Chess Improvement Carnival V

Today I am pleased to make it official that the fifth edition of the Chess Improvement Carnival (CIC) will be held right here on this blog from the 4th of May.

For those of you who haven’t seen previous incarnations of the CIC then the idea is simply this: readers nominate chess related posts and articles that they would like to share with the world. It can be something you wrote yourself or something that you’ve seen on another blog that you think is useful, instructive, thought provoking or funny.

If you still don’t get the idea then why not check out some of the material that was selected for previous carnivals hyperlinked below:

• CIC IV – April: The Omelette Edition, hosted by Liquid Egg Product
• CIC III – March: The Renaissance Faire Edition, hosted by Blunderprone
• CIC II – February: The Coney Island Edition, hosted by Brooklyn 64
• CIC I – January: hosted by Blue Devil Knight

The only guidelines for submission that you need to bare in mind are these. First of all the post has to be chess related and second of all it has to come from a blog rather than a professionally run chess website. You can nominate a post by following this link. The deadline for submissions is looming so don’t procrastinate, nominate your favourite post now and lets make the May edition of the carnival the biggest one yet!

Come on and do the conga!

Today is St.George’s Day and so it only seems right that this blog celebrate the occasion by offering up a Dragon to be slain! Of course I’m talking about the chess variation rather than the mythical beast itself. I count myself as something of a Sicilian Dragon aficionado and have played the opening numerous times with both sets of pieces. In the game I’m presenting for examination today I was playing with White in an online correspondence tournament in which all games played had to be Dragons. My opponent chose to play a line called the Soltis Variation (it’s named after the American GM who is credited with introducing it into high level chess) and things got very interesting there after. In fact this game also features the only occurance I think I've ever come across in a genuine game where one player has ended up with quadrupled pawns so, to me, it is something of a collectors item.

The Soltis variation (characterised by 11…h5) is reputable and very sound. Recommendations don't come any higher than that of ex-World Champion Garry Kasparov who, in his title match against Viswanathan Anand in 1995, chose to defend this line of the Dragon after a series of set-backs with his beloved Najdorf variation. I can remember the shock waves this switch caused amongst commentators at the time of the match. It was a huge change in strategy from Kasparov but, as always with him, it was a practical decision and it worked. Anand was caught off guard, lost in the first game that the Soltis was played and the momentum of the match changed decisively.

I hope readers will enjoy this little sojourn into Dragon theory…

Chessmageddon!

I can offer readers a veritable tumult of reports and games because today we chronicle the heroic efforts of all four of Hebden Bridge Chess Club’s teams as they rode gallantly into battle for the last time this season on Monday night. The fixtures secretary has thrown some curve balls at us this year including the playing of all four of our derby matches on dates other then the opening nights of each half of the season; round 4 of the Calderdale Individual Championships on Valentine’s night; and, most testing of all, the opening and closing fixtures in both divisions played on the same night. This meant that our hard pressed Captains had to find 20 players between them and even for a club of our size, that is no easy task when it’s school holiday week. I’m delighted to report that all four teams did sport full line-ups even though we had to tap into all sorts of rarely plumbed resources!

I’ll start with Hebden Bridge ‘B’ who, you may remember, managed a tense 3-2 victory in their match with Belgrave two weeks ago to haul themselves out of the relegation zone. They needed to match Halifax ‘A’s result at bottom side Todmorden ‘A’ in order to be sure of safety and a draw in conjunction with a Halifax win would have left the teams needing to be separated by their board count. John Kerrane reports for us on the unfolding of the night’s events at Brighouse.

“With both sides missing key stronger players, it was an unusual match, but in the end, Hebden Bridge ‘B’ avoided relegation in fine style with a 3-2 win, led by Dave Shapland on board 1, who played his favorite Classical Defence against Robert Broadbent’s Spanish Opening, and conducted a vigorous attack culminating in a very attractive mate.”

The individual results were:

Brighouse – Hebden Bridge ‘B’

R.Broadbent 0 – 1 D.Shapland

B.Bendall ½ - ½ A.Leatherbarrow

P.Whitehouse 1 – 0 J.Kerrane

N.Hudson ½ - ½ P.Rhami

Default 0 – 1 M.Syrett

2 – 3

It was a noble decision by Captain Martin Syrett to stand aside and let Phil Rhami play a game. But, as the ‘B’ team struggled to put together a full side themselves Phil (who also stepped in to play the away fixture against Huddersfield) travelled from Leeds to take part in the tie and therefore deserved his spot. Essentially he was the hero of the hour for, by turning up and playing a game, he essentially scored Hebden 1½ points. His draw with Nick Hudson was resourcefully played after a highly provocative opening treatment almost got him into very hot water.



