On 6 March this very local Division 1 derby took place. The A Team were without several of their regular players but the B Team was, by contrast, oversubscribed. So one of the B Team’s stronger players, Andy Coe, was loaned to the A Team ensuring that they out-graded the B Team on four of the 5 boards.
The first game to finish was my Board 4 encounter with Bryan Slater, who had spectacularly won his two most recent league games and was clearly in great form. By contrast I had won only 2 of my 10 games this season, albeit most of them had been against players graded significantly higher than me. But chess is a great leveller and having lost one pawn, followed swiftly by the loss of another Bryan conceded.
On Board 2 Ilya Dubov was playing Black against Keith Maudsley and opted for his favourite Caro Kann Defence. Ilya has had a terrific first season with the club and also at Blackpool, but Keith is an immensely experienced, resilient and resourceful player. Perhaps it was no surprise that this encounter ended in a draw.
The B Team was assured of at least a share of the match spoils when Nick Cooke overcame Dan Robinson in a see-saw encounter on Board 5.
Victory for The Mighty Bees was achieved in a thrilling game on Board 3 in which Jonathan Miller built a winning advantage against Andy Coe only to dissipate it in time trouble. But for his slips on moves 53 and 54 the winning margin would have been even greater.
Last, and by no means least, was the game on the top board between Tom Vout and Damian McCarthy. (This game is unannotated as of yet may come later! My only comment would be that it was a classic case of “Too many Rooks spoiling the broth”)
Apologies for the tardiness of this long overdue update.
On 28th February our A team travelled over to league leaders and defending champions Atherton in what would likely be the title decider.
In our previous meeting it had been Atherton who emerged the victors by a single board, since then however we had boasted a perfect record and Atherton had conceeded one drawn match against Northwich. Hence going into this fixture we trailed then by a single point so the title was still in our own hands.
The first result of the evening came on top board where I myself (Damian) was up against Martyn Hamer. I adopted a belt and braces approach to this game conscious of being severely outrated I figured a draw would be a decent team result. Martyn offered this after a very brief skermish from the opening where for a moment I thought I might be better, but he easily parried my Ng5 idea.
I played Ng5 thinking it forced black to play g6 with an advantage. However Martyn played the stronger h6! Intending to meet Bxf6 with hxg5.
0.5-0.5
Robert Furness was up against Tim Hilton on board two, this game also reached a peaceful conclusion shortly after the opening.
1-1
The remaining games were more dramatic and my only regret is I failed to obtain scoresheets afterwards from the players. If any of you have them to hand still I can perhaps add them to this post later?
Tom Vout was up against Bob Newton, from what I saw of the game it seemed to me that Tom might have been slightly worse for a phase but then suddenly he obtained attacking chances against Bobs King and Bob was forced to return material to stay in the game. If you look at the image below you can see Tom with his Knight wedged in on f6 and Bob looking rather uncomfortable! In the end Tom took a perpetual and the game ended in another draw.
1.5-1.5
Tom Vout V Bob Newton
On board 5 Andy Coe played a fine game and was up a pawn, his opponent how ever put up stubborn resistance. In the end the clock became a factor and with under a minute left in which to convert Andy’s game resulted in nother draw.
2-2
Andy Coe (right) was pushing throughout
The final game to finish was on board 4, where Keith Maudsley was making his welcome return to chess after a long absence due to the pandemic. He was in for no easy task up against oposition captain Lee Kay. Lee’s rating must have taken a minor blip last season because in previous years he would likely have been on at least board 2 in this Atherton line up, therefore Keith’s task was even harder. Nevertheless Keith took the game right to the bitter end and as the lat game to finish Atherton finally got over the line to win the match 3-2.
Lee V Keith
Thanks to all that were involved and congratulations to Atherton whom barring something dramatic happening will be well deserved 2021/22 WDCL champions.
After a long gap between matches the quirks of the WDCL fixture list threw up two games in a week for the A team.
We began with a home match against the recently resurgent Northwich chess club. We had unfinished business here as earlier in the season Northwich unceremoniously (but deservedly) dumped us out of the Peninsular Cup by a thumping scoreline 5.5-0.5. Therefore we had a score to settle.
Damian was the first to finish against Charles Metcalfe, my opponent adopted a solid, but perhaps a little bit cramped setup from the opening but soon into the middlegame his position became somewhat difficult and under some pressure I was allowed a win of a piece. 1-0
The second result took a fair while later to arrive but Jonathan finally exploited a nice tactic to win material against opposition captain Richard Betts. Richard decided to resign soon after 2-0.
Ian Dutton on top board was up against a familiar foe in the James Harrison, they were meeting in their third clash of the season. Previously Ian had achieved a draw and a win against James, this time around was a balanced encounter with Ian launching pawns forward on the kingside but at the same time facing some queenside pressure in return. Eventually the players agreed to a draw in a balanced position 2.5-0.5.
Ian V James Harrison
Marek’s game on board 3 was wild. A piece down but with pawns running out, for a time it seemed very likely to me that Northwich’s new star find player Liam Daly would be forced to demonstrate checkmate with Bishop and Knight V lone King. Fortunately for Marek, Liam could not quite get the game to this point and Marek was able to build a fortress on the dark squares. Liam accepted the game as a draw which got us over the winning line 3 – 1
I didn’t catch the final moments of Robs game but by all accounts it was a bit of a time trouble tragedy. After playing a nice game there was an unfortunate Rook blunder which narrowed the final scoreline to 3-2 in our favour.
Winwick A V Culcheth A – 17th January 2022
Just five short days since our win against Northwich we were again in action against Winwick Chess Club. Our line up was unchanged except for Ian Dutton rotating for Tom Vout.
As was the case in our previous game Damian was first to finish, my opponent conceded the bishop pair early in the game but thereafter set about trying to create a dark squared pawn structure to compensate. Doing so however involved an awful lot of pawn moves so I couldn’t resist going in for an exchange sacrifice as it seemed to me positionally justified. The computer suggests in actual fact Rxf6 would have squandered my advantage if Black had defended more accurately. See what you think of it from the game below. 0-1
Tom Vout, who was making his A team debut for the season was in fine form against Ben O’Rourke. Ben played a Scandanavian opening against which Tom responded in classical fashion. The game ended in the early middlegame with Black’s position completely blocked in on the back three ranks and King stuck in the centre. 0-2
Simon Myles (left) V Jonathan (right)
Jonathan Smith going into his game was 3/3 for the season, he was facing Simon Myles who is a handy player himself on the top board. The position seemed fairly balanced when Jonathan went for a stroll around the room, seeing that we were 0-2 up with decent positions in the remaining games Jonathan offered a draw which was quickly agreed to. I suspect if the match situation had been different the game could have continued on quite easily. 0.5-2.5
Smith V Myles final position, plenty of chess was left in this one
Marek was the only player on the night that seemed to be facing a few problems against Richard Clissold. I’ve attached a portion of this game below for you to play though, Marek comfortably steered the game to equality and secured the match winning half point. 1-3
Richard Clissold (left) v Marek Mazek (right)
The final result came in well after the others, in a levelish looking middle game Ken Johnson must have misevaluated as he decided to recapture on f4 with his rook saccing an exchange. Rob saw deeper then this however and after a series of exchanges Black emerged a whole rook to the good. After this a bit of manouvering was required to recoordinate his pieces but once done Ken Johnson resigned a move before checkmate. 1-4
Robs Notes from this game below
All in all a successful week for the A team, we now look forward to our next match away at Atherton in what will likely be the decisive match for the Warrington League Division 1 title…
