Anstey 1 secured their third straight win in the Chapman Cup with a comfortable victory away to Loughborough. At the halfway stage of the competition, we have a two-point lead over Braunstone.

Planning for the match began early with a discussion between captain Matt and board 1 Julian over colour choice should we win the toss with Julian deciding he wanted to be black (less psychological pressure!). It suited our team choice as John and Mike would be white and Matt also black.

We turned up to the venue early to find the doors didn’t even open until 19:30 so be the time we were in and the boards setup it was nearly 19:45. Loughborough fielded a fairly strong looking team out rating us by 354 points. That did mean we’d have ½ point lead due to the handicap system so we’d only need two points over the board to win the match.

We won the toss for colours, implemented our plan of black on odds ands settled in for the battle. Well, I say settled in, it was a warm night so the back door was open and clearly Wednesday was also the campanologists club night and the church bells were ringing out, lovely but loud. That wasn’t the only musical disturbance of the night as a little while later the folk music club struck up and a bit later still jukebox music came on in the function room. So not conducive for great chess, maybe we should all get ear defenders like Julian!

On to the action. It was a tense start with all the games looking fairly even. Mike on board 4 finished first with a great win over his albeit young but highly graded opponent, Kajus Mikalajunas, the 193 rating point differential being the biggest on all the boards. Mike wheeled out his trademark English 1. c4 and proceeded to deliver a positional masterclass, creating doubled isolated black pawns on both the c and e files and winning a couple of pawns in the process. Black’s kingside attack never really got going with Mike defending easily, nullifying the attack and trading off pieces to leave him three pawns up in a king and rook ending. Black battled on for another 20 moves before eventually capitulating. This game was both the shortest (timewise) and longest (number of moves) of the night so there was some rapid play going on. Nonetheless, a great start. Loughborough 0 – 1½ Anstey.

The next game to finish was John on board 2 against Stephen Morris, with John outrated (on paper) by 91 points. In a cagey Indian Game, Knights Variation with  2…e6, all the knights came off and the pawns  blocked up the position. With neither side having had any advantage, a draw was agreed much to John’s relief after the musical distractions. Loughborough ½ – 2 Anstey.

Matt was outrated by 111 points against Jim Miller on board 3 but having not lost with the black pieces all season was feeling confident. Playing his usual Philidor setup he came out of the opening with a slight advantage with a nice black squared bishop on a7 eyeing the juicy f2 pawn after white had castled long. With his king’s rook stuck on f1 defending the pawn white decided that maybe 0-0-0 was a mistake and marched his king to c2 to d2 to e2 back to the kingside. This allowed Matt to bring his rooks to d8 and e8 and exert pressure down the central files, bearing down on the white king. White then played the natural looking Kf3 to unpin and shore up the defence of the under-attack e4 pawn. Unfortunately, this allowed Bh5 skewering the king and rook on d1 followed by the delightful Nd3+ and Nxf2 taking advantage of the x-ray pin.

White resigned a couple of moves later ceding Anstey victory! Loughborough ½ – 3 Anstey.

This left Julian on board 1, the only board where we outrated Loughborough but only by 41 points. Henderson Mullen opened with the Reti which morphed into English Opening, Caro-Kann Defensive System with Julian’s setup. He got away with a slight oops in opening with 8. … Bd6, white missing the plan of Nd4 and Nb5:

White made a couple of further inaccurate moves and the game settled into an even middlegame. Even though the position was level there a few tactical skirmishes that Julian played with aplomb and ended up with a draw-ish rook and pawn ending. A few moves later a draw was agreed, cementing the match score line: Loughborough 1 – 3½ Anstey.

Overall an excellent result and we are nicely setup for the second half if the competition!