Raise a glass to the Scotch!

This type of Scotch makes for a better
picture though don't you think?

No, not the Scottish, (fine people though they be) but the Scotch. Not the single malt variety of Scotch either. No, yesterday was St Andrew's day and that seems good enough reason for this blog to celebrate the Scotch Game. It is a venerable system that is first mentioned by Ercole del Rio in 1750 but which owes its name to a correspondence game played between the Edinburgh and London chess clubs in 1824.

For a very long time the opening lay dormant and slumbering as the players of the 20th century generally thought its waters were too quite to offer the White player any sort of advantage. That assessment was changed forever when Garry Kasparov sprung it on Anatoly Karpov in their 1990 World Championship match which was played in Lyon.

Since then the Scotch has gained a new lease of life as today's Grandmasters use it as a viable alternative to the well trodden paths of the Spanish.

For me, the Scotch has been a reletively new acquaintance. For many years I exclusively played the Sicilian against 1.e4 but in the last four or five years I have started to insert 1...e5 into my repertoire and that has meant that I've had to figure out a way of meeting the Scotch. I have had some excellent results against it (in fact I don't think I've lost against it over the board), and yet I'm beginning to consider playing it with the White pieces too as an altenative to the Italian Game that I usually trot out.

Today I shamelessly offer readers of this blog a couple of my greatest hits against the Scotch which may serve either to recommend or put off members from the opening, who knows.

This first game was played over the board.



And this one was played online.

The sweatshirt of victory!

It’s old, it’s jaded, it’s a bit dirty, it’s certainly not fashionable and it’s not even that warm anymore. Yet my grey sweatshirt has been my lucky charm so far this season. I haven’t yet lost when wearing it and on Wednesday night I collected the latest piece of evidence to support the argument that this garment is my lucky charm. Having lost two games in a row I came back into form with a really nice win and I was wearing the sweatshirt.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not particularly superstitious and I normally laugh along with everyone else when I hear stories about sports people who believe that certain rituals performed before or during an event will help them to succeed. Sure, I’ve had the occasional “lucky pen” that has carried me through a streak of games and of which I have idly thought, “I’ve won the last four games writing with that pen” before promptly losing the fifth in horrendous fashion.

No, this is different. This run with the sweatshirt has actually started to influence my behaviour. For example, when I play for my other club in Leeds I normally go to the matches straight from the office. In seasons gone by I would have gone in my work clothes but this season I’ve started to take a change of clothes with me to the office so that I can change before I go to chess club. Ostensibly, I tell myself that this will make me feel more relaxed and comfortable at the board and that might be true but the reality is that the first item of clothing to get packed into my bag is the sweatshirt. To be totally honest, I’ve even thought twice about laundering it if I think it won’t be washed and dry in time for the next fixture. This is deep-seated behavioural change!

My current job role brings me regularly into contact with information analysts who produce performance indicators and so I’m only too aware of the potential pitfalls of seeing “trends” in data that isn’t comprehensive enough to support your thesis. Knowing this only too well then it is at this point in the season that I feel I have played enough games to start doing some statistical analysis of my performance with and without the sweatshirt.

The graph below plots my approximate rating gains and loses after each of my games so far this season. These results are all from competitive games and include a couple of rapidplay results.

I think this chart clearly shows that my performance with the sweatshirt is much better than without it. This Wednesday’s game gave me the strongest proof yet. After a mini-slump of two defeats in a row (admittedly to very strong players who I’d at least expect not to beat) I bounced back with a the very nice win below against a player rated marginally higher than me.



This is my first win with the White pieces since last season!

So, what next for the Sweatshirt of Victory? Well, I have a match tomorrow and I intend to wear the garment for that. Having made this crackpot theory public part of me hopes that I wear it and lose just so that I can free myself from the prison that I have now created for myself.

Has anyone seen our chess team?

This week was Division 2 week in the Calderdale Chess League. John Kerrane brings us a report on one of the last fixtures in the summer individual knockout as well as news of the 'D' team's home fixture. But first, has anyone seen our 'C' team? Pete Rawlings' men were due to play away against Todmorden 'C' on Monday night but it would appear that they did not! All the games were defaulted according to the League website. If anyone finds our 'C' team please return them to the Trades Club on Holme Street.

Now for John's report which appeared in this week's Hebden Bridge Times.

On Monday evening, the second semi-final of the Calderdale Chess League Summer Individual KO Competition was decided at Hebden Bridge Chess Club, between Dave Wedge and his son Matthew. After a close endgame, Matthew found himself in zugzwang – the only moves left to him all led to disaster – and resigned. The final of this summer competition will be an all-Hebden Bridge affair between Dave Wedge and Martin Fairhurst, and with luck, we may get it played before Christmas!

At the same time, the club’s training team, Hebden Bridge D, were playing at home against Halifax B, and found themselves outclassed by the visitors, going down ½ - 4½. The only bright spots for the home team were Dan Crampton’s draw in a crazy game on board 5, and Paul Dearden’s fine play on board 4 before he succumbed to his opponent’s greater experience.


