowed me to swindle a draw from him just as victory seemed to be in his grasp. I was happy with a draw after a terrific see-saw game that I'll be analysing for weeks.

Peter Leggett. A friendly fellow.

Monday's round 1 draw of the Week 2 Afternoon Open was not kind to me as I drew the top seed with Black! Andrew Smith is a FIDE Master. Needless to say I wasn't expecting to win the game but merely put up spirited resistance for as long as possible. In this endeavour I was not helped by his chice of opening, the off-beat Centre Game - 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.Qxd4!? Nc6 4.Qe3. It only required a slightly inaccurate move order for me to hand him a positional advantage and after that it was pretty mich a forgone conclusion although I tried to go down fighting.

Round 2 was this afternoon and I had a much easier task at hand in the form of Peter Leggett. The opening of this game was bizarre. I tried to lure him into a Four Knights Opening so that I could try a wild gambit that I fancied experimenting with. However it all took a strange turn and it took me quite a while to get anything going at all. In the end the closing stages were quite aesthetic.

All four of my games so far can be seen in the viewer below. I haven't had chance to add many notes yet but I hope readers will nevertheless find them interesting.

A diamond in the ash

2011-08-02T08:21:00.000+01:00

Not to be confused with John Nettles who just played
the part of Jim Bergerac, Gerard Depardieu played
Cyrano De Bergerac in the 1990 film of the same name

You strip from me the laurel and the rose!

Take all! Despite you there is yet one thing

I hold against you all, and when, tonight,

I enter Christ's fair courts, and, lowly bowed,

Sweep with doffed casque the heavens' threshold blue,

One thing is left, that, void of stain or smutch,

I bear away despite you...

My panache.

Cyrano, Act 5, Sc. 6

That quote from Edmond Rostand's classic play is a poetic introduction to today's theme. Cyrano delivers this monologue in his heart-rending final speech. Everything seems to have gone wrong for him and yet, even at the end, he defiantly maintains his dignity and makes his case for immortality. In the 1990 film of the same name the script writer frames the sentiment even more succinctly.

"A diamond in the ash which I take in spite of you; and that is my panache."

Today it seems that in any given competetive setting the result matters more than than the manner in which it is acheived. "No-one remembers the runner-up" say coaches and trainers around the world. That may be true but I think we can find something even more precious in the spirit of the competitor who reaches for something more than a work-man-like victory, even if they fail to acheive it.

Today's game is another delve into the treasure trove of articles written back in the mid-1990's for The Independent on Sunday by Walter Polhill. The game also seems appropriate given that it was played in the great Hastings tournament of 1895. A classic tournament played on British soil. Let us hope that the current British Championships turns up a few more diamonds for us to marvel at. Today then, Colonel Polhill laments a miscarriage of creative justice.

"The laws of chess carry no rewards for beauty. Some of the greatest, most aesthetically pleasing ideas have earned their creators only a zero on the score table. Take this game for example, from the great Hastings event a century ago."

I'll be publishing the first of my British Ches Championship diary entries later today so do stay tuned.

Use the fullness of time

2011-08-01T06:36:00.000+01:00

I'm guessing that the clocks at the British Chess
Championships might be slghtly more up to date than these

My British Chess Championships starts today! I'm very excited about it and have been looking forward to it very much. As I prepared for it last week I found this article by Dan Heisman on the Chess Café website to be particularly thought provoking. He talks about what your goals should be for any given game that you play. Obviously, the primary goal is to win the game but he then gives this interesting secondary one that I hadn’t really considered before.

“Your second most important goal in a chess game is to use almost all the time on your clock.”

He reinforces this point by saying that if you aren’t utilising the time you’ve been given to its maximum potential then you are giving your opponent an unnecessary advantage. He makes a good analogy with taking an exam. Most students wouldn’t dream of not using all the time allocated in a test to try and gain the best possible mark that they can. In the same way, Heisman argues that chess players should use as much of their time as they can to give themselves the best chance of getting the right result.

I won’t steal his thunder by repeating all of the details in the article (you can go read it yourself) but he suggests 6 tools that a chess player can make use of to make the most of the time they have for a game. These are:

Never start a game without the intention of using almost all your time.
Calculate the average time per move before the game starts.
When recording each move, also record how many minutes are remaining on your clock.
Botvinnik’s Rule – “use 20% of your time for the first 15 moves.”
Look at your clock periodically when your opponent is thinking and ask “Am I playing too fast or too slow?” and adjust the upcoming moves accordingly.
If you are a player who plays too fast, then your two primary guidelines should be:

When you see a good move, don’t play it – look for a better one.
Before you move, make sure your opponent does not have a check, capture, or threat in reply that you can’t safely meet.

