One night, two matches, one point

One night, two matches, one point.

We played two matches on Tuesday, the Bs at home to the might of Clifton B and the Ds in Henleaze against Grendel. Like flâneurs of old I played a few friendly games at the club, strolled around the boards of the B team match, then graced the Eastfield Inn with my presence. Hence the match reports below show even less insight that I can normally provide.

Firstly the Bs. Most of the chess was above my intellectual paygrade but I did note the following: Patryk’s kingside pawns were compromised early and Chris swarmed into to secure point, however Matias did splendidly to beat Andrew (who has only lost twice this season – both times to Horfield B!) and that meant it was 1-1 on the top two boards. Nigel found himself having to defend passively without any scope for counter thrusts and was ground down by a strong opponent. Roger and Mark drew fairly early and Tom and Igor drew somewhat later. Prakash won a good game against Anton’s Grunfeld. All in all 3-3 is an excellent result for a much weakened team against a strong Clifton team with three 200+ players and a grading advantage averaging 25 per board.

The card looked like this:

1	Patryk Krzyzanowski (191)	0	1	Chris Beaumont (219)
2	Matias Candelario (187)	1	0	Andrew Muir (208)
3	Nigel Pollett (143)	0	1	Zygimantas Svitojus (202)
4	Roger Pearce (142)	.5	.5	Mark Dirnhurber (157)
5	Tom Holmes (140)	.5	.5	Igor Doklestic (149)
6	Prakash Chatterjee (124)	1	0	Anton Muller (145)
	Horfield B	3	3	Clifton B

Then the Ds. Mikey finished first (just before I arrived) and had put in a good performance in his first ever over the board game of competitive chess. He won material but Ken showed experience in a slightly difficult ending and mobilised his king well to trap Mikey’s king into a back rank mate. Alex was next to finish with an excellent win. John had endeavoured to attack down the f-file but with his black bishop off the board and his g pawn pushed forward to g6 his king was somewhat exposed. Alex positioned his pair of bishops on raking diagonals and then broke open the centre clearing the lines to the king. John’s only way to avoid mate was to give up game-losing amounts of material so resigned. Third to finish was Siobhan. Richard’s passed pawn was better than Sibohan’s and she had to give up a piece to stop it and with the extra material Richard eased to the win.

Piotr and Ben had played a game that became more and more closed. Piotr’s queenside pawns were broken but he secured them comfortably and created a passed protected pawn in the centre as a counterpoint. Neither player could see how to force the position without significant risk so a draw felt right. Mike did a good job in holding Roger in a rook and pawn ending even though he was a pawn down and short on time. His rook was more active and the threats stopped Roger being able to develop his position and push for a win.

So 3-2 down with one to go.

Graham and Zach’s game had been fairly even until Graham won the exchange but, Graham had (not unusually it must be said) used a lot of time and without an obvious route to a win Graham agreed to the draw with only three seconds left on his clock. Another match against a team that outgraded us comprehensively. Another defeat for the Ds. But a creditable one this time!

1	Ben Radford (134)	.5	.5	Piotr Zielinski (109)
2	Roger Hardy (129)	.5	.5	Mike Jennings (104)
3	John Paton (128)	0	1	Alex Dunn (111)
4	Zach Barry (UNG)	.5	.5	Graham Strickland (101)
5	Ken Moore (103)	1	0	Mikey Wright (UNG)
6	Richard Harris (102)	1	0	Siobhan Campbell (20)
	Grendel B	3.5	2.5	Horfield D

I was going to finish with some kind of Grendel/Beowulf link but I see that Mike Meadows beat me to it on the Downend website (https://www.downendchess.com/report/416).