The A team progressed into the Final of this years Peninsula cup after a convincing win against a recently strengthened Winwick side. Despite a couple os last minute withdrawals we managed just about to field a full side.
Iain Johnson on top board was in control for most of his game and seemed well on the way to victory with a strong Queenside attack, however his opponent managed to exploit the opposite coloured bishops with the queens to create enough threats of his own to force a draw.
Damian’s game on board two is at the bottom of the page.
Rob on board three was a late edition to the team but he managed to comfortably convert his attack after giving up a pawn in an English opening as White.
Tom won quickly on board four, and on bottom board Andy Coe managed a solid draw against Warrington League veteran Stephen Carr.
Steve Cole managed a win on board five to secure the match;
In Steve’s game his opponent blundered a piece for two pawns in the opening, and the game ended with the following trap:
Playing the natural 19…… Rb2?? Black missed 20. Nc4+!! and Resigned as the rook is lost 1-0
(if 20……dxc4 21 Nb3 discovered check leads to mate).
As well as the main league competition the Warrington league also runs three cup competitions. The “Peninsula Cup”, “Kalmar Cup”, and “Kalmar Shield .”
Each has slightly different rules. Described below on the league website:
The Peninsula Cup: This event is a handycap competition for teams of 6 players. When teams from different divisions are paired together the following applies:- Difference of 1 division 1½ points Difference of 2 divisions 2½ points Difference of 3 divisions 3½ points In the event of a drawn match the bottom board is eliminated. If the match score is still level the 5th board is eliminated and so on until a victor is found.
Kalmar Cup: This event is for teams of 5 players whose combined grade does not exceed 800. Defaulted Boards count as 160 grading points. Players must have either an ECF grade or a provisional grade from the WDCL to play in this competition. In the event of a drawn match the team with the lowest grading wins.
Kalmar Shield:This event is for teams of 5 players whose combined grade does not exceed 600. Defaulted Boards count as 110 grading points. Players must have either an ECF grade or a provisional grade from the WDCL to play in thiscompetition. Players graded over 140 are barred from this competition. In the event of a drawn match the team with the lowest grading wins.
So now that we know the rules a brief update on our cup fortunes so far! On Wednesday 30th November, the A team assembled for what was expected to be a tough match against Atherton. We had a team of Marek, Jonathan, Iain, Damian, Tom and Keith. Unfortunately it became clear at 8pm that the opposition had forgotten about the match which led to a win by default. The evening was not a complete write off however as it gave us a chance to hold an all play all fun club night in which Marek confirmed his status of our top board by winning all of his 5 games.
In the Kalmar cup and Kalmar shield however we have had disappointing early exits this year. The scorecards from these games along with a match report from Andy Coe are to be found below.;
Kalmar Cup 4/11/19
Winwick
V
Culcheth
Richard Clissold
0-1
Tom Vout
Dave Stuttard
0-1
Stephen Cole
Simon Myles
1-0
Andy Coe
Ken Johnson
1-0
Mike Rotchell
Stephen Carr
1-0
Nick Burriss
Winwick progress
3-2
Culcheth white on bds 2 & 4
Kalmar Cup match report (Andy Coe) v Winwick Monday 4th Nov.
Essentially I fielded a less than full strength team. They had their top players on show. Our combined grade was 724 I think they were in the 730’s. So we had the draw odds with us.
I (Andy Coe) lost to Steve Myles on bd 3 who has estimated grade 160, I had a good position up to move 18 but then blundered and lost quickly after that. 0-1
Steve Cole had good win on Bd 2 v Dave Stuttard
1-1
Tom Vout then had convincing win on Bd 1 with Black v Richard Clissold 2-1 to us.
Mike Rotchell was a wing passed pawn down in an endgame but both were in time pressure v K Johnson but in the end Mike lost the position 2-2.
Nick Burriss offered a draw to Steve Carr from an exchange up position but it was declined as Winwick would have lost the match on lower grade count. The position was complicated and Nick was very short on time. Unfortunately he blundered rook in scramble.
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.