The individual results were:

Hebden Bridge 'D' - Halifax 'B'
D. Pugh 0 - 1 A. Dawson

J. Todd 0 - 1 B. Wadsworth

B. Fernley 0 -1 J. Nicholson

P. Dearden 0 - 1 D. Summerskill

D. Crampton ½ - ½ J. Gilhooly

½ - 4½

Howell wins again in Halifax

Today I’m posting a report from Adrian Dawson about the British Rapidplay Championships 2010 which took place over the weekend at Halifax’s North Bridge Leisure Centre.

David Howell:
British Rapidplay Champion again!

Saturday and Sunday saw some of the greatest sportsmen in the country descend on Halifax to use the most important part of the human body as they competed for the title of British Rapidplay Chess Champion 2010, and the first prize of £600. Grandmaster David Howell proved why he was the strongest player there, scoring 10.5 out of 11, half a point short of a perfect score! Howell was one of 5 Grandmasters participating but there was also a good sprinkling of International Masters and a Female International Master present. Second, third and fourth places were taken by GMs Mark Hebden, Matthew Turner and IM Richard Palliser.

In total 14 local players competed with varying degrees of success. All the scores below are out of 11 except for the one day event which was played over 5 rounds.

Open: M.Parsons 6, L.Keely and D.Ursal 5.5
Major: D.Patrick 4.5, R.Clegg 1.5 (withdrew)
Intermediate: D.Colledge 6.5, A.Gonzalez, P.Whitehouse and C.Velosa 6, P.Hughes 5.5, A.Dawson 4.5, B.Donkersley 4.
Minor: T.Sullivan 6.5
One day event: J.Nicholson 1/5

Here is a game with a pleasing finish played by Halifax’s Darwin Ursal in the Open section.



Many thanks to Adrian for supplying us with that report at express speed! Special mention should be made of Hebden Bridge player Matthew Parsons, who scored more than 50% in the Open playing against the very best in the competition. I gather that this performance is rated at approximately 195! Our own Terry Sullivan also performed well in the Minor section.

In round 2 Matthew made it onto the display boards (the top 8 boards were digital and games from these were broadcast live on the Championship website) were he played, and put up good resistance against, Grandmaster Aaron Summerscale. Here is that game.



Finally, it doesn't seem right not to provide readers with one of the tournament winners games. Howell played arguably his closest rival for the title, Mark Hebden, in round 7 on the Sunday morning. Evidently he had prepared something special for his opponent over night because the game worked out very well for him as you will see below. The notes in this game are shamelessly stolen from Jon Speelman's column in The Independent!

Wright leads Hebden Bridge back to the top

In today's post John Kerrane reports on a busy night for Hebden Bridge Chess Club on Monday evening as both our 1st Division sides hosted fixtures at the Trades Club. This article also appeared in Thursday's Hebden Bridge Times.

Belgrave, from Claremount, Halifax, has been the surprise team in the Calderdale League first division this season, with a series of very good results early on in the season. However, their run came to a shuddering halt on Monday evening, when they visited Hebden Bridge Chess Club at the Trades Club, Holme Street, to play Hebden Bridge ‘A’.


Without one of their regular players, the home team still scored a resounding 4½-½ victory, with quick wins for Matthew Wedge-Roberts, Andy Leatherbarrow and Alastair Wright settling the issue early on. They only dropped half a point when Dave Wedge, on board 1, was forced to settle for a draw when he ran out of time just before checkmating his opponent in a simple endgame. This results puts Hebden Bridge ‘A’ back at the top of Division 1.


The individual results were:

Hebden Bridge ‘A’ – Belgrave

D. Wedge ½ - ½ G. Farrar

A. Wright 1 – 0 Malcolm Corbett

M. Parsons 1 – 0 L. Johnson

M. Wedge-Roberts 1 – 0 M. Barnett

A. Leatherbarrow 1 – 0 A. Gonzalez

4½ – 1½

Here are some of the games from this fixture.



 

It was a different story for the club’s ‘B’ team, playing the mighty Huddersfield ‘A’. The visitors fielded a very strong team, and duly walloped the home side 4-1. Only Pete Olley and Dave Sugden managed creditable draws, while the rest of the ‘B’ team were easy meat for their higher-graded opponents.


The individual results were:

Hebden Bridge ‘B’ – Huddersfield ‘A’

P. Olley ½ - ½ L. Keely

D. Shapland 0 – 1 C. Booth

M. Syrett 0 – 1 D. Firth

J. Kerrane 0 – 1 R. Boylan

D. Sugden ½ - ½ R. Sutcliffe

1 – 4

There is just time for me to let you know that Courier ‘A’ doled out a 0 – 5 execution of the hapless Todmorden ‘A’. This result means that Hebden Bridge ‘A’, Courier ‘A’ and Belgrave are all on the same number of points after 5 matches with Hebden Bridge top by virtue of their superior board count. Huddersfield ‘A’ are 3 points behind the leaders but they have a match in hand to play against Halifax ‘A’. You can see the latest league standings on the Calderdale Chess League website.