The reason I found this thought provoking is because at the Championships I’ll have much longer time limits available than I’m used to and I need to make sure that I’m making good use of them. In league chess I’m used to playing 36 moves in 75 minutes and then the rest of the game in a further 15 minutes. That’s a maximum game length of 3 hours. In the under 160 Championship the game time is up to 4 hours and in the Open that I’m playing in the afternoons the game time is up to 7 hours!!

Generally, I’d say that I manage my clock pretty well in league games. I normally use up a high percentage of my time but I don’t get into time trouble all that often. In the past when I’ve played longer time limits (in county and weekend competitions) my performance level has gone up because I’ve had more time available and used it effectively. I need to make sure that I do that in the coming week as well. I’ll need every advantage I can get and I certainly don’t want to be giving my opponents an advantage by not putting my time to good use! I’m planning to use Heisman’s tools and some of the other advice in his article to make sure that I do use my time well and I’d heartily recommend his guidelines to other players who find themselves playing too quickly or getting into time trouble regularly. His article links to a bunch of other essays that discuss time management in chess and they are well worth consideration.

British Chess Championships underway

2011-07-27T00:51:00.000+01:00

It’s the premium event in the British chess calendar (ok we now have a super Grandmaster tournament to look forward to in December in London as well but that’s a bit different) and it just got started yesterday. The British Chess Championships are taking place down the M1 in Sheffield this year. The location couldn’t be much more enticing for Calderdale players and there will no doubt be several taking part in the host of different competitions. This year I list myself amongst their number. I won’t be travelling down until the second week as I’m playing in the Under 160 Championship and also in the afternoon open tournament taking place in week 2. I can’t wait!

2010 Champion,
Mickey Adams

I have no idea how much opportunity I’ll get to watch the Championship itself but hopefully I will get a chance. The British Chess Federation has done a great job getting sponsorship in this year and that must have played a big part in enticing the strongest line up for years. The charge is led by reigning champion and British number 1, Michael Adams. He is joined by Nigel Short, David Howell, Gawain Jones and Nicholas Pert to complete the top five rated players but there are also another 6 Grandmasters competing. It should be a fantastic competition and if any of you are off work I highly recommend a day trip to Sheffield to catch one of the rounds as the atmosphere is always great. If you can’t make it to Sheffield then you can watch the top games (hopefully 14 boards) live here. The rounds start at 2.15pm everyday and finish on Friday the 5th with a rest day this Sunday.

Whilst the top players scrap it out in the main event there will be hundreds of club level players fighting it out for the honours in a range of competitions for various standards of player and age group. This is where I’ll be next week. Hundreds of games will be contested. Usually many of these would go unnoticed and unloved accept by the players who played them. This year Hebden Bridge Chess Club would like to try and change all that by giving some of the plucky losers a chance to get their name in lights.

It's for this reason that I’ve decided to put up some awards to celebrate the worst of British chess. Competitors in the Championships will be able to submit their games to compete for 3 'prestigious' awards:

The Grossest Blunder Award
The Dullest Game Award
The Obduracy Award

You can find out more about these awards and see any entries that I receive over the two weeks on a new page that I’ve set up specifically for the purpose. It’s just a bit of fun but I hope we’ll get the chance to give some club level players at the Championships a bit of the limelight. If you know anyone who’s taking part over the next two weeks please let them know about this competition and help us celebrate the worst of British chess!

Of course I’d like to think that none of my games will find their way onto this new page but somehow I figure that will be unlikely. I can guarantee readers that they won’t miss a beat though because during week 2 I will be posting a daily diary on these pages and publishing all my games, good or bad as well as my reflections on the rest of the goings on at Ponds Forge.

I’ve also been building up a wealth of blog post material to publish in week 2 so there will be lots and lots of new content during the course of next week. Be sure to come back regularly for updates and entertainment as some of our columnists will be making appearances to help celebrate the championships. It should be fun.

How to beat a Grandmaster

2011-07-22T19:28:00.000+01:00

In today’s post our club’s top rated player, Matthew Parsons, shows us how he beat his first Grandmaster recently on the Playchess website.

“Blitz Chess is certainly not classical chess, but beating a GM is no less hard. First off you better make sure you have a decent mouse, as you don’t want a mouse slip spoiling it all just about when you are to deliver checkmate! Blitz players are not understanding and will not give take-backs.

I was really pleased recently when I was able to beat a GM for the first time on playchess. In round 1 of a Wednesday night blitz tournament, I beat GM Jakob Meister, FIDE 2494, whose playchess rating at the start of the game was 2568, mine being 1889. 1889 is a bit low for me, I’m normally in the mid-1900‘s, with my highest grade being around 2042.

