The next challengers of the Anstey third team is none other than the current top standing team in the division: the fourth Ashby team. They are on a current winning streak of three out of three matches, and we are aiming to break that streak! The players for tonight’s match are (in board order, starting on board one): Ben Vaughan, Bob Grindrod, Mike Griffiths, Aarav Sinha, Oskar Rudczenko, Yuvraj Sadhra, and John Graham-Brown. A lot of players for a chess match, which is always welcome, and a lot of players means good games are even more likely.

It was a good evening, even though el captain was slightly late for the match, but we got sorted out quick enough after the captain’s arrival. Ashby brought a strong enough team for us to play against, with most of their roster being 1500-1400, with a few players between 1300 and 1100.

Board 1: Ben “El Presidente” Vaughan plays white; Dominic Lennon plays black

El Presidente’s game starts off with the carro-kann defence exchange variation. Although black seals in his light-squared bishop with e6 after the pawns are exchanged, so it’s a bit of a carro-french hybrid with the so called “french bishop.” A knights and bishops start to get developed with bishops taking d3 and d6 positions, and Ben brings his other bishop to g5 pinning the knight to the black queen. A few moves later, Ben’s rooks are on the f and c files, then black black decides to develop his queen to b6, and Ben mirrors this on b3. However, black then shys away from this move by playing his queen to d8, allowing Ben an extra tempo to improve his position further. Ben talked about maybe developing a big attack with his queen and bishop, threatening mate to tie down black’s f6 knight, then putting more pressure on the d7 knight by playing knight to e5.

However, Ben being human, makes the knight e5 move first before making the battery and then black shoos the queen away with pawn to a4, meaning he can’t have the queen infront of the bishop, so the game continues as normal, but with Ben having a small advantage. Although, Ben gets a big advantage soon enough when his opponent traps his own knight, leaving Ben up a full minor piece! Black retakes with his queen, and Ben then improves his other minor pieces with tempo attacking black’s vulnerable queen. Then, Ben makes good progress on the queen-side of the board with bishop to b5, knight d4, and queen b3. Black then tries to take back the initiative with f6 to break down white’s pawn structure, but Ben plays bishop to c6 x-raying the bishop and rook. Black takes on e5 anyway, and Ben takes back with the rook. The bishops are traded off and Ben brings his knight in.

However, Ben thinks he has blundered his knight as queen to d6 is played, but he can just play pawn to b5 solidifying the position for white. Ben unfortunately doesn’t find it and plays rook c to e1, and gives back the material advantage. Ben takes a few pawns an black makes a threat to check the king with a queen and rook battery. Not seeing a way forward, the players agree to a draw and shake hands, so it’s an even start for Anstey vs. Ashby with half a point each.

Board 2: Tom Gerrard plays white; Bob Grindrod plays black

Bob plays the french and his opponent chooses to follow the advanced french, and we get a normal french set up where the c pawns are traded off, and there’s always these ideas for black to play queen b6 and knight to f5 to put more pressure on the d4 pawn. Both players develop a few more of their pieces, and Bob fianchettoes his dark-squared bishop and white plays knight to a4, which attacks black’s b6 queen and defends b2. Bob then goes queen to c7, but then Tom plays rook to c1 to pin Bob’s c6 knight to his queen, so Bob feels obliged to play queen to d8. Tom centralises his knight, and (soon after this) Bob plays h6 to try and kick away the bishop on g5, so white re-positions the bishop to f6 to challenge black’s dark-squared bishop supported by the advanced e5 pawn.

After this, a couple of minor pieces get traded off, and Bob wins a pawn, which supported white’s bishop. After the scrap, both players reposition their queens, and white begins to attack. Firstly, bringing his rook down to c7, and then pushing his kingside pawns to try and dislodge black’s defences. Fortunately, for Bob, his opponent didn’t see a game winning tactic, where he can sack his rook for a pawn, and if Bob retakes with his queen white can fork the queen and king with a bishop. Bob then realises this is a threat and retreats his king back to the 8th rank of the board.

After this, the g file gets opened up and Tom goes for a few tactical plays, which finishes with Bob’s backwards e pawn getting put under heavy fire. Trying to equalise, Bob tries to encourage a queen trade by checking white’s king, but both players miss another supposedly winning move, which is king to h2, because the e pawn is just under too much pressure and the attack opens up black’s position. However, these two are not computers, so they trade queens and the position equalises, just as Bob wanted. Both players use their two rooks to capture pawns, both rooks are traded off after a few more moves and both players agree to a draw with only one pawn each. A white pawn on g5 and black pawn on a6. Now, both teams have a point each and it’s time to go to board 3 with Mike Griffiths.