The second game to finish was Dave Shapland’s effort against Robert Broadbent. He equalised fairly swiftly and then capitalised on his opponents manouevring play before connecting at the end with a destructive mating combination utilising two bishops and two rooks. The notes in the game viewer below are Daves.



Next John Kerrane succumbed to Paul Whitehouse after a long struggle and this left the match in the balance with just Andy Leatherbarrow’s game against Bruce Bendall to finish. Most club members will know about Andy’s predilection for long distance affairs and his dalliance with time trouble. He stayed true to his code in this game as he used up all but one minute of his time to get to move 36 and then a good deal of his remaining 15 minutes to get to the end of the game. All the while poor Martin Syrett tried to calm his palpitations as he looked on from the sidelines! In the end Bruce decided that he could not make any progress and offered Andy a draw which Andy accepted and the match was won for the ‘B’ team.



This excellent result meant that the ‘B’s were safe and could go home in a happy mood. As it turned out, Todmorden beat Halifax by the surprising margin of 4-1 and so even a defeat would not have damaged Hebden Bridge’s status. Never-the-less congratulations are in order for when the proverbial ordure hit the fan this season the ‘B’ team showed their Dunkirk spirit and did their jobs in their last two matches of the season. Each player has done his bit to keep them up. Well done ‘B’s!

So now to the ‘A’ team who needed to beat Courier ‘A’ away to keep their faint title hopes alive. On paper this was a tough final round fixture for Hebden Bridge as Courier have performed solidly all season and are comfortably anchored in third place in the league. In addition, all three of their top boards are rated in the 160’s and that puts them on a parr with the big beasts at Huddersfield and Hebden Bridge. Only their weaker lower boards have prevented them from competing for the title.

In the event however, Courier were victims of the fixture secretary’s scheduling as they were only able to field 3 players and were missing their talisman, John Morgan who has secured this year’s “Most Valuable Player Award” by scoring 11½ points in 13 games as well as becoming the Calderdale Individual Champion. Regardless of their opponents charity, Hebden Bridge exacted the fullest of penalties by inflicting a traumatising 5-0 whitewash on their opponents.

Individual scores were as follows:

Courier 'A' – Hebden Bridge ‘A’

R.Clegg 0 – 1 D.Wedge

D.Patrick 0 – 1 M.Parsons

D.Colledge 0 – 1 A.Wright

Default 0 – 1 M.Wedge-Roberts

Default 0 – 1 N.Sykes

0 – 5

Dave Wedge was performing his swan song for Hebden Bridge as he leaves us this summer to pursue a new career opportunity down in Cambridge. He has been the side’s top board stalwart for many years and will be sorely missed. Fittingly he smote down Robert Clegg with his customary aplomb as his “Good bye” present.



On board 2 Matthew Parsons demonstrated his readiness to fill Dave’s very large shoes next season by doubling up on Dave Patrick for the season. Here is his game.



Team Captain, Alastair Wright completed the rout with a win against Dave Colledge.



The ‘A’ team must now sit tight and await news from Huddersfield on Maundy Thursday when the league leaders host Belgrave for the curtain closing fixture in League 1. Could it be the holiday season will deplete the resources available to one or both sides? There might yet be a one more twist in the title race. Of course we will keep our ears to the ground and let you know the result as soon as we possibly can.

Normally I’d be ending my report here but today I must ask readers to gird their loins for even more! Both of the club’s Division 2 sides were also in action on Monday. First of all, Pete Rawlings gives us news of the ‘C’ team’s home match against Huddersfield ‘B’.

“Our final match of the season gave us the double over Huddersfield ‘B’, quite a feat considering that they will beat us to second place in division 2. (Only if they win their game in hand against Halifax ‘B’: Ed.) Trevor Deluca played his first match of the season to gain us a bital point and Pete Leonard continued his near-perfect run. A great performance by the team in a good season. It would be nice to keep this team together as a unit, says their sentimental old captain.”

