Credit goes to OskarRud and Bobideco for this report.

Quite a nice evening of chess this was, and a little celebration as Yuvraj had won the minor section of the Atkins Congress rapidplay in Mountsorrel on the 15th January. Everyone clapped as he entered the club, even the Ashby 5 players clapped for him; no hints for future away teams visiting Anstey ;).

Anyway, the games started just before 7:30pm, and each team had six players this time. Those fighting for Anstey (in board order starting at board one) were Bob Grindrod, Noor Datoo, Aarav Sinha, Yuvraj Sadhra, Oskar Rudczenko, and John Graham-Brown. It was a fairly evenly match night, with Bob outgrading his opponent by 130 rating points. Like in a lot of the Anstey 3 matches, a lot of our boards were outgraded by their opponents but still a strong team as we have drawn 5 of our 8 matches so far. Hopefully we’ll win one or two, which should help us to finish in the top half of the scoreboard.

So let the games begin! I wonder how Bob on board one will do.

Board 1: Mick Brown plays white; Bob Grindrod plays black.

With Ashby requesting six boards, Bob from the B-team stepped up to the occasion and played against Mick Brown from Ashby. Our teammate met his opponent’s d4 in the Trompowsky lines with his usual d5-based reply, only for the players to see a transposition of the Bg5 Classical variation of the French (“El Presidente” will be proud of you, Bob). Bob’s opponent decided to exchange his bishop for the f6-knight and expanded on the dark squares, thus squeezing the range of the Bob’s own dark-squared bishop. Our teammate replied by chasing away the white e4-knight with a pawn push after a few developing moves, and before long, the players had castled opposite sides in anticipation of a hectic attacking game. Our teammate tried to prepare his pawn storm, but after some manoeuvring from White, our teammate found himself in a piece shuffling battle instead. Both players tried to gain some sort of positional advantage through the latter shuffling with White attacking Black’s c-pawn while Bob was trying to get his pieces on active attacking squares while not blundering anything. Eventually, the bishops and a pair of rooks were exchanged and found himself controlling the open file, our teammate rushed with his knight to start the attack, falling victim to the Steinitz rule and freeing the remaining white minor piece, which laded on d6, supported by the long chain of pawns starting from h2. Due to the restricted area of influence of the black pieces, our teammate could not start a successful pawn storm and after evaluating the draw-ish nature of the position (in spite of the engine liking White more with +1.0 evaluation) the players decided to avoid blunders in time trouble and shook hands agreeing to a draw. A solid draw for Bob.

Anstey 0.5 – Ashby 0.5, next was Noor with an almost certain win (because he basically always wins this season)

Board 2: Noor “The Prodigy” Datoo plays white; Eden Watts plays black.

Flying high, in form Noor was scheduled to play 150 points (on paper) higher rated Eden Watts. Always the tactical player, “The Prodigy” opened with e4 and leads the game into the Italian opening. His opponent immediately gave up the advantage with slightly dubious pawn pushes and having the superior development, Noor offered a bishop exchange early in the game which Black covered with his knight. Our teammate missed the opportunity to engage in a long forcing sequence, emerging a full rook our of it, and instead exchanged his bishop for the opposing knight and immediately put pressure on Black’s advanced e4-pawn which he subsequently won with one of his knights. Black tried to pressure our teammate’s knight, creating a battery on the g1-a7 diagonal, only to find his bishop trapped and only able to exchange itself for the white knight. A beautiful tactic followed by Noor who temporarily sacrificed his light-squared bishop for a the remaining black e-pawn, only to take it back after a check which both disrupted Black’s king safety and restored the material advantage for our teammate. The Ashby player activated his rook and started harassing the white lady, but after some outstanding manoeuvring, “The Prodigy” tucked his queen into a safe position, preserving his g-pawn and material gains in the process. Given plenty of tempi by his opponent, Noor seized the opportunity to consolidate his position and activate his pieces and before long the white queen activated itself and picked up the black b5-pawn. Flustered by the power of the white lady, the Ashby player tried to create a counterattack against the white king, only to fall victim to a beautiful checkmate in one, delivered swiftly by “The Prodigy”. Another win for Noor who is flying high in the Leicestershire league this season.