Board 3: Mike Griffiths plays white; Jamie Rhodes plays black

Mike started off with his usual english opening, and his opponent responded, “soundly but passively” as Mike himself put it. After some time and trading some pieces, Mike was a pawn up in the middle game, and the game proceeded very evenly. Both players traded off some more pieces, and eventually got into a rook endgame. Mike states he had quite a few chances to force a stalemate and call it a night, but he decided to risk a loss and tried to go for a winning endgame. Mike had 3 pawns and a rook; Jamie had two pawns and a rook, but black had a passed pawn.

Unfortunately, Mike had to sac his rook for the newly made black queen, but he did still have two passed h and g pawns against black’s king and rook, it was still all to play for. Mike managed to herd black’s king away from the pawns, and he managed to slowly but surely advance his pawns towards black’s side of the board. Eventually, Mike managed to queen one of his two pawns and it was a rook vs queen endgame, and some time later Mike forked both black’s king and rook. Black had not much choice but to resign as a queen, pawn and king vs a king is a convincingly lost game. Mike admits he took a risk going for the win with such a tight game in his hands, but it was surely worth the risk as he had won the game and given his teammates a lead in the match! It is now two points for Anstey, and one point for the leading team in division four: Ashby 4.

Board 4: Mick Brown plays white; Aarav Sinha plays black

The game starts off with a d4 d5 opening, with Aarav playing an early bishop to f5, and with white playing a catalan set up with knight f3, e3 and c4. Both queenside knights are developed to the c6 and c3 squares, and white shuts down black’s dark squared bishop with c5. White then starts to attack black by pinning the c6 knight to the king, but Aarav stops the pin by castling kingside. Now there is no reason for the bishop to be on b5, so white takes the knight and Aarav retakes with the b pawn. Then, white castles before launching another attack with queen a4, this time attacking the c6 pawn. Aarav defends the pawn with his own queen, but white jumps the knight into e5, which wins the pawn as Aarav cannot defend the pawn with anymore pieces.

Knowing this, Aarav offers a knight trade with Ng4, but white takes on c6, which attacks Aarav’s e7 bishop and the bishop repositions on g5. Although, something went completely wrong with white’s calculation, because Mick moves his knight to e7, checking the black king but also blundering his knight as Aarav has bishop takes e7. What was white thinking? White then scares off the g4 knight and the black knight repositions on h6. White retreats his queen to play b4, and Aarav attacks in the centre with e4, supported by the bishop on f6.

However, this weakens black’s structure too much, and white plays e4. Aarav has to take with the d pawn, but white doesn’t take back yet and plays bishop takes h6, which means both bishops are piled on top of each other and both without protection. This allows for the fatal f takes e4 as the f1 rook skewers the bishops. Aarav takes on d4 with his e pawn, and protects the dark-squared bishop over the light-squared bishop. White continues the attack, but keeps holding on.

White trades the bishop and knight off, which allows his queen to join the attack. However, Aarav still defends well and with a few more shuffles of rooks and queens there’s not much white can do to gain a solid advantage. Aarav was on the cusp of losing, but pulled through against a player who is 300 rating points above Aarav. Both players agree to a draw, making it two and a half for Anstey.

Board 5: Oskar Rudczenko plays white; David Holmes plays black

Oskar starts with d4, preparing to play the jobava london. However, his opponent plays b6 most likely preparing to play the owen’s defence, so Oskar follows the theory for the next move, but black then prepares to fianchetto his other bishop too. Confused, Oskar just plays basic chess and develops his pieces to decent squares and gains centre control. Oskar castles queen side to line up a rook battery down the board with the queen on d2. With the occasional waiting move, Oskar gradually makes space and gains an advantage quickly because of this, as well as tempo from his opponent’s confusing play.

Starting to get impatient and thinking about attacking, Oskar plays e5, attacking black’s d6 pawn, blocking the dark-squared bishop, and stopping black’s knight from developing at all. Black doesn’t take and instead castles queenside, leaving the pawn on e5 and hang over the black position as black later plays d5, completely closing the centre. Oskar carries on forward, beginning an attack on the kingside and using pawns to break through black’s position, but black starts to panic and starts pushing his queenside pawns. Oskar tries to take advantage of this as he sees a very nice outpost square for his knight on c5, so as black pushes his pawns Oskar repositions his knight.

Black’s pieces are stumbling over each other and Oskar’s pieces have as much space as they’ll want. With a failed attack on the queenside, Oskar switches right back to the kingside and breaks black’s structure with a quick g4 and this opens up a very nice open file, the only open file. Oskar takes control immediately and doubles rooks, whilst black trades off the powerful night, but Oskar replaces the knight with a pawn, still freezing the position and black’s hopes of drawing. Black tries to defend from Oskar taking black’s pawns but Oskar still keeps going.