As Captain Rawlings rightly points out, Pete Leonard has had a superb run for the ‘C’s scoring 6 wins from 7 games. In the game below he inflicted an eye-watering humiliation upon Stuart Oliver.



The ‘C’ team match scorecard looks like this then:

Hebden Bridge ‘C’ – Huddersfield ‘B’

D.Sugden 1 – 0 N.Hepworth

S.Priest 0 – 1 R.Sutcliffe

P.Leonard 1 – 0 S.Oliver

N.Bamford 0 – 1 C.Stratford

T.DeLuca 1 – 0 E.Mellor

3 – 2

Last, but by no means least, the ‘D’ team travelled to Todmorden for their last match of the season against Todmorden ‘C’. Danny Crampton’s team have suffered greatly this season as a result of sticking to their policy of fielding a side full of rookies to league chess. Encouragingly there were signs here that the side is starting to see the fruits of their patient approach as, for the first time this season, they scored two wins in a match. Matt Levy and Danny Crampton scored the points.

The individual results were:

Todmorden ‘C’ – Hebden Bridge ‘D’

R.Stoelman 1 – 0 P.Dearden

G.Bowker 1 – 0 K.Sharpe

J.P.Ellis 0 – 1 M.Levy

T.Webster 1 – 0 C.Greaves

B.Joyce 0 – 1 D.Crampton

3 – 2

With young Kyle Sharpe getting his third outing in adult competition on board 2 and other team members continuing to gain good experience it would seem that the green shoots of growth and development are starting to emerge and that the ‘D’ team can be optimistic about next season. Let’s hope that the summer programme of activities and handicapped competitions will enable these players to develop their games even further.

That’s all for now folks. I'd just like to say "Thank you" to all those players who submitted games and result to me so quickly. It isn't easy gathering everything together in two days but with your help we did it! Watch this space for details of the up and coming summer programme of informal competitions and game tutorials and don’t forget the team Lightning tournament takes place in Todmorden on the 9th of May. By way of a final word I can confirm that there will be a chess club meeting on Monday the 2nd of March when John Kerrane plans to hold an informal Lightning Competition to give players the chance to practice at this format of the game.

How to swash your buckle

Today dear readers I would like to introduce you to a new columnist for this blog who I hope will be making regular returns to these pages. Wishing to be known only by the nom de guerre of “The Swashbuckler”, he will hopefully provide some inspiration for any player who wants to introduce an air of swagger and panache to their games instead of dour, avoid-losing-at-all-costs solidity. He promises that his columns will be less about self-improvement and more about developing a playing-style for those of you who want to play like neanderthals! I’ll let him explain more:

Yes I do always where this outfit at the board!

The Swashbuckler #1: Rules of Swashbuckling

Welcome readers to my first column for the Hebden Bridge Chess Club website. Hurrah! Today, in anticipation of the mouthwatering scraps and adventures that I have in store for you, I would like to set the scene by defining the philosophy that I play my chess by and which will dictate the tone and content of my future postulations. Perhaps the best place to start would be to define the term “Swashbuckler”.

The dictionary definition of a Swashbuckler is:

1. A flamboyant swordsman or adventurer
2. A sword-wielding ruffian or bully
3. A dramatic or literary work dealing with a swashbuckler

For our excellent purposes we can discard the third of these meanings although I hope that the word “dramatic” will be applicable to all the games I share with you on this blog. I should like to expand a little on the first two meanings however because in modern culture it seems that our interpretation of the term at hand is influenced by many of the books and films of the last century that have fixed an image of ‘swashbucklers’ and ‘swashbuckling’ so vividly into our imaginations. Whilst our first instincts here are useful I don’t want to lose sight of some of the original meaning of the term. Time for a bit of etymology and here I’d like to quote directly from an excellent blog that I discovered during my research called “The Pirate King”:

"Although you and I may associate “swashbuckling” with pirate stories and Hollywood movies, the term was originally anything but complimentary. A “swashbuckler”, when the word first appeared around 1560, was a swaggering braggart, bully or ruffian. “Swashbuckler” actually came from the antiquated words “swash” (to make a noise by striking) and “buckler” (shield).
A “swashbuckler” was originally a mediocre swordsman who compensated by making a great deal of noise, strutting through the streets banging his sword on his shield, challenging passersby to duels, and just generally acting like a jerk."

