The first league match of the new league season in Leicestershire is here! An exciting time for Anstey’s third team as this was our debut match, and the team for this match was made up of quite a few juniors! An exciting time for the Anstey chess club, and for the future of chess too. The team for this match was made up of Valdas Matutis, Leo Abraham, Noor Datoo, Aarav Sinha, and John Graham-Brown.

The team Braunstone had brought to Anstey was quite strong, and the average grade difference between each board was 265 rating points. The average rating of either team was Braunstone with 1459 and Anstey with 1195, so Anstey being the underdog by a long shot. However, that doesn’t stop us from playing chess, and it didn’t that fateful evening.

Board 1: Vijay Gulab plays white; Valdas Matutis plays black

Valdas plays a solid opening to his opponent’s e4 Nf3 opening, and the Valdas gains a good pawn structure in the opening. Valdas attempts to give the game some tension with d5, but his opponent rejects the idea by playing e5 and locking the centre. Later on, Valdas activates his queen and Vijay allows Valdas to take two pawns for free, which allows Valdas to open white’s queenside and start to take advantage of how much space he’s been given.

Much later on, Valdas continues to press his attack and tries to trade off some pieces, however, the position looks a bit more equal that it did in the opening. There was a cheeky tactic Valdas missed and he has to give up a piece, meaning that Vijay had a piece up in the endgame and Valdas later resigns. Not a great start, but Valdas put up a good fight still. Anstey 0 – Braunstone 1.

Board 2: Leo Abraham plays white; Shaun Wilkinson plays black

Leo played his traditional e4, and his opponent responds with a Pirc defence. Early on, Leo miscalculates, and unfortunately he had to give up a rook for a minor piece. This didn’t mean Leo was a piece down, but it did mean he had to give up a good quality piece for a slightly worse piece. No matter, Leo continued to play the game, and he locked the position with his pawns to minimise the impact of the extra rook his opponent had. With a rook up and down a minor piece, black had a difficult time as the rooks can’t attack through the gaps of a pawn structure, which can mean he was down a piece himself.

However, there began an opening of the h file, which Leo couldn’t allow and he lodged the position once more with his kingside pawns. There was still play on the kingside, but it was difficult for black to make many impactful moves, especially with Leo’s knights being so powerful. Shaun saw this, and he decided to offer Leo a draw and Leo gladly accepted. Shaun and Leo had a pleasant conversation after the game, and Shaun did admit that Leo played better than his rating was letting on. Anstey 1/2 – Braunstone 1 1/2.

Board 3: Guy Closs plays white; Noor Datoo plays black

The game started out with the common e4, e5, Nf3, and Nc6. The game then transposed into the Giuoco Piano center attack, where white has a comfortable space advantage, but black has some play as well as white. The game continued with white launching a queenside attack on black, and it became a very positional game, where each player made slight improving moves to hopefully grind down their opponent. The game continued as a calm disagreement between two gentlemen, and there wasn’t many pieces being traded off too quickly.

As the position slowly approached the endgame, the grind still continued and the time was showing this, as board three was the last to finish playing out of the five. Speaking of time, Noor had some time advantage at the beginning and this only grew and grew as the game went on. With white’s time slowly but surely decreasing and the game continued to be positional and complex. Time would tell who won this war between men, and Noor finally won by white resigning. A great win by Noor, as he defeated someone who was well over two hundred points above himself. Anstey 1 1/2 – Braunstone 1 1/2.

Board 4: Aarav Sinha plays white; Steve Barlow plays black

In Aarav’s game, the opening was the Petrov Defence with e4, e5, Nf3, Nf6, but the centre pawns weren’t taken straight away. Aarav did have a few tactical tricks up his sleeve with Bc4, and black responded with the passive h6 trying to prevent any fried liver tricks. However, Aarav still has Nxe5 which still enables him to put pressure on the f7 pawn, but black has a good defensive resource which is d5. Unfortunately for Braunstone, Steve didn’t find d5 and instead plays queen to e7, which blunders bishop takes f7 check.

Aarav decides not to go for this and instead plays d4, a good alternative move to try and keep the knight in the centre. Black plays Nc3; Aarav plays Bf4, and black takes trying to avoid the pressure of the knight. Though, Aarav takes with the pawn instead and attacks the f6 knight because the knight is trapped. Fortunately for Steve he has queen to b4 check and he can pick up the light squared bishop for the knight. A few improving moves later and Aarav makes another great move: knight to d5, which forces black to play defensive again with Bd6. Aarav plays e5 and this is not a good position for black at all, in fact the computer gives a +9 for white’s position, which is equivalent to black losing a queen for nothing.

However, in the absolutely terrible position for black, it could be worse and it does become worse! Black takes on e5, enabling a bishop trade which Aarav takes. Black maybe up a pawn but Aarav will be up a queen with rook to e1, pinning the queen to the king. Black defends the queen, Aarav takes, black takes back, and knight takes c7 means it is forced mate in 1. Black resigned and walked straight out of the room to go to the nearby pub. One hell of an exciting and fantastic result for Aarav! Anstey 2 1/2 – Braunstone 1 1/2.

Board 5: Hatle Mehta plays white; John Graham-Brown plays black

The game starts off with d4 and d6 and begins to turn into a London system game, but John accidently loses a pawn with e5. After d takes, John goes d5 leaving his opponent with doubled pawns on the e file, which could be good in the long run, so maybe John was playing a gambit rather than simply losing a pawn. Pieces are developed normally for a few moves, then John notices he can take on e5 meaning white’s bishop hangs and is forced to trade bishops, meaning John is up a pawn and his knight can safely retake the bishop. A very nice tactic by John.

As the game continued, John managed his development very well, as he placed his knights on squares where they were attacking and defending his pawns against white’s overly aggressive queen. John ended up being in a near equal position with his opponent, who was 500 rating points above John, so a very impressive start by John!

As John wanted to press the attack even further than he had done, John pushed his pawn to attack one of white’s knights. White responded with quite a good move to attack John’s queen, and John took the knight. In response, white took John’s queen giving up two knights for the powerful piece. John honourably played until the end of the game, when his opponent checkmated John with two queens. A great start by John, as he managed to get an almost equal position after the opening, and the computer gave his position +0.2 at one point, so a fantastic first league match for John!

Final Words

The result finished on a draw with 2 1/2 points to Anstey and Braunstone, so a great first match for Anstey 3 by drawing against a team that was significantly higher rated. As a captain, I am very proud of the team for playing so well and giving it their all. Even though there were loses, it still doesn’t change how well everyone played and how many winning chances we had against a strong opponent. This only means that we have strong potential as a team, as individual players, and as a club. I am proud to say I am a member of the Anstey Chess Club! The next match will be against Loughborough’s third team, and, if we play as well as we did against Braunstone, I have strong confidence that we can defeat Loughborough.