The first away match of the new season for the third Anstey team, and it was a very interesting one! All sorts of things happened, and you’ll get to read all about it in this week’s recap of the Leicestershire Chess League.

Anstey 3 played Melton Mowbray 3, and the Anstey team this time was Borislav “The Toaster” Lazarov on board one followed by Noor Datoo on board two, with their team captain Oskar Rudczenko playing on the third board. You maybe asking yourself why I’m only mentioning three out of four of the team’s players, and I’ll get to that when we talk about board four in this report. Melton Mowbray brought quite a solid team to challenge us, and their was good sportsmanship from both captains as we agreed to only play one player, who was rated 1600. Every other player would be our normal team players in division 4.

With the context explained, and suspense exuded, lets jump right into the games!

Board 1: Borislav “The Toaster” Lazarov plays white; Quentin Jacquemard plays black

Normal d4 opening with black adopting a semi-slav set up, and with Boris being very aggressive on the kingside as he pushes f3 and g4 to attack black’s light-squared bishop. The bishop retreats and black is forced to push h6 to protect the bishop, and Boris encourages a bishop trade which black accepts. Black then offers a trade of dark-squared bishops and Boris takes the time to develop his last piece (aside from the rooks) and black trades bishops leaving only brave knights on the board of 64 squares. Black has a slight space disadvantage with his knights slightly further back than white’s knights, which are firmly in the centre or attacking the centre. There is no tension on the board, for now…

On the very next move, black creates tension by playing e5, which attacks white’s d4 pawn. The tension is left there as both sides develop their knights to better squares and both sides push pawns and trade a pawn each. Boris makes some tension on the kingside with g5 attacking black’s h6. Black calmly castles queenside, and the standoff in the centre and kingside is still on-going. Black moves his knight to attack Boris’ queen, x-raying the d4 pawn with the rook to white’s queen. Boris says no and moves his queen to attack the f7 pawn with rook and queen, also attacking an undefended knight. Black offers a knight trade with exd4 attacking the c3 knight. Boris moves his knight and black has hxg5 defending his knight with the h8 rook.

Boris puts more pressure on the f7 pawn with his knight, and black plays rook d-f8 defending the f7 pawn. Boris then thinks he should take back the centre by playing rook takes d4, and a few improving moves later black solidifies his f7 pawn and Boris has two rooks on the d file. Black makes some counter play to attack the e4 pawn, but Boris defends and all the four knights get traded off leaving equal material for both sides with two rooks and a queen each. Boris makes black’s queen retreat and moves his queen forward. Black intercepts the white queen with his and Boris retreats his queen all the way back to g1 to allow black a fork of white’s king and e4 pawn. Boris, being a pawn down, nabs one of black’s pawns, but this unfortunately leaves his rook hanging even though he has doubled rooks, as he can’t retake because a black rook would checkmate on the back rank on e1. Boris resigns leaving a taste of disappointment in his mouth. Melton 1 – Anstey 0.

Board 2: Peter Smith plays white; Noor Datoo plays black

This game starts of with the usual e4 e5 with Nf3 and Nc6, Bc4 and Bc5. The last two knights come out to play and both players solidify their pawns with d3 and d6, an identical position for white and black. Although, when white plays h3, Noor breaks the mirror with Be3, offering an exchange of the light-squared bishops and white takes as Noor has to take with the f pawn. Noor’s pawn structure is slightly damaged, but it’s nicely placed behind two protected pawns, so it might be an asset in the future. White castles kingside and pins the f6 knight to the queen, and Noor says, “no you can’t do that.” Noor plays h6 to say, “go away bishop.” White then retreats the bishop back to d2, and the game continues at Noor’s disposal as he now has the initiative.

Noor finishes his king’s development by castling queenside. White manoeuvres his knights to try and set up a more defensive position, or to re-route the knights and Noor plays g5 with rook d-g8 to start a kingside attack. White mostly ignores this thinking everything is well enough defended and plays c3, trying to make some counter play in the centre and Noor continues his attack on the kingside. A couple of trades are made, and both sides have one less knight and pawn in their armies, which leaves Noor’s rook on g4 looking directly at white’s king, and the computer marks this position at about -4.2, which is a significant advantage for black!