So, from this information, what can we deduce should be the defining characteristics of the chess-playing-swashbuckler (CPS)? I’d like to offer the following profile for your consideration:

1. A CPS is, first and foremost, defined by their bravado. They delight in displaying naked aggression and revel in their flamboyant style even though their bark is almost always more potent than their bite
2. They are adventurers in the field of opening theory selecting unusual, old-fashioned, eccentric and rococo systems that others deem to be at best unclear and at worst diabolical
3. CPSs are, to use a modern term, ‘flat-track bullies”. The weaker their opponent is the more absurdly insulting the opening system will be that they deploy and the greater level of risk they will be prepared to take during the middle game. Endgames simply tend not to occur in the score books of dyed in the wool swashbucklers.
4. They value the means as greater than the ends and would rather suffer a glorious and blood soaked defeat than a turgid and attritional victory. 
5. CPSs are, by their nature, disruptive. By this I mean that they will take every opportunity to create disharmony at the chess board. They strive to create material imbalances that are terrifyingly hard to assess and may play moves that flout the conventions of orthodox chess teachings

Well, that will do for a start though I reserve the right to add further defining characteristics to this profile as I see fit.

Now that I’ve defined the raison d’etre for this column I think it’s only right that I tell you about the format that I have in mind. In each column that I publish here I will introduce readers to either; a “Swashbuckling Hero” from the annals of history, many of whom will be plucked from relative obscurity; or an opening system that I deem to be suitable for budding swashbucklers to add to their repertoires. In either case I very much hope that the games I share with you will inspire you to introduce just a little bit of ‘swash’ and ‘buckle’ to your chess life for, as I like to say to all my students: "Life’s too short for endgames!"

By way of prologue to the themes I’ve introduced today I’d like to share a game I played online recently:

Thanks for reading folks. Please do give your thoughts on this game and/or the swashbuckling methodology I'm advocating in these columns. See you again soon.

The Swashbuckler

"When you see a good move, look for a better one"

These words of wisdom from Emanuel Lasker came back to me this week as I analysed a game that I played in the Leeds League on Wednesday. Take a look at the position below. It’s Black to move. What would you play?



I think that the real point behind Lasker’s motto is that if you think you’ve found a good move then it follows that your position must be reasonable and that usually means there are numerous possibilities. If there are numerous possibilities then that might mean you’ve missed an even better option. How many times do we miss killer moves because we think we’ve found the best move in the position and stopped looking?

Ok, that’s today’s lecture over. Now, let’s move on to the latest league results from Monday night. John Kerrane picks up the tale.

"With the end of the Calderdale Chess Evening League approaching, Hebden Bridge Chess club’s two second division sides found themselves drawn against each other at the Trades Club.

The ‘D’ team put up a valiant struggle, with Matt Levy on board 3 taking Steve Priest to the very end of time allowed, but the greater strength of the senior team told and the ‘C’ team came away with a 5-0 victory.

This match also saw the second outing for the ‘D’ team’s new junior prospect, 9-year-old Kyle Sharpe. Although he did not win, he did enough to show that he will be a serious problem to senior players in a year or two."

The full score card is given below:

Hebden Bridge ‘D’ – Hebden Bridge ‘C’

J.Todd 0 – 1 D.Sugden

P.Dearden 0 – 1 J.Blinkhorn

M.Levy 0 – 1 S.Priest

K.Sharpe 0 – 1 P.Leonard

D.Crampton 0 – 1 P.Rawlings
0 – 5

Next week sees the season end hove into view as all four teams will be in action. Both our Division 1 teams are playing away with the ‘A’ team still hoping that their rivals Huddersfield will slip up and allow them to retain their title and the ‘B’ team hoping they can hold their nerve against Brighouse and stay in the top flight.

Meanwhile the ‘C’ team are the only ones at home as they face Huddersfield ‘B’ needing a win to keep alive any hopes of promotion and the ‘D’ team finish off the season against Todmorden ‘C’ as they aim to score a few more board points to offer them some encouragement for next year. Of course full results and, hopefully some games, will appear right here as soon as they are available. Anyone wanting to see current league standings ahead of the last round can do so at the Calderdale Chess League website (their is a link on the tool bar on the right).