Author: Culcheth Chess Club - Admin

Match report 21/10/2019

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Ormskirk A	V	Culcheth A
1.Mike McGreal	0.5-0.5	Iain Johnson
2.Andrew Hawkins	0-1	Damian McCarthy
3.Robert Owens	0-1	Tom Vout
4.Vaughan Wall	0-1	Keith Maudsley
5.David Tomkins	0-1	Andy Coe
6.Anthony Wells	0-1	Nick Burriss
Final Score	0.5-5.5	Culcheth White bds 1,3 & 5

The usual high standard of match report is absent for this one as Jonathan was missing for this game so I will provide a few brief insights.

Due to various commitments we were without three of our top four players for the long trek north away to Ormskirk. Tom was down as stand in captain but was running late so Iain stepped into the reigns.

Andy Coe quickily dispatched his opponent to maintain his 100% record in the league this season. I didn’t see any of this game but was very pleased Andy got a game after two of his previous league opponents had failed to turn up!

I finished next, my opponent played a Closed Sicilian as white. I played a system with an early b5, my opponent tried to exploit this by playing e5. After a brief skirmish I felt I was a comfortable pawn up and in for an easy game. Then however on move 18 my opponent played a tricky move Ng5, it was one of those moves that while I was sure I still had a good position but if I was not careful the position could turn and I could even end up getting mated. I found this evaluation swing quite hard to deal with at the board and proceeded to spend 40 minutes (far far too long) coming to terms with it… It didn’t help that during most of this time some old guy at the bar a couple of meters from the board, decided to hold a very loud conversation with no concerns about there being a chess match going around him… not ideal when you need to calculate a long line which if your miss one move in it you will be lost… in the end I gave up on it and played a safer move returning the pawn, soon after the game calmed down my opponent went wrong again and the team were 2-0 up.

Keith’s game is at the bottom of the page, it was a Botvinnik English system where it seemed like White had some lively play early on in the game but Keith managed to calm the game down and then finished the game off with some neat calculation at the end of the game.

Tom looked to have the most comfortable evening of all of us and the fact that his game was not one of the first to finish was mainly down to the fact that his opponent played on right down to the end against an overwhelming material deficit as is his right of course.

Iain’s game on top board was quite lively, as my game finished I noticed Iain dip below 5 minutes in what still seemed a complicated position, I took over recording and so had a good view of this game. Despite Iain being a bit better McGreal is a tough nut to crack and he put up good defence. In the end time pressure took its toll and Iain missed a defensive idea which forced K+R v K+R and the players agreed a draw.

Finally Nick’s game, I didn’t see much of this but by the time I came over Nick had two extra pawns in a rook ending which he seemed to convert without any problems. The only potential pitfall again was the clock but he managed to navigate this ending comfortably.

Next up will be two fixtures (one in the cup then one in the league) against our old rivals Atherton who were the last team to deny us the league title two years ago.

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Match Report: 9^th October 2019. (By Captain Jonathan Smith)

Culcheth A	V	St Helens A
Marek Mazek	1 – 0	Martin Brown
Jonathan Smith	0.5 – 0.5	Mark Ellis
Iain Johnson	1 – 0	Dave Hill
Robert Furness	1 – 0	Tom Dugdale
Damian McCarthy	0.5 – 0.5	Barry Groves
Tom Vout	1 – 0	Default
Final Score	5 – 1	*Culcheth white on odd boards

St Helens have been boosted in strength recently, not only by Martin’s welcome return to the League towards the end of last season, but by the recruitment of a number of former Widnes players for both the WDCL and the Liverpool League. Consequently, their A team has a similar average (174) to us (175), and a bottom board of 152, and so it is not surprising that the match was keenly contested –  especially so, since they comfortably beat us 5-1 in March !

Things are quieter for matches in “the Snug” here at the DATEN now that Man U don’t play on a Wednesday (sorry – couldn’t resist), but the absence of commentary next door doesn’t mean that we have discovered ideal playing conditions. 

With autumn in full swing the heating was on, and, with the glare of what felt like arc lighting plus 10 players and a healthy number of spectators crammed in, the temperature steadily climbed. Players disrobed, mercifully only so far as decency allowed, and cans and bottles fogged by condensation were in abundance. By 9.30, entering the playing area was like disembarking from a 747 at Atlanta, but no-one seemed to wilt. Greta would have been so proud.

Anyway, there is a sense of justice to all of this – not long ago St H, despite their otherwise warm welcome, were playing at a temporary venue so bone jarringly frigid that everyone played in coats (and scarves and hats if I recall correctly), and even the barman felt it unnecessary to offer “ice” with the drinks. That said, even that didn’t compare with playing at Penketh…

Anyway, there was a match on….

I won the toss, and Marek grabbed the white pieces.  

We went 1-0 up pretty quickly as Tom’s opponent was significantly delayed getting to the venue.  1-0. 

Thereafter, the results were slow coming. All of the games are on the blog, and since most of them, especially Iain’s, Rob’s and Damian’s were heavily tactical, I won’t attempt any in-depth commentary as it it wont do the games justice. Rob has kindly provided his thoughts.

Martin played a Nimzo against Marek, and Marek elected for a steady approach with early exchanges, slowly nursing what appeared to be a small advantage with occasional exchanges, control of an open file, and a gain of tempo by not castling etc. 

I played Mark on 2 – the last time I ventured to play the Grunfeld was against Peter Wells in the British Rapidplay (a bad decision as he had written a good book on it), and…well, lets just say it could have gone better. The absence of Craig on 6 allowed Mark to purloin a chair, park it near the door, and sit thinking Ivanchuk-like away from board. Whether he was searching for a breeze or admiring the lighting is not clear, but I matched his absences in spades with my endless captainitus. 