Now I’ve beaten plenty of FM’s on the server, drawing with and beating a few IM’s, but I have never gotten anything off a GM. Intriguingly enough I had been drawn against this same opponent a few times in recent tournaments in the 1st round, and we had had some close games, but he had won them all.

There’s no secret to beating players of this level. Good chess is good chess, and whilst I knew I couldn’t match him on classical play, I thought I could really narrow the difference in ability by doing my best to unbalance the position and force him to think rather than just playing on a GM’s pattern recognition and experience. After all, we only had 3mins each on the clock, if I could just get an advantage...”

Thanks to Matthew for taking the time to send us this interesting game and annotations.

End of season review - part 4

2011-07-19T22:07:00.002+01:00

Today I’m posting the final part of my 2010-11 season round up and in this chapter I’ll be focusing entirely on the Calderdale Individual Championships of 2010-11.

The competition took place between November and March with each of the 5 rounds being played on the first or second Monday of the month at Hebden Bridge Chess Club’s home venue, the Trades Club. This edition of the championships was, in terms of both strength and depth, the most competitive I can recall with a good range of entrants from across Calderdale taking part. John Kerrane organised the event with his customary aplomb and round 1 took place on Monday the 8th of November.

If readers are interested in the individual results from each round or the original reports then you can read them by clicking on the hyperlinks embedded in the appropriate sub-heading below.

Round 1: Underdogs put in their place

Down boy!

On paper it looked like the most open competition in years with the top 6 players all rated over 150 and a lengthy tale beneath that of 37 contestants. Naturally as the competition progressed some of the competitors dropped out. In particular we missed both Darwin Ursal who entered but never actually took part and Chris Booth, who did play in the early rounds but was unavailable for the final rounds. The absence of these two effectively thinned the list of favorites down to the reigning champion Dave Wedge, Matthew Parsons and previous winner Alastair Wright (all of Hebden Bridge) and John Morgan of Courier.

However, while all of these players seemed to possess the consistency and quality required to win, it also seemed certain that some of them would slip up against lower ranked opposition because this competition always produces the odd upset or two along the way.

That didn’t happen in round 1 where, quite unusually, all of the higher rated players succeeded in overcoming their opponents. Statistically this was always likely but in reality the result was quite unusual. Many of the games were decided by blunders or totally dominated by the higher ranked players but some of the underdogs did bite savagely before being reduced to submission. In particular the two players who would become the tournament’s dominant forces had to struggle late into the evening to secure their first points. John Morgan survived a substantial scare against Halifax’s Barry Wadsworth in a game that unfortunately I do not have available to publish, and Matthew Parsons had to grind down Huddersfield’s Brian Corner in an endgame that meant their game was the last to finish.

Two of the other top seeds however showed their dominance with crushing victories.

Priest vs. Booth is game 1 in the viewer at the end of this post
Wedge vs. Dawson is game 2 in the viewer

Round 2: Revenge of the underdogs!

The underdogs bite back!

The second round took place on the 13th of December and on this occasion the lower graded players were in no mood to roll over for their superiors. Having won every single game in the first round the top half of the draw found circumstances to be rather more challenging as they set their sights on maintaining their perfect start.

Aside from Chris Booth, who took a half point bye in round 2, all the top seeds were in action and the highest profile casualty was the eventual winner of the tournament, John Morgan. The fourth seed could only hold a draw against Nick Sykes despite having a considerable grading advantage over him. John deployed an old favorite opening line of his with the Black pieces playing 1…a6 and 2…b5. On this occasion Nick managed to neutralise it fairly easily and even overlooked some chances to maintain a decent advantage before the game finally simplified into an equal endgame. This was to be the only blot on an otherwise clean sheet during the tournament for John whilst Nick drew several more times in later rounds but remained the only other unbeaten player in the whole competition.

Sykes vs. Morgan is game 3 in the viewer at the end of this article

Other notable instances of overturning of the odds were attained by Terry Sullivan who held a draw against the sixth seed, Pete Olley; Dave Sugden who also held a draw against Todmorden’s Scott Gornall and Steve Priest who managed to purloin a win from Chris Edwards when his opponent committed an atrocious blunder in time trouble. In addition to this win the underdogs also secured victories when Josh Blinkhorn beat Belgrave’s Mike Barnett (the runner up last year) and, most satisfying of all, Hebden Bridge ‘D’ team’s James Todd scored a full point from Brian Corner who had troubled Matthew Parsons so grievously in round 1. This game deserves another publication in recognition of the achievement.

Corner vs. Todd is game 4 in the viewer

The other top seeds maintained their momentum. On board 1 Dave Wedge dispatched a Hebden Bridge colleague and former champion, Andy Leatherbarrow. Matthew Parsons made light work of Martin Syrett and Alastair Wright beat Paul Edwards. These results left Dave, Matthew and Alastair on perfect scores along with Josh Blinkhorn and Huddersfield’s Robert Sutcliffe who overcame Dave Milton in the last game of the night to be completed.

