Culcheth Chess Club Blog

An interesting game from a recent clash in the Richard Furness League:

Below are ten learning moments from it where we ask a question. if you like try and write down what you would play in each position, I’ll put the answers at the very bottom of the page.

The full game can also be played through at the bottom of the page.

Position 1, White has just played Nc3, it’s early in the game but it’s already important to see white’s plan and react to it. What should Black play?

Position 2: White has just played the move Nf3-e5, is this a good move?

Position 3: White has just played Bf1-e2, Black now has the option of Bxg2. Is this a good idea? What will be the consequences after the following moves?

Position 4: Here Black plays the move Qe7-g5. Was this a good move? (With the Queen back on e7 can you think of any better strategies for the middlegame?

Position 5: Here Harrison played d4-d5 with a duel threat of Bxh8 and hitting the e6 pawn. How must Black react?

Position 6: White has an octopus Knight on e6, Bxd5 looks a tempting option here for Black, Should it be played?

Position 7: Black to move in this position, what interesting move did Isaiah play?

Position 8: Here White has just played Qg3-h4 avoiding the Knight attack, can you see what Isaiah spotted next as Black?

Position 9: White has just played Qb4, in a desperate attempt to trade queens and quash White’s attack. What move should Black play here?

Position 10: Unfortunately for Isaiah his attack had rather fizzled out by this point, Which move did Steve Harrison as White, a very experienced and practical player play here to simplify his endgame advantage.

Answers to questions:

1. It’s important to be awake early, if allowed White will play e2-e4 which will leave Black regretting his early f7-f5. Nf6 developing and controlling e4 is the best move as played in the game.
2. Nf3-d5 is a bad move, it gives Black a free tempo to hit the knight with d7-d6, a move Black wanted to play anyway and White is then forced to move his knight for a third time! Better would have been just to continue to develop the other pieces and leave moves like Ne5 for the middlegame.
3. No Bxg2 would be a bad idea, it doesn’t even win a pawn as after Rh-g1 when the bishop retreats Black plays Rxg7. White has greatly improved the position of his rook whilst in the meantime Black’s position has remained static and he may have trouble getting his king castled.
4. The move Qe7-g5 didn’t really achieve anything and in the game it merely get’s kicked away allowing White to improve the position of his Knight. I think many players struggle with positions like this, your nearly out of the opening, the position is fairly level so you have to decide what to do! There are likely several plans for Black but it’s important not to play aimlessly, personally I like the idea here of castling queenside followed by the eventual pawn break e7-e5 which would compliment us having removed our own dark squared bishop. The game should probably remain level with best play.
5. The move d4-d5 was a good one by White, it is now essential we respond e6-e5 in spite of the monster knight on e6. Anything else would lose the game.
6. Whilst not losing Bxd5 is not so good here because White will meet it with Nxc7. Then after Kxc7, Rxd5 Black is rather passive and worse. Black should stay patient as Isaiah did in the game.
7. Here Isaiah made a good decision to give up the rook with Rxe6! The after dxe6 Qxe6, yes Black has lost the rook (5 points) for a Knight and a pawn (4 points) but all of Blacks other pieces have benefitted from this exchange, especially the Bishop on b7 which must be a pawn’s worth of compensation. Indeed if it is allowed to remain on e6 the White Knight is as strong as a rook on that outpost.
8. Here Isaiah played the quite brilliant Nc3!! I can see some really strong players not spotting this move if they are playing too routinely a great spot, being aware of the follow up after bxc3, Qb3+!! Using the pin on the b1-h7 diagonal.
9. Alas this should have been the culmination of Isaiah’s last few moves as Bxd1!! Wins the White rook as the bishop still defends the queen. Tragically in the game Isaiah retreated the Queen and the game swung back in White’s favour.
10. Here Steve Harrison, a veteran of the WDCL plays the solid Qf6, It’s usually a very good idea to trade pieces when ahead in material. In this instance if Black refuses the trade White will pick up the pawn on g6. Isaiah actually did very well to almost get back in the game from here but really after the queen trade White has a much simpler winning task.

Our Richard Furness League side played their first game of the season with a visit to Atherton.

This is a grade limited competition where sides are made up of 4 players who need to have a combined team grade of 6600 or under. This leads to some interesting strategies, some sides choose to field sides of players all around the 1600 mark whilst others try to load the top boards with lower rated players on the bottom boards. The sides chose differing strategies with their line ups for this match where Atherton had a very strong player on board 1.

In the end it was the Atherton plan that paid off as they managed to win the fixture 3-1. Nick has kindly annotated his own game below against Lee Kay one of our league’s strongest players whom he had the opportunity to play against.

Burriss V Kay – Large window pop out page.

Our new season finally got underway as we played host to Skelmersdale. Whilst on paper the opposition had lower grades then us we knew from experience not to take them lightly, we have dropped points against this tricky side before.

The first board to finish was Alex on board 5. Lee Walls from Skelmersdale managed to win material early on in a French defence with a Queen raid. I didn’t quite see the end but Walls obviously was able to extradite his Queen and hold onto the gained material, 0-1

After some time the match score was levelled, Marek and Paul Stanley’s game looked to have been close throughout in a Sicilian Alapin where Marek had the Black pieces. As the pieces came off Marek managed to win a pawn with a sneaky tactic. Paul managed to swap all the pieces off barring a pair of bishops each and Marek managed to keep on just enough pawns to secure the victory! 1-1

Andy Coe soon put us in front, I didn’t see a great deal of Andy’s game but I’m told he felt he always had a bit of an advantage and managed to convert this well before the end phase of the game 2-1

This left (as is not so unusual as we are the undoubted slowest players) both myself and Rob as the last games to finish. I haven’t posted one of my own games on this blog in a while, but I will on this occasion as I think this was really interesting. Gareth went for a rather slow strategy (I thought) of spending a bunch of tempo in the opening with the aim of trading off his bad bishop. I decided to allow this to happen figuring that the amount of time he’s spent doing this will give me a big lead in development. I therefore sacrificed an early pawn and later a Knight for some unclear longer term compensation. Fortunately this panned out and I managed to win on this occasion. I was pleased to see when I got home that both of the sacrifices were sound! I’ve put a link to the game at the top of the page in-case it is of interest. This result put us out of reach for the match score. 3-1

McCarthy V Ellis – Click link to view this game on a full page

Finally on board 3 Rob was the last game to finish against Paul Massey, this game looked to swing back and forth with Rob having an extra bishop for a phase but Paul had some dangerous passed pawns. With both players getting short of time Massey liquidated into a pawn up Rook and pawns endgame. Tragically, just when it looked like Rob may be about to hold the draw a dreaded blunder occurred with just seconds left on his clock. 3-2

A closely fought match played in a friendly spirit, good luck to Skelmersdale for the rest of the season.