Iain brought out the Wing Gambit to Dave’s Sicilian, and there followed a game which showed just how awkward the accepted gambit can be. Iain got lots of open space and at least one tempo. 2-0. (see bottom of this page for the game)

That wasn’t the only exciting and free flowing game, both Rob v Tom (on 4) and Damian v Barry (on 5) were games in which each player castled on the opposite side to their opponent. 

My game against Mark dissolved into a draw (having had a look round at the other boards I offered an early handshake which was correctly rejected). Perhaps unusually, Mark played d5 allowing my black squared bishop to eye all squares down to a1 after he cemented the centre with c4. I was expecting it be blunted with e5 and the f1 bishop given greater licence on the white squares. I was under some pressure on the queenside, but after the exchange of queens white has a choice between creating a passed d and allowing my a-pawn to walk, or neutralising the position by taking the a-pawn. Mark did the latter and the game was drawish. 2.5-0.5.

Mark Ellis V Jonathan

Rob was next to finish – although Tom skilfully avoided the mating threats along the g file, black’s advancing passed d pawn gave an edge (it also had a similarly passed friend on the c file) and Tom overlooked that covering that pawn left him open to a rook and king fork. 3.5-0.5

Tom Dugdale V Rob

Marek was next to finish – Martin had been very short of time for a large part of the game, and even with the 10s increment, the endgame was going to be a tough one. Once knights were off, Martin was about to go 2 pawns down and Marek had sealed off his king side. Queenside progress would be slow and inevitable, but Marek had a significant clock advantage. 4.5-0.5.

Martin Brown V Marek

Damian v Barry was also affected by time, having respectively 25s and 45s at the close. With Damian about to win at any moment, and overlooking a nice mate in 4 when short of time, Barry embarked on a king hunt which liquidated sufficient material to halt the attack. Draw. 5-1. 

A night of enterprising competitive chess played in a friendly atmosphere…who on earth would prefer the internet based bullet variety ?

Next stop: Ormskirk A – 21^st Oct.

This video on the Wing Gambit always makes me chuckle

The A team managed a comfortable win in the end against Northwich. At the bottom of the page, Rob Furness kindly provides us with an insight into his standout game against Tom Walton.

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Match Report – 23 rd Sept 2019 – Northwich A.
Apologies for the late submission of this report – my opponent’s efforts deserved sooner praise, but I
found myself deluged in work.
5½ – ½ is one of those scorelines that gives the impression of a fairly straightforward evening, but
although though Northwich A were short of their top 2 board players (Richard and Paul’s absence
meant that Northwich’s average grade was 100 (against our 175)) we were given more than a
decent match.
I acknowledge that this report is woefully short on match commentary: the reason is that I spent
little time on manoeuvres checking out the other boards and spent most of the evening at my board
undertaking significant works of repair to my increasingly threadbare position.
Damian was the first to finish and did so before I even got a chance to have a good look at it, 1-0.
However, although I got the sense that things were starting to turn in our favour on most boards
(mine being the notable exception), there was no change to the match score until the sun had long
disappeared below the horizon and we had got to the business end of the evening.
John Benyon’s 2.e5 against the Sicilian on top board appeared to be holding material equality
against Marek, but Marek found a tactic with queen and rook which (IIRC) exploited a possible back
rank mate and gain the upper hand – 2-0.
Rob was next to finish, and his game with annotation of the tactics is already on the blog, 3-0.
I had expected Tom to finish off his board 6 opponent somewhat sooner, not because of the grade
disparity, but because Tom had steadily accumulated a significant material advantage at seemingly
minimal risk, but he later observed that although he was a rook up he still had to work hard for the
win. 4-0.
Iain had started off in usual buccaneering style and entered into tactics early on, but they seemed to
fizzle out, and he ended a pawn up in a better ending, 5-0.
My ‘trauma’ was the last game to finish, and is one which I would prefer to forget. This is not
because Charles missed a clearly winning knight sac (or to be more exact, spotted it and then
rejected it) so strong that I had seriously considered resigning on the spot.
No, Caissa had worse to come…
Charles played well but it is fair to say that the game was not ‘el classico’. Charles managed to lose
the exchange but still had a lot of play with connected passed pawns, but after much effort (and
clock time !) I had shepherded the game into a winning K+P ending, and needed only to choose
between pushing my remaining pawn (to where it could not be caught before queening), or moving
my king, I inexplicably and somewhat absent-mindedly touched my king….and we all know the rules
don’t we ? Ouch ! 5½ – ½ .
No excuses…It brought back terrible memories from last season when I did the same at St Helens
and there is a moral about sitting on your hands here somewhere. In truth, I could, and probably
should, have been dead and buried at least a couple of times. I didn’t get any traction in the
opening, shoved my h pawn down the board, failed to castle, and for these sacrifices of position, I
got nothing of note for it except grief.

Next match: St.Helens (home) on 9 th Oct.

Jonathan Smith – A Team Captain

Northwich	V	Culcheth A
John Benyon	0-1	Marek Mazek
Charles Metcalfe	0.5-0.5	Jonathan Smith
Peter Hamill-Stewert	0-1	Iain Johnson
Tom Walton	0-1	Robert Furness
Aaron Milne	0-1	Damian McCarthy
John Lightfoot	0-1	Tom Vout
Final Score	0.5-5.5	(Culcheth white on boards 2,4 & 6)