Round 3: Parsons toils to set up showdown with champion

Dave Wedge beat Alastair Wright in the
board 1 clash of round 3

Things began to get really interesting in round 3 as the number of leaders dwindled setting up more evenly matched contests full of promise and intrigue. At the end of the night just two players had managed to maintain their 100% records and they were Hebden Bridge’s top two players, reigning champion Dave Wedge and Matthew Parsons. That they achieved their perfect scores by very different methods was really the story of the round.

Dave seemed to have been handed the more difficult task when the draw pitted him (for the second round in a row!) against a club colleague and former champion in the form of Alastair Wright. Alastair has a track record of taking points off Dave in this competition and everyone fully expected a dour and merciless struggle. In the event it was all over rather swiftly and in savage fashion as Alastair, playing Black made the fateful decision not to play the Alekhine’s Defence (1.e4 Nf6!?). This opening has been a favorite play-thing of his in the past but it had also recently been adopted by his opponent. Alastair was obviously wary of what preparation Dave may potentially have made and decided to meet 1.e4 with Nc6 instead. However, he then somehow managed to transpose in the Max Lange Attack which is a well known graveyard for the ill-prepared. Alastair soon selected the wrong continuation in a forcing line and was summarily dispatched in brutal fashion.

Wedge vs. Wright is game 5 in the viewer at the end of this post

This early evening execution meant that Dave was able to observe first hand the discomfort of his neighbour for, on board 2, Matthew was being taken the full distance by the spirited Robert Sutcliffe. It seems that, having missed an opportunity to secure a decent advantage in the middle game, Matthew had allowed his opponent to get back into the contest. As the late evening settled in the two arrived at a very complicated endgame position with little time to assess it. In these sorts of situations instinct tends to be very important and Matthew’s blitz skills carried him to victory as he seemed to sense the right moments to take risks in search of the full point.

Sutcliffe vs. Parsons is game 6 in the viewer

The fifth player with a score of two before the round began was Josh Blinkhorn. He had the misfortune to be drawn against the returning top seed Chris Booth who finished him off in clinical fashion. On board 4, John Morgan attoned for his draw in round 2 by defeating Matthew Wedge-Roberts and he now joined Chris and Belgrave’s Angel Gonzalez on 2½/3. Meanwhile the rest of the large group that had been on 1½/2 were surprisingly peaceable as a series of draws left them a little further adrift of the leaders.

Round 4: Chess lovers mate on Valentine’s night!

Let us be clear that a bacchanalian orgy did NOT take place
at the Trades Club on Valentine's night

While Calderdale’s canoodling couples cosied up for a romantic evening on Monday February the 14th, the competitors for the Calderdale Individual Chess Championship title took their seats for another climactic battle. Of course the scheduling of the fourth round meant that there were some absentees. Most notable of these was Chris Booth, who, having already takena half point bye, now forfeited a full point and, now out of contention, he withdrew from the final round as well. This left the way clear for the rest of the leading pack to slug it out for the title.

It was no surprise that most of the attention was focused on the board one clash where Dave Wedge defended his title against Matthew Parsons. A win for Dave would have left him needing only a draw in the final round to defend his crown, a win for Matthew and we would have a new champion. In the event of a draw John Morgan and Angel Gonzalez were lurking half a point behind them preparing to pounce. The match up didn’t disappoint and the pair struggled long into the night. In the end Matthew emerged victorious to take sole lead of the competition on 4/4.

Parsons vs. Wedge is game 7 in the viewer at the end of this post

On board 2 John secured his opportunity to shoot for the title with a fairly straightforward victory over Angel.

Gonzalez vs. Morgan is game 8 in the viewer

These results meant that John would play White against Matthew in the final round and would need to win that game to lift the title. A draw for Matthew would be enough for him to take it.

Behind these two there was now a chasing pack of 5 players on 3/4. Dave Wedge was one of these and he was joined by one of his victims from earlier in the tournament, former champion Andy Leatherbarrow, Todmorden’s Scott Gornall, Huddersfield’s Robert Sutcliffe and Hebden Bridge’s Martin Syrett. Robert in particular had shown impressive form in reaching this score having taken the tournament leader to the brink in round 3 and then beating the in form Dave Sugden in round 4.