Although, the position is only -4.2 if white plays g3, but white instead plays d4 and basically says, “where’s your attack? Come get me!” Something you really shouldn’t be saying partly because it’s rude, but now the position is -5. Noor can play exd4, which again leads to more exchanges and Noor would have a big advantage. Although, Noor has other ideas and doubles his rooks with rook h-g8, and white plays knight g3, which guards the king for now. Noor plays exd4, white plays c4, Noor plays d3, and white plays queen to e1, which blunders a knight as the only thing guarding the knight was the f2 pawn. However, the pawn can’t take because the bishop on c5 is pinning it to the king. White plays king to h1, and now it’s mate in 2 moves, because the h file is completely open. The black queen can go to h4 with check, then the white king has to go back to g1 and rook takes g2 is mate because the black rooks are doubled.

A terrific game from Noor as he beat an opponent, who was just under 200 points above Noor! Melton 1 – Anstey 1.

Board 3: Oskar Rudczenko plays white; Peter North plays black

The first moves of the game are e4 and e6, so we get a french defence with d4, d5 and then e5 from Oskar. Black immediately goes for c5 to try and disrupt Oskar’s pawn structure, but Oskar says, “no mate, I’m playing c3. I want to keep my pawn structure intact.” Black responds with, “okay, I’ll attack your d pawn with Nc6, Qb6, and Ne7, Nf5.” Oskar is in a bit of trouble unless he plays Be3, keeping everything together, but he plays Na3 and black gets scared and doesn’t take on d4. Black instead plays a6, which gives Oskar a chance to play Nc2 and everything is solid in the white position. Black develops his last piece to allow him to castle, and Oskar develops his rook to e1. Black castles and white goes wild with the move g4, trying to displace the f5 knight, but black goes Nh4 and is fine. Oskar does take the knight and plays g5, and black’s knight goes back to f5.

Oskar slides his king over to make way for rook to g1 in the future (possibly). Black takes on d4 with the c pawn and Oskar takes back with his c pawn. Then, black gallops his knight in the middle of no where to b4 trying to trade the c2 knight, but Oskar simply plays knight to e3 trying to displace the f5 knight. Black takes with the f5 knight and takes back with the dark-squared bishop, completing his development of his minor pieces, and black’s light-squared bishop (or the french bishop) is still on it’s home square. Although, black finally develops his light-squared bishop on the next move.

Now, a fight starts to materialise for the queenside, with some rerouting of black’s knight and then a trade of light-squared bishops is offered by black and accepted by white. Another trade of knights occurs leaving black with quite a nice looking connected pawn on the c file. Then, white tries to set up an attack on the kingside with Rg3, looking to double rooks, but black defends well and there’s not much happening for white’s attack. However, Oskar still does for the attack, even sacking a pawn and the game for it, as the computer says it’s -3 when black takes on b2 with his queen. A few moves later though, black forces a queen trade and both players consolidate and defend their position. Black tries to attack and get a past pawn moving, but Oskar comes in with some counter play that blunders his bishop, but black doesn’t see it so black defends from a fake back-rank mate.

The endgame becomes filled with blunders by both players as different tactics swamp the board, but Oskar is low on time and black thinks he’s won so the game continues as if nothing is happening. However, black makes one blunder that Oskar doesn’t miss, and that is f5 which can be taken with en-passent by the e pawn and the e pawn is protected on f6 and is now a past-pawn. There is of course a mate in two on the board, but neither player sees this. Low time; black assuming he’s won.

Oskar does win a few moves later though, separating the black king from the h pawn, taking the h pawn and making a queen with it to ladder mate his opponent, with seconds to spare on his time. Melton 1 – Anstey 2.

Board 4: Steve Martin plays white; Anstey player 4 plays black

Now, I (as the captain) had thought that Yuvraj Sadhra was playing, but I had forgotten that he is still in India at this time with his family. We did play with a player down, which means that the score was Melton 2 – Anstey 2, so we drew with a player down which is a pretty good result. It also means we could’ve won with an equal amount of players, but let’s not get into the nitty-gritty of these things, as I don’t want to make myself look too bad.

Final Words

With this match said and done, this puts Anstey in 7th place out of nine with two draws and one loss, which is a lot better than last year as we lost most of the games at the start of the last league season. Drawing for us is decent enough, but we always and will still try to go for some wins whenever we have a chance. Our next match is away in Ashby against the very friendly and welcoming Ashby Chess Club. Win or lose, it will be a good night!

See you all in two weeks.