After a rook trade and a captured pawn, black goes all into the white position and abandoning the king. Black then secures winning a pawn, but Oskar need not worry as their is an imminent mate on the black king. However, Oskar misses it and pins the rook to the queen, but white checks the white king which wins the queen. Oskar still has some hope as he has a knight and rook working together, but white has a forced mate in 3 that Oskar needs to take care of, but he misses it and black wins with seconds to spare on his time. Damn… it is now two and a half for both teams.

Board 6: Graham Bird plays white; Yuvraj Sadhra plays black

Yuvraj faces a b3 opponent and plays e5, and Graham plays e3 so Yuvraj plays the principled night to f6. White develops his knights and so does Yuvraj, which makes one question why mov b3 in the first place. Yuvraj continues to develop his minor pieces, and white does so too. Yuvraj moves d5, but as soon as he does his opponent pins the black knight to the black king. Yuvraj castles kingside, which is when he loses a pawn to the short sequence of bishop takes c6 and knight takes e5. Yuvraj’s knight gets replaced with a bishop, but this makes the e5 pawn weak and so the white knight can take on e5. Yuvraj scares the horse away with queen to d6, and white simply puts his knight back to f3.

Now, Yuvraj offers a trade of knights, and white accepts but Yuvraj replaces the knight with a pawn, which is where white mis calculates and moves his knight to g5. Yuvraj’s dark-squared bishop covers g5, so white loses a piece. White tries to make something from the loss of a piece by playing queen g4, x-raying the bishop and the g7 pawn, but with a simple bishop to f6 the g7 pawn is defended well enough. The bishop move also attack white’s rook, so white has to move the rook to b1, and Yuvraj tries to trade queens but white doesn’t want any trading going on, so Graham moves his queen closer to the centre. Yuvraj won’t give up on a queen trade though, and still offers a queen trade. Yuvraj chases the white queen around for a few more moves until he forces the white queen in a corner and uses his bishops to herd the white queen into the path of the black queen.

Yuvraj takes the kind queen trade offer from white, and castles queenside leaving the board with a very early end game and with most pawns still on the board. Yuvraj mobilises his pieces and attacks the white position firstly with his pawns, then he starts to work his rooks into the position. Soon later he chops up the kingside and bullies the white king a little bit. A rook trade is forced by Yuvraj, and because of his extra pieces Yuvraj keeps taking white’s pawns and eventually he starts to push his pawns against white’s zero pawns. It was a long game, but eventually Yuvraj came through with a win and checkmated his opponent with a rook and king. Anstey are winning with a one point lead!

Board 7: John Graham-Brown plays white; Stephen Holmes plays black

John starts off with e4 and black starts off with the owen’s defence with b6. John develops appropriately and black goes for a small tactic by pinning the c3 knight to the king, so then black can freely take the e4 pawn. However, John seems to know what to do and defends the e4 pawn before black pins the knight, and when the bishop does arrive John simply unpins with bishop to d2. Black seems to have not acknowledged the e4 pawn is well defended and still captures the knight even though there is no reason to, so the game continues where John has a very small advantage with the bishop pair.

Both players develop their pieces, both sides castle and black tries to attack in the centre with c5. John takes the pawn and the d file opens up. Black places a knight on d5 and John takes advantage of this by pinning the knight to his opponent’s undefended light-squared bishop with his own bishop. Both players position their rooks on the d file, and after the position opens up a bit, the rooks are traded off along with quite a few other pieces, and not many pieces remain on the board for both players.

Black does eventually get an advantage though when white’s king becomes slightly more vulnerable, and black uses his queen to herd white’s king around the kingside of the board. John also attacks the oppositions king and he picks up a few pawns along the way, however, black might get a bit more than what John had intended as black moves his pawns up along with his king and John’s king. White’s king becomes locked into a position, by the black queen and the finishing blow by black with a pawn knocks John’s king out cold. This leaves the score with both teams having an equal amount of points (three and a half).

Finishing Lines

This match ended in a draw on the night of the match, but there was a bit of bad planning by the Anstey team as we used an illegal amount of players from the second Anstey team, meaning that we have to forfeit the top board, which means we actually lose this match. This incredibly disappointing result, means we are now in seventh place on the leader board in division four, but we have still did very well considering Ashby 4 are the top team in our division, and it was a night to remember as there were a lot of happenings. Such as, low time and moves being blitzed out. An illegal move was thought to have been played, but on closer inspection this was not the case, and a good night of social analysis from both sides. We may not have beaten Ashby this time, but this gives us an idea of the team’s potential.

The next match is against a new club of the league: Leicester University. We don’t know much about them, but we’ll find out soon enough what they’re made of. Until next time, bye bye for now readers.