Sugden vs. Sutcliffe is game 9 in the viewer

Round 5: Morgan picks Parson’s pocket for the title

And so, it all came down to one last heavy weight encounter. With Chris Booth and Dave Wedge now withdrawn or trailing in their wake respectively, John Morgan and Matthew Parsons settled down to slug it in the final round out at the Trade’s Club on the 14th of March. With so much at stake and with Matthew needing only a draw it is little wonder that John stayed true to his style and maintained a tense and strategically complex game for as long as he possibly could. In the end he was able to create a passed pawn and finally the pressure was too much for Matthew and he had to concede the championship to John.

Morgan vs. Parsons is game 10 in the viewer at the end of this post

Elsewhere the minor places were being decided. On board 2 Dave Wedge tore Robert Sutcliffe apart to claim the top grading prize and finish the tournament on a creditable score of 4/5. Scott Gornall and Andy Leatherbarrow drew on board 3 which enabled Martin Syrett to beat Alastair Wright and claim the next grading prize by finishing level on points with the dethroned champion. The last two grading prizes were claimed by Hebden Bridge’s Josh Blinkhorn and Todmorden’sTom Webster who both won their last round fixtures.

Syrett vs. Wright is game 11 in the viewer

So for the first time in a long time the Timeform Trophy left Hebden Bridge and now resides with John Morgan at Courier until next year’s championship kick’s-off. Congratulations to John on his achievement because this year’s championship was as competitive, if not more, than any I have ever taken part in.

Games Viewer

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Final Standings of all players are given below.

Pass the can opener

2011-07-15T19:34:00.002+01:00

Let's have de bait!

Lets start this post with a quote from the man who created chess ratings.

“The process of rating players can be compared to the measurement of the position of a cork bobbing up and down on the surface of agitated water with a yard stick tied to a rope and which is swaying in the wind.”
Arpad Elo, Chess Life, 1962

Yorkshire chess players might want to add a response to the quote above:

“Yes, but having three different ways of measuring the cork’s position isn’t going to make the task any easier is it?”

I recently posted on the new YCA grading list for 2011 and made some observations about them. In particular I said that I felt that, in light of the availability of these new grades alongside the YCA live rating and the proposed new monthly ratings, the Calderdale League needed to clarify it’s position on which of these statistics team captains should be using to help them decide on board order. I asked readers for feedback.

It seems that I have inadvertently opened a can of worms because I got lots of feedback! Thanks to all who took part in the discussion which was the most active we’ve ever had on the blog. Having allowed the comments to roll on for a little while I feel like now would be an appropriate time to try and summarise some of the opinions that have been expressed and maybe to make some recommendations to the league in advance of the AGM which takes place on Monday the 18th of July at the Lee Mount Working Men’s Club in Halifax.

What’s the problem?

The main challenge in my view is how best to ensure that team captains can continue to construct their teams in strength order in a consistent fashion. If some use the live ratings and some use the annual ratings then there may end up being disputes about board sequence.

Why is this important?

You may well ask. Some people are saying that I’m creating an issue that doesn’t exist. To a certain extent they are right. The issue doesn’t exist right now but I think when the new season begins it could start to cause problems and I’m keen to avoid disputes between team captains who may end up using different standards to sequence their board order.

The issue is important because it creates a consistent framework for us to carry out match play. Nearly everyone I know who plays league chess wants to feel that their team is deployed using the same standards as their opponents.There is a perfectly justifiable element of status involved too. If you are a board 1 player you want to be pitted against the other team’s strongest player. Many of the best players in the league are participating in matches because they want to test themselves against the best players at other clubs and if they didn’t feel that was happening then they might decide to stop playing in the league. In the same way, board 5 players want to know that they are playing their opponents weakest player and would feel picked on if they weren’t.

This is why the various new ratings (annual/monthly/live) cause us a potential problem. Which rating should captains be using to help them decide who is their strongest and weakest player and will the opposing team captain (and players) feel compelled to agree when they present their team sheet?

What are the rules?

The current League regulations state that…

“All players must be listed in order of known playing strength. Yorkshire grades used for reference.”

Generally, there is nothing wrong with this regulation. Captains should be (and are) using the YCA ratings to help them determine a player’s strength and justify their board order. If they believe that a player is actually slightly stronger or weaker than his grade (which can be the case when a player’s grade has been calculated from a small number of games played in the previous year) then he can use his judgement and present his team in way to reflect this.

All of this is fine but it is based on captains using the current annual grades as their guide and also assumes that the captain is best placed to understand his players’ current form and strength. The live grades have fundamentally changed this situation because now anyone can get a very accurate idea of any players current form and strength simply by referring to the YCA website and I believe this gives captains less room for latitude in their team selections than previously.

