Board 1- Dutton V Stanley
Traditionally the month of December is a restful month in the WDCL calendar as the teams wind down towards a Christmas break. Not so this year! Possibly due to a welcome addition of Lymm and Eccles chess club to the league there are extra fixtures to fulfil. Therefore the A team players found themselves in action for the 2nd December Wednesday in a row.
Football league titles are often won not just in the big matches but also by the top sides grinding out results against smaller but well drilled teams. The analogy was not lost on me as we were making our way to Skelmersdale on what was an extremely cold and drizzly evening.
We had a slightly changed line up from last week, Marek Mazek and Andy Coe coming back into the side in place of Robert Furness and Nick Burriss.
The first result of the evening came on board 5, Andy Coe having beaten his opponent Dave Stanfield when they last met, repeated the same opening line. Stanfield however admitted to me afterwards that he had in fact studied the position since then and this time was well prepared as he fairly quickly brought home the first point for Skelmersdale 1-0.
Despite the early set back things were looking fairly promising I thought in the early stages of all the other boards.
Marek Mazek has only played one League game from six so far this season so his return for this fixture was most welcome. In his usual fast attacking style Marek was to level the scores, proving to be just too strong for his opponent Mike McGreal on this occasion. 1-1
On board 3 Damian was up against Gareth Ellis for the second time this season. Previously Gareth had held Damian to a draw in a solid French Rubenstein this time therefore Damian decided to play a different first move as White. Early on Gareth was playing just as solidly as the last meeting managing to trade off a pair of Bishops. Damian then decided to expand in the centre anyway, in the hope of unbalancing the game. An interesting middlegame was reached with White having a big centre but made up of a pair of hanging pawns on d4 & e4. Gareth tried to exploit this by attacking the pawns but eventually a White knight landed on f5 and Black’s king was opened up, forcing resignation 1-2.
In the above picture, Ilya is 3 pawns ahead with passed G and H pawns. With such a good position it can be all too tempting to relax thinking nothing can go wrong. This can be a dangerous mindset though in chess, and thus proved to be the case when Ilya now winning a 4th pawn to reach 2 Rooks & 5 pawns v 2 Rooks and 1 pawn was despite the huge material advantage suddenly lost! Massey had skilfully executed the swindle by first of all doubling rooks on the 7th rank and then marching his king into Ilya’s castled position. Ilya sadly did not sense the danger fast enough and the position below could not be saved… chess can be a cruel game at times… 2-2
Therefore the match was to once again go down to the wire, as it did earlier in the season. Ian’s opponent Paul Stanley had played an early gambit line from which Ian had obtained an excellent position in response. As the players entered the middlegame however Ian’s early activity around the Black king had died down somewhat with a tense endgame being reached.
The key moment came in the below position…
In the above position whilst under severe time pressure Paul decided to try Ne3 possibly on the expectation of something like 1.Nxe3, fxe3, 2.Kxe3 when Black can play Nxe5. White of course does not have to capture twice and the game went 1.Bxe3, fxe3 2.Re1! With the plan of picking up the pawn with the Rook. After this Black’s weak pawns started to drop leaving Paul in the end with a lost Rook and 3 pawns V Rook and 1 pawn endgame. Once Ian forced off the final pair of Rook’s Black resigned. 3-2
What a tough match! Thanks to everyone involved, we now do have a bit of a gap until the next fixture in January. Happy Christmas to all readers!
