Anstey’s 2nd team travelled over to Heathcote Arms’ 1st team on a cold wintry night. Many of the Heathcote players are old friends of El Presidente and your author was very pleased with the warm reception received by the Heathcote fellows. It was also noticeable that the skittle alley had been refurbed and was warmer than usual with the radiators on. Peter Harrison engaged in a chat (or a Grilling) from The Griller and whilst The Griller and El Presidente waited for The Toaster and Noor to arrive, The Griller reported that neither of Heathcote’s top boards were available. The Heathcote boys were without Pete Harrison, ‘The Grinder’ John Manger and their new recruit from the former Red Admiral club, Andy Johnson. This meant that a few 2nd team players were required to step up and play for Heathcote’s 1st team.
First to finish was Noor with the black pieces on board 4. Noor faced off against the 2nd team captain and friend of El Presidente, Gordon Milner who was stepping up from the 2nd team. Noor himself was a substitute due to absences in Anstey’s second team with both Bob and Mike sunning themselves in warmer climates and Daddy Valdas being a Daddy and having a break from chess for a while. Such is the depth with our wonderful squad, we have a player with the quality of Noor stepping up. Without trying to sugar coat it, Noor had won in under an hour, leaving to get home at around 8:20pm and El Presidente wondered if he’d spent more time travelling than actually sat at the board. The game developed as a four Knights game with aggressive looking Bishops placed on c4 and c5.
Unfortunately, during the game neither player castled and Gordon played slightly passively allowing Noor some tricks and discovered attacks on the uncastled King of Gordon. The position to show you on the left is where Noor found the excellent Ng1!
A hard move to spot but a devastating one nonetheless and one that El Presidente saw Noor play when looking around the games. Ng1 was met with a raised eyebrow in an incredibly impressed way.
The moves that followed are … Ng1, Kf1 Nxf3, Kg2 Nh4+!, Rxh4 Bxd1, Resigns
An excellent result for Noor and Gordon said to me after the game at how impressed he was with Noor and how he shouldn’t have made the game tactical.
1-0 to Anstey
Second to finish was Boris The Toaster with the black pieces on board 2. Boris was facing another old friend of El Presidente Ray Beach. Ray usually plays board 4 so was stepping up to board 2 this time. The game opened with the Caro-Kann in response to Ray’s 1. e4. Instead of the ‘book’ 2. d4, Ray elected to develop his Queen’s Knight to c3 and defend his e pawn with d3 next turn. Both players quickly developed their pieces and both players got to the point where they could castle either side with Ray choosing to fianchetto his King’s Bishop on the light squares, facing off against The Toaster’s counterpart on b7. The exchange of a pair of dark squared Bishops created a doubled isolated pawn for Ray on f4 and both players spent time shuffling pieces to attack/defend. In the meantime both players castled Queenside. The game remained fairly even but The Toaster had a superb Knight on e4, reinforced with another one on f6.
Eventually, The Toaster was able to improve his position by grabbing Ray’s d pawn and f2 pawn, leaving the h pawn and Ray’s a, b and c pawns against The Toaster’s connected e and f pawns and a and b pawns.
Ray was on the back foot after this point as he was forced to give up an exchange and with the more powerful and active Rook, The Toaster picked up pawn after pawn and he didn’t miss the opportunity ending up with the powerful Rook and 3 pawns vs a Knight and a won endgame.
Well played to The Toaster who had been made to work very hard by the tough nut to crack Ray with a very even contest most of the way through.
2-0 to Anstey
Third to finish was El Presidente himself with the white pieces, facing off against Bill Roberts on board 3. Bill hasn’t been around chess for a while but was seemingly coerced into playing to help the team out. After the game, Bill revealed he hadn’t been in great health and we at the club wish him well.
The game opened with El Presidente’s favoured Ruy Lopez and Bill went down the line of the Steinitz defence with d6 and Bd7. Crucially, Bill didn’t take the bait of the e4 pawn after white castles. Both players developed with Bill trying an early b4 pawn push, allowing white to play d5 after his own d4 push. The Knight on c6 hopped from a5 to c4 and back to b6 at the cost of 3 tempi and his b pawn after cxb4 by white and an early +3.0 advantage. Bill shuffled his pieces around allowing El Presidente to increase his advantage as play entered the middle game where the advantage accrued by El Presidente gradually slipped away. Unfortunately by playing what looked like slow and steady moves were too slow and this led to an even game with an open c file and doubled Rooks opposed by Bill’s solid position and no way in for the Rooks.
The position to the left is after black recaptured the a pawn on move 28 and as you can see it’s very even with +0.7 as the evaluation.
Having jovially offered a draw before the game, El Presidente considered offering one but ploughed on and eventually reaped the rewards after a 58 move grindfest, picking up the vulnerable black b pawn and subsequently the backward d pawn and an inevitable queening of a pawn or two forcing a resignation.
Play was far from flawless from El Presidente but Bill has been a solid player for years and this serves as a reminder to evaluate the whole board when in a good looking position. Advantages take many forms – space, tempi and of course material. The accumulation of smaller advantages can be of bigger benefit than trying to force through a material advantage for little or no gain.
In any case, after El Presidente secured the win, it was 3-0 to Anstey.
Last to finish was Brian The Griller on board 1 with the white pieces. The Griller was playing against an old friend in the shape of Mike Cowley who usually plays on board 3. The game went down the Queens Gambit Accepted line where black tries to hold on to the c pawn that had taken the gambited pawn on c4 with b5, having already played a6. The Griller tried to chip away at this pawn structure with a4 and b3 and that’s what white will usually do. With white’s a, b and c pawns gone and black’s a, b and d pawns gone, white had some active pieces vs blacks slightly underdeveloped and un co-ordinated pieces.
In the position on the right, the game is only 18 moves old and Brian is about to play 19. Rxa8, winning the piece on a8. Notwithstanding that 19. Ra7 is slightly better according to the engine evaluation, the piece win is the move that all or most of us would play leading to a big advantage.
The Griller proceeded to improve the positions of his pieces – often with the gift of a tempo. Eventually, the pieces were traded off on b8, leaving The Griller a piece up and the massive advantage of a soft Kingside for Mike and after The Griller’s Queen swooped in delivering a host of checks whilst picking up two pawns, the only task left for the Griller was to warm his hand up and wait for a resignation. As both player’s clocks ebbed away and a host of moves were played, The Griller eventually managed to force a resignation by forcing a trade of Queens.
4-0 to Anstey and a clean sweep completing a superb result for the team.
El Presidente told the post match press conference:
We’re obviously delighted with the win and the 2 points for the team. We’ll look forward to seeing them all later in the return fixture as well as Heathcote’s 2nd team visiting the Anstey in the 4th division against our 3rd team. Well done to the whole team for pulling through in their games and the our quality told in the end as we out graded them on every board.
Hopefully I’ll be able to get a game of golf with Ray and Gordon in the future!
Anstey Chess Club 