Next season I’ll be captaining Hebden Bridge’s ‘A’ team and will be wanting to ensure that our strongest player is playing on board 1 against our opponents strongest and our weakest player is playing on board 5 and confronting the other team’s weakest. I’ll use the live grades to help me judge the form of my players and if I need to change the board order during the season to reflect the form then I will do so. Likewise I’ll also be studying the opposing team’s form and will want to make sure that this is reflected in their board order. If I don’t think that is being done then I’ll speak to the other team captain before the start of the match and discuss it. The live grades enable me to do this when previously the annual grades did not. Naturally, other team captains may adopt the same approach.

Of course we mustn’t be too pedantic. If there is a very small difference in the live grades of two players then I think it doesn’t matter too much what order they play in. In the same way if a newish player is in the line up then it wouldn’t be right to insist they play in a position merited only by their live grade because it won’t be robust enough to be totally reliable and in this instance the opposing team captain’s judgment should be respected.

What should we change?

I don’t think we need to change very much. In fact I think the current wording in the league regulations is fine (besides that it will be real torture to amend the league's consititution). However, I do think the league should offer some guidelines to team captains at the start of the season which should include:

Clarification that where the current regulations say “Yorkshire grades” they mean the most up to date grades available i.e. the live grades.
Guidance on how to raise concerns about board order. This should be done between the captains before the match starts. In this way if one captain isn’t aware of the current live grades then he can be informed by his counterpart and the two can then have a sensible discussion before play begins. If neither captain is aware of the current lives grades then there won’t be an issue!
Confirmation that once play has begun it will be assumed both captains are happy with their opponent’s board order. Subsequent protests to the league can be viewed as bad form unless voiced before play began.
An indication that some latitude be allowed for a player who is being played out of strict rating order when that player’s grade has been calculated from a small number (less than 10?) of games or when two players with a marginal difference in grade (3 points or less?) are played out of sequence.

This will ensure that some consistency and common sense prevails throughout the season and will enable players to play their matches knowing that they’ve been pitted against the right member of the opposing team.

Of course there is a whole separate issue around which grades to use for the Calderdale Individual Championship. This competition is unusual in that it adopts the same format as a weekend congress but takes place over 5 months and not 3 days. This gives rise to some interesting challenges where live grades are concerned. However, in this case I can’t see how live grades can be used because a Swiss System tournament has to have a static list of players in rating order before the first round draw and that list cannot be re-drafted based on the players’ new lives grades after each round has taken place. Let’s not go there!

I hope that this proposal sounds sensible, rational and fairly straightforward to implement and I also hope that it will enable the league to make the best use of the new rating system. What do you think? Please post a comment below to make your views known.

Like the view?

2011-07-13T23:47:00.004+01:00

This post is primarily a test to see what readers think of this new game viewer I'm trying out. Personally, I think this is superb and it is also quite easy and quick to use.

Update 15/07/11: After early feedback I've now tried loading up multiple games into the viewer (one advantage that it has over the previous one I was using) they are all in the Two Knights Defence which continues a recent theme. I've tinkered with the default colours a bit purely for aesthetics (I think it looks nice anyway!) and have a couple of the games with notes in to see how people think the comments are working.

Some early lessons.

You need to have Java installed on your computer to see the viewer. If you don't have it your browser should prompt you but if it doesn't and you can only see a blank space below then you can download it for free here. I promise it's worth the effort.
I'll need to learn some lessons about putting in the game annotations as this viewer displays them slightly differently to Fritz. As a note for anyone wanting to send me games in future, it only displays annotations if you add them "after move" and not "before move". It also doesn't work very well if you intersperse single words between moves in sub variations which is a style that works very well in Fritz and Chessbase but not here.
Finally, please ignore the error message that is displayed on some of the boards when you bring them up. One you start playing through the games they work fine and I haven't been able to figure out what the error message actually means yet!

Please feel free to feedback more now that I've updated this.

End of season review - part 3

2011-07-11T17:47:00.001+01:00

Welcome to the Hebden Bridge Chess Club website's 100th post! As we pass this auspicious milestone we also enter the second half of our four-part end-of-season review where we will cover the performance of Hebden Bridge Chess Club’s league 2 teams. Here are the final standings in the league table.

It was a bit of a roller-coaster for the ‘C’ team and the ‘D’ team (‘D’ stands for “Development”) struggled as much as had been expected and ended the season on a doughnut.

Peter Rawlings guided his
team resolutely as always

The ‘C’ team’s “none-player-Captain”, Pete Rawlings, has kindly provided us with his perspective on the performance of his charges during the season.

"It was a happy season, with some impressive results, very impressive individual records and a respectable third place in division 2.

Todmorden ‘C’, who finished the season beneath us, were our downfall, beating us 4-0 and 3-2, though we managed to beat their ‘B’ team, winners of the division, once. Huddersfield ‘B’, second in the division, we beat twice, 3½-1½ and 3-2.

