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Anstey’s first Harrod cup team narrowly defeated Ashby 1 to claim first win for Anstey Chess club in the summer cups.

Following the slightly disappointing start for Anstey Chess Club in the summer cups(for full report from the first match from the Wylie Cup, click here), two teams were scheduled to start their Harrod cup campaigns. While Anstey 2 and their captain Oskar were expecting Ashby 3 in the Anstey Methodist Church, Anstey 1 travelled to the town with the small castle and the big Tesco across the middle-sized Aldi to meet their first team. Unlike in other situations in the past, this time the chauffeuring duties were neatly organised and around 19:15 the whole team consisting of “Just Mick” Mick, Boris “The Toaster” and Leo, led by “The Dark Destroyer” Matt in his captaincy debut, found themselves entering the home team venue despite the deputising captain’s parking skills. It took a while for the hosts to set the boards and clocks up and we had to wait until 19:40 when everyone realised that Leo’s opponent is playing casual games with club night participants, oblivious of his participation in the match.

In the meantime, “The Dark Destroyer” who was looking like a real-life Sith lord with his thematic black-coloured shirt, participated in the coin toss which he won. Loyal to his new (and hopefully) last nickname, Matt chose for Anstey 1 to play Black first, completely unaware of the disaster some of his teammates were going to make. The play started with no one even attempting to notate due to the Rapid format – 20 minutes per player with 10 seconds increment. Despite his reputation as a good rapid and blitz player, it only took a few minutes for Boris to find himself blundering a fork, losing a piece and creating a mess on the board. Kudos to the “The Toaster”, he did his best to make things complicated and try to get back in the game, but his opponent Brian has had too many runs around the block to fall for our teammate’s attempts to get back in the game and capitalised on his winning position. Eventually Boris realised that he is completely losing and resigned. Next to him, Leo was taking his time and found himself in a very complicated endgame where he had a knight against two pawns, with three more pawns and a pair of rooks still in the game for both players. It was a hard endgame to navigate, as Leo’s knight was completely stuck in enemy territory while his rooks were occupied trying to protect the remaining black pawns and to contain the white ones. Fortunately, Leo’s opponent slowly released the pressure and our teammate seized the opportunity to activate his pieces which started munching on the enemy pawns. At the end, Leo’s advantage was too great to contain and his opponent resigned. Which was good news as Mick was having an off day with Black himself and after a dubious piece sacrifice for two pawns he found himself down on material and under pressure. His opponent, unlike Leo’s, kept building up the pressure and with the initiative in his hands managed to take another of Mick’s pieces and then win an exchange as our teammate had to part ways with one of his rooks. Seeing that the white queen has infiltrated the seventh rank, our teammate decided that there is no chance for anything else and resigned. Meanwhile, Matt had a good game with Black against Ashby 1’s captain and managed to equalise easily in the opening. Unfortunately for “The Dark Destroyer” he never had the chance to create initiative or imbalance and after several moves to shuffle their pieces, the players started a discussion of who offered whom a draw and after a few minutes of deliberating both agreed to share half point each.

At half time, our players found themselves 2.5 – 1.5 down with Leo’s win and Matt’s draw keeping the hopes for turning the game around. The players knew that they had to work hard to do it and they did just that! All playing White in the second round, Anstey 1’s players went for the kill straight from the beginning.

Realising that he needs to wake up, Boris got himself a pint of Coca-Cola and sat for the second game with the intention to take his time and be solid. As customary for “The Toaster”, he completely forgot about his intention and started a surprising attack on the king side with g4, followed by h4. Our teammate followed a straightforward plan to then point towards the enemy king a knight, a bishop and a queen led battery on the h-file with 20 minutes still left on his clock when his opponent resigned. Leo was not any more merciful than Boris and played a sharp game with White. After a little piece shuffling in the opening, our most improved player in the last few months sacrificed a piece for the initiative and put immense pressure on his opponent. Leo did not wait too long for the compensation and used sharp tactical lines to pick up a lot of material at which point his opponent realised how desperate the situation is and swiftly resigned. Finding themselves in the lead, Leo and Boris watched the remaining games in the hope of their teammates securing a point to seal the deal for Anstey 1. “The Dark Destroyer” delivered as usual as this time he was not having any drawish positions and started positioning his pieces on strategic squares on the board with the idea of releasing great attacking potential. His opponent was manoeuvring the black counterparts to try and contain any issues but blinked first and provided Matt the long-waited opportunity. In his characteristic style, our teammate engaged in a short tactical sequence to deliver a beautiful “Dovetail” checkmate thus securing the win for our team. This left Mick who appeared to be slightly better in an otherwise drawish position. The players were playing in a very symmetrical way and pieces were exchanged one after the other, slowly creeping towards the draw. “Just Mick” managed to exchange a knight for a bishop, creating a slight imbalance in the hope of opening lines for his rook and bishop and dominate the clumsy knight. Unfortunately, our teammate blundered his bishop but managed to get compensation with a passed pawn creeping towards the eighth rank. Mick’s opponent had to sacrifice his knight leaving both in a drawish position again until the Ashby player made an illegal move with 47 seconds left on the clock. (Updated) What followed were between five and ten minutes of confusion where the whole crowd of match players and club night attendees were trying to add 2 minutes on our teammate’s time, unsuccessfully. Eventually the captains decided to reset the clock only to find out that unfortunately Mick’s opponent’s time was set to 47 minutes as opposed to seconds leading to further clock reset. Throughout the whole confusion the players were looking at the board and calculating which rendered the penalty slightly on the “not useful” side and emphasised the need for people trained and competent to set and adjust the time on all competitive events, as such issues are likely to occur again in the future. Obviously, Mick was not impressed by the whole clock situation and the frustration got the best of him as he continued playing quickly and without much thinking, missing a few opportunities to equalise in the process. Eventually, our teammate found himself in a completely losing position and with his opponent able to make up time, Mick resigned.

The proceedings were concluded and despite the slightly bitter taste from the last game, our players left the home team venue with smiles on their faces after a great win against a strong team.