Anstey 1.5 – Ashby 0.5. Aarav was on the next board looking to come back on the winning path.

Board 3: Neil Roberts plays white; Aarav Sinha plays black.

Aarav was scheduled to play 180 points higher rated Neil Roberts from the opposing team. The players opened with their King’s pawns and before long our teammate found himself facing the Ponziani Opening – an opening previously regarded as dubious but regaining popularity nowadays, with IM Eric Rosen being one of its famous proponents. Aarav replied with (I am fairly certain he is perfectly aware of this) the Jaenisch Counterattack (as per chess.com evaluation), and the players started mobilising their forces. While White was busy trying to support his weak(ish) e4-pawn with his queen and d-pawn, our teammate decided to castle quickly and strike in the centre with d4. The Ashby player pinned Aarav’s knight with his dark-squared bishop, only to be chased away to an unwelcoming diagonal and after the black lady unpinned herself, White found nothing better to do than to push h3 and wait for the Anstey player to lead the game. Found himself with a slight advantage based on the Stockfish 11 (depth = 20, powered by chess.com) evaluation, Aarav chose to advance his d-pawn, giving his opponent the opportunity to close the centre. White ignored this opportunity and instead decided to go after Black’s e-pawn, currently weakened by the positioning of the f6-knight, but this plan ended up being too slow, as our teammate started an expansion in the centre, trading his dark-squared bishop in the process and placing an amazing knight on d4, attacking both the white queen and light-squared bishop. Moreover, the remaining white knight was completely stuck on the first two ranks, resulting in an evaluation of -3.67 in Aarav’s favour. Unfortunately, Aarav missed the opportunity to force open the centre and pick up White’s d-pawn and continued his Q-side expansion instead. The Ashby player finally managed to equalise at move 17 after tucking his king away on the K-side, but our teammate continue to be active, bringing his a8-rook into the game and continue with pushing his Q-side pawns. However, White manged to activate his knight, supporting his a-pawn and stopping the backward black c-pawn in the process while also putting pressure on e5. The Ashby player decided to give up the good positioning of his knight in order to pick up the latter, and after some solid defence from Aarav he managed to activate his position himself and attacked the white king position with his queen. After White defended, our teammate offered a queen exchange which the Ashby took, having the extra pawn. Unfortunately, Aarav missed the opportunity to take a huge advantage by picking up the white bishop with a check and instead took back the queen with his h-pawn. In a few moves, White accumulated a significant advantage, only to fall victim to his greed and lose the exchange due to a beautiful knight fork from Black. The players entered a tricky endgame where material was equal, but immediately the evaluation bar started playing a tennis game as both players were struggling to navigate the best plans according to the engine. Nevertheless, after a rook exchange Aarav managed to equalise and did a lovely tactic to win one of the bishops. Unfortunately, with the time going, White managed to consolidate his position with a7 and Bb8, leaving Black only the option to try and checkmate the white king with his rook and king with limited help from the remaining black bishop, but under the time pressure, the players agreed to a draw. Nevertheless, an excellent comeback for Aarav in a very hard fought game.

Anstey 2 – Ashby 1, next was “The Silent Destroyer” on board 4.

Board 4: Yuvraj “The Silent Destroyer” Sadhra plays white; Joshua Cherrington plays black.

The game starts with e4, e5 and the opening is a four knights game along with bishop c4 and bishop c5. Both players mirror each other, or black mirrors white for a few moves. However, we get some differences when black decides to castle kingside, and white puts his queen on e2. We get a couple of different pawn moves as well and we get another mirror with both players offering a bishop trade with bishops going to e3 and e6. Yuvraj castles queenside and black takes a trade of light bishops. Both players refuse to trade dark bishops and Yuvraj pushes his c pawn in front of black’s dark bishop forcing Joshua to play bishop a5, which points the bishop towards Yuvraj’s c3 knight. Yuvraj doesn’t move his knight and instead plays queen to b5, which means when black takes white’s knight Yuvraj ends up with a slightly open king, which is more vulnerable to attacks.