This year’s ‘C’ team was notable for being so reliable: they scarcely needed to be reminded of the next fixture. Then they all turned up early and played in a sporting manner. Each one is also a good loser although this quality was not sorely tested as you can see from their results below.

Much intelligent chess was played, along with some effectively dogged stuff, while a calm inscrutable manner and largely well-managed clocks, prevailed on our side of the board."

Individual performances excelled. These were:

Dave Sugden – Board 1

Rating (at start of season): 127
New 2011 Rating: 137
Score: 11½/16

Dave’s score in league 2 (9½/13 - one result was a default) placed him third in the end of season individual standings. This result also meant he was the highest board 1 scorer in the league. In particular Dave showed excellent form with the White pieces as he scored 7½/9. He also contributed a score of 2/3 for the ‘B’ team in division 1 and these results are also represented in the table below (I haven't included the default). A really good season for Dave who I imagine may well get a berth in the ‘B’ team next season as a result of his excellent performance this year.

Analysis of Dave Sugden's league games in 2010-11

As his best game I've selected this spirited draw with Nick Sykes which he might well have won on another day. I know that Nick was certainly very concerned about his position for much of this game and felt lucky to escape with the draw.

Josh Blinkhorn – Board 2

Rating: 121
New 2011 Rating: 136
Score: 8½/13

Another good performance from Josh in this his second season of competitive play. His style is sharp and he does particularly well in complicated positions. As a result many of his games are interesting to watch. This style also means that he doesn’t tend to play many draws and this is reflected in his results for the season which also show that he has performed equally well with both colours even though, from a grading perspective, his White results have netted him more points. I should also mention that Josh had a decent run in the Calderdale Individual Championships where he scored 3/5 losing only to top seed Chris Booth in the first round and then Scott Gornall in round 4. Excellent results in other competition's he has participated in outside Calderdale have led to him increasing his grade by 15 points this season. That's no mean feat. If he can keep improving at his current rate Josh really will be a force to be reckoned with in another few years.

Analysis of Josh Blinkhorn's league games in 2010-11

I have once again selected a draw in order to best demonstrate Josh's style of play. His Captain waxed lyrically and at length to me about this game after it had finished and so I didn't feel I could shirk from publishing it. It is indeed very exciting and well calculated.

Stephen Priest – Board 3

Rating: 121
New 2011 Rating: 120
Score: 11/15

Stephen must be the club’s busiest player. As well as participating in the Calderdale league he also plays in the Bradford, Leeds and Huddersfield competitions. This season alone he has played 84 (!!) competitive games. Here in Calderdale league 2 his individual score (10/13) was good enough to place him second behind Tom Webster (Todmorden) in the end of season individual standings. He also secured 1/2 for the ‘B’ team in league 1. This represents an excellent contribution from Stephen. The reason for his relatively modest points gain in the table below is due simply to the volume of games he has played this season. The more you play the smaller the increments of loss or gain on your rating as increasing quantities of data enable the rating system to lower it’s margin for error.

Analysis of Stephen Priest's league games in 2010-11

I've selected his win from round 2 of the Calderdale Individual Championship as his best game although he may well have played several others. I only have a limited base to chose from. In this game he plays nicely against his higher graded opponent and capitalises brutally on a terrible error to put the game away.

Neil Bamford – Board 4

Rating: 108
New 2011 Rating: 112
Score: 8½/13

Neil also put in a solid and workmanlike performance this season scoring heavily for his team and ending the year on 7½/11 in league 2 and 1/2 for the ‘B’ team in league 1. He is another player who seems to do better with the Black pieces than he does with the White ones and his rating certainly suffered as a result of his defeats with White. That said, his performance with Black has lifted his results and Neil will continue to do stirling service for which ever team he is selected for next season.

Analysis of Neil Bamford's league games in 2010-11

In this game he defeated a higher rated player in the form of Ray Cully from Halifax and thereby helped the 'B' team gain a valuable and much needed drawn fixture.

Pete Leonard – Board 5

Rating: UG
New 2011 Rating: 158
Score: 6/7

What can we say about Pete's season? He joined the club late in the campaign and Captain Rawlings used him to devastating effect on the bottom board of the 'C' team. It was always going to be hard to gauge his true strength after a (very!) lengthy sabbatical from competative chess but the club is certainly pleased to have him. Pete is dedicating himself to reaching his previous rating heights when he managed to acheive a rating in the 170's. His results for the 'C' team were blemished only by a defeat to Tom Webster of Todmorden and this has led to a new rating that will be put to the sternest of tests in the new season, whichever team he is selected for.

Analysis of Pete Leonard's league games in 2010-11

Pete provided glimpses of his historical strength on several occasions during the season and I've selected this utter rout of Huddersfield's dependable Stuart Oliver as his best of the year.