Now this is where a lot of trades happen: Yuvraj takes most of black’s queenside pawns, and Joshua takes white’s centre pawns. Afterwards, Yuvraj trades his dark bishop for one of black’s knights, and takes another pawn. Then black offers a queen trade, but Yuvraj refuses and his rook and knight get forked by a pawn. Yuvraj then moves his rook to assist his queen, and Joshua takes on g2 with tempo (attacking white’s rook on h1). Yuvraj pins black’s knight to his queen and there isn’t a way to save the knight, but black plays queen to a6 which attacks the a2 pawn and covers f1 which is also covered by black’s rogue pawn on g2. Yuvraj doesn’t see this and he has to sacrifice a rook for a queen, which black gets back after the g2 pawn promotes.

From this point forward, it is checkmate in 13 moves for black. To Joshua’s credit he does follow the mating line very accurately for 5 moves and being 1200 that is quite impressive. However, Joshua trades queen’s instead of trying to carry on mating Yuvraj, which makes sense because black is up a rook, which means he can still win even without a queen. Black threatens mate in 1 and Yuvraj sacs his rook to make a getaway for his king, which is the best move according to computer but it’s not a great position for white. After some rook shuffling and pawn pushes, Yuvraj resigns. Yuvraj did do quite well throughout the game, but I think it was his greediness to capture black’s pawns that got the better of him.

Anstey 2 – Ashby 2. How is el captain getting on?

Board 5: Graham Bird plays white; Oskar “El Capitan” Rudczenko plays black.

The game starts off with d4 and d5. Graham plays an unusual bishop to e3, and the game transitions into a french defence for black. However, Oskar doesn’t take on d4 with his c5 pawn, he pushes the pawn to c4, which locks down white’s position and makes it quite difficult for him to move his pieces on the queen side. White launches a knight forward to e5, and Oskar castles his king out of harms way. As Oskar retreats his queen to c7, Graham moves his knight forward to fork black’s bishop and queen. However, Oskar can check white’s king, which is still on e1, and unless white wants to lose the knight he has to move the knight back to c3.

Oskar then takes the lonesome knight on e5 and gains a pawn for his troubles. Then, Graham moves his bishop off of e3 and right to d4 to offer a trade of bishops, which Oskar is okay with, but he moves his knight to defend the bishop so he can trade on his terms. The bishops then have a short starring contest, until Graham throws a punch with f4 trying to dislodge Oskar’s bishop and it works. Oskar has to move his bishop or trade, which he admits he should’ve done instead of keeping the bishops on the board as the bishop starts to get quite annoying.

Graham then threatens a check mate in one, then tries to pry open black’s position with f5. However, Oskar moves his knight in to attack the queen, which Graham gladly trades off with his bishop. Although, Graham doesn’t manage to follow up on his attack, so tries to defend but this gives Oskar some time to defend his position and fix his pawn structure. Both players start to shuffle their pieces, but white then sacrifices a rook for a bishop and pawn. However, Oskar wins back the pawn straight away, and pushes a pawn up to f4, fixing his bishop into white’s position.

Oskar takes the open file with a rook, and white moves the knight forward which he must’ve been glad for because Oskar moves the other rook and blunders a fork on his rook and king. Down an exchange, Oskar replaces the locked bishop for the rook, and white moves the queen but this blunders a piece. With one push of his pawn this opens Oskar’s queen on white’s king whilst the pawn attacks another piece. Suddenly, this leads to a mate in 6, but Oskar doesn’t have to take the piece to checkmate. It’s a simple queen move to g3 to start the mate, but Oskar doesn’t see it (being a human not a computer) and takes the piece because why not.

A few moves later, Oskar offers a trade of queens to help his chances of winning, but black declines and moves his king out of the pin to move his queen. This is even worse, as Oskar can now pin the queen to the king with a rook. After some consideration, Graham resigns in a position that could lead to a mate in 8 moves. What a game, and Oskar had the advantage for most of the game according to the computer. White had a good chance in the middle by playing e4. This would make black’s centre pawns would crumble as Oskar had insufficient defending pieces on his d5 pawn. Lucky for Oskar white didn’t see this, as this would have been disastrous for him.

Anstey 3 – Ashby 2. Finally, lets take a look at the enduring John on board 6.

Board 6: John Graham-Brown plays white; Brian Wood plays black.

The game starts off with a sicilian defence style of opening with John putting his pawns in the centre and black opening lines for his bishops to develop quickly. John plays quite principled chess and Brian plays quite defensively, and John immediately being aggressive with e5, kicking the f6 knight away and black places it on e4 with the support of the fianchettoed bishop on b7. They trade knights and John castles whilst trying to create black weaknesses by trading pawns with his opponent and repositioning his knight to double attackers on the lonesome c5 pawn. As he repositions the knight, white’s knight attacks the over extended black bishop, which black has to retreat, allowing John to improve his position more so without much challenge.

Black tries to open the position, even though his king is still on e8. John sets up a bit of a trap to win a pawn, however, black places his queen on f6 allowing John to fork a bishop and queen, which forces black to trade a bishop for a knight. This occurred with John’s rook on d1, black’s bishop on d6, and John’s knight on d2. Although, according to the computer, it may have been better to play knight to b3 as this is winning material (a pawn) rather than trading material… probably. The computer is a lot stronger than most people, so I don’t really know; I’m just guessing. Just like everyone else really.

Anyway, John activates his rook and Brian finally castles. John wins the pawn anyway, and Brian threatens mate in one. John swiftly deals with this by playing g3, and black tries shuffling his bishop a couple of times as John relocates his queen. John hits the queen with his bishop, and goes for a very nice sequence of trades. John’s bishop x-rays a black rook through a white rook, and John’s rook can take a black bishop, so this allows John to trade a rook for a bishop but then trade a bishop for a rook. Quite fancy looking, and I’m quite glad and surprised John spotted this. John really is showing us how he has improved at chess, and John even had the upper hand for most of the game (quite a big upper hand too).

Although, with a couple of moves and pawn pushes later, John hangs a bishop, then a pawn, and then a rook. Not a great turn of events, but John does not resign. Again, John’s endurance shows itself, even in the face of a mate in 8, which Brain doesn’t spot as he’s not a computer; he is only human. On move 34 black had a mate in 6 and he started to follow the mating pattern, but it is quite a difficult mate to spot as the position doesn’t look like there is an imminent mate. However, the game continues and black does not know how to mate John. John stays fighting even when his king is in the centre of the board, and after almost 60 moves John is mated in the centre of the board. One eventful king chase that left the white king literally running for his life.

Anstey 3 – Ashby 3. Lets take a look at how this has effected the Leicestershire league scoreboards.

Final Words

Unfortunately, Anstey could not get a win, however the team’s position in the league doesn’t actually go down and nor does it stay the same. Anstey actually go up a place on the board as Leicester Uni haven’t played their 9th game yet, so briefly this puts Anstey in 5th place out of 9 teams. Considering how Anstey have faired in previous seasons, it’s a lot better of a season than they might’ve imagined.

Once again, Ashby were a good set of players and had great sportsmanship too, not allowing their graceful reputation to budge. It was a great night of games, and an Ashby player stayed later than the rest to, so a couple of us played some games with him. We had a laugh after the match, tasting some polish jaffa cakes with the resident ginger GM.

The next match Anstey has is an away match against Braunstone 3, and this too might be a good match as we have some good players and Braunstone have some good players. For now, it’s a good bye from us, and we hope you enjoyed the read. Take care folks!