It should also be mentioned that several others contributed points to the ‘C’ team’s cause this year. Terry Sullivan scored 1/2 and Pete Rawlings and Trevor DeLuca both scored 1/1.

As far as the ‘D’ team goes, very little was expected of them this season. As I mentioned above our ‘D’ team has traditionally been the place to blood club players who are new to league chess and still developing their game. The team performance was always going to be fairly humble and so it would seem unfair to focus too much attention on each individual’s performance for the year. Instead let me quickly record each hard won point gleaned by our spirited and determined squad.

‘D’ team Captain Danny Crampton scored 2½ points this season. The best score in the squad.
The team’s board 1, James Todd, beat Brian Corner in round 2 of the Calderdale Individual Championships and also Brian Donkersley in the league.
Dave Pugh also scored a full point on board 1 against L.Innes of Todmorden ‘C’.
Matt Levy beat J.P Ellis, also of Todmorden 'C' in the league.
Chris Greaves drew with Richard Bottomley.

The pick of these results must be James Todd’s win against Brian Corner.

Hopefully these results will give all of these players some further confidence for next season. We’ll see whether they can improve enough to climb off the bottom of the table which just might be possible if Wheatley field another team this year.

Thanks to all those who contributed content to this post. Please do feedback your comments on the performances of the two teams and their players as all of this will help us to pick the teams for next season.

The thick end of the Wedge

2011-07-07T21:28:00.000+01:00

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.

It's a knockout!

2011-07-04T23:46:00.000+01:00

"And... ha, ha, hah! Here come the Hebdens!"

The summer knockout competitions have begun. Huzzah! Well, perhaps that much enthusiasm is not quite warranted but if these contests don't give us the chance to dress up in huge and cunbersome rubber costumes then they do at least allow some of us to keep our little grey cells ticking over during the long summer months without league competition.

For those who don’t know, the main point of interest in both the team and individual knockout contests is that they are played using a time handicap system. Basically you calculate the difference in grades between the two players and add that number to the weaker players’ clock and take the same amount of time off the stronger player. This gives the weaker players some hope of causing an upset but it does therefore also have the disadvantage of not being much of an incentive for stronger players to take part even though the games aren’t graded.

Last Monday night Hebden Bridge ‘A’ began their campaign and also began to adjust to life without Dave Wedge on board 1. They travelled to Todmorden where their hosts had put out a fairly weak team and that meant that Hebden were giving away a lot of time on most of the boards. Despite that, they still managed to produce a win, albeit by the narrowest possible margin as Alastair Wright finally vanquished the spirited challenge of Chris Edwards on board 2 at 10.45pm in the dramatic denouement below.

This anxious finale was preceded by a mixed bag of results. On the down side poor old Steve Priest was forced to play with only 10 minutes on his clock on board 5 and although he won his opponent’s queen he ran out of time before he could win the game. Meanwhile on board 1 Dave Shapland was having a disaster against Paul Edwards. Dave didn’t lose a game with Black all season in the league but in this game he got caught out in the opening and got a terrible position. Paul converted the full point very efficiently without much need for the extra time his clock afforded him.

Hebden won on boards 3 and 4 to level the score and set up the nail biting climax to the fixture. Nick Sykes and Josh Blinkhorn both won comfortably. Nick’s effort in particular was smoothly impressive.

The final scorecard for the match then was:

Todmorden ‘A’ vs Hebden Bridge ‘A’

P.Edwards 1 – 0 D.Shapland

C.Edwards 0 – 1 A.Wright

M.Huett 0 – 1 N.Sykes

J.P.Ellis 0 – 1 J.Blinkhorn

B.Joyce 1 – 0 S.Priest

2 – 3

The individual competition has also started. Unfortunately the Calderdale League website doesn’t seem to have any of the results displayed as yet but fortunately for our readers one of our members has kindly sent me his game from the first round to share with you. Pete Leonard was unlucky enough to draw Halifax’s top player Darwin Ursal in round 1 but the difference in points between them meant that Pete was able to put his illustrious opponent under pressure. I’ll let him take up the story.

If I get drawn against Darwin in the first round of a third tournament, I shall know the draw's been fixed! (Pete also played Darwin in round 1 of the recent Spanish thematic tournament at the club – Ed.) We actually had a very close game, spoiled by me missing a fork but redeemed by my struggling on ‘til time pressure proved too much and he offered me a draw. I have been estimated a very generous grading (for handicap purposes) of 112, which gave me 2 hours 31 minutes to his 29 minutes. And still he should have won!

I’m not sure what will happen when these two meet to replay this match with the colours reversed because since this first try the new YCA grades have come out and Pete’s grade is 158 so he may have to play with a much smaller advantage on the clock.