Following a disappointing result in the reverse fixture, a determined El Presidente secured the win for his team

Last Thursday (16/02/2023) our second team travelled to Ashby for their away game against the hosts’ second team. A strong team on the night was elected by El Presidente Ben, who was joined by Brian The Griller, Boris The Toaster and the super-sub Just Mick. After a request from the home team to arrive slightly earlier in order to avoid disturbing the snooker players, The B-team was ready and set for their games at 19:25, waiting for the home team to take their places. The Ashby team was on paper (admittedly, based on September ratings) equal to our own Anstey 2, with average ratings of 1665 to 1660 in favour of the home team. The rating equality showcased itself over the board as well, with three games finishing with a draw on the night, but the valiant efforts of our chairman El Presidente secured our team the win on the night.

Brian The Griller Foreman (Anstey) vs Christopher Tipper (Ashby) 0.5 – 0.5

Our regular top board Brian The Griller was scheduled to play the solid Christopher Tipper who he drew in the reverse fixture. The home team captain played the Dutch against our teammate’s d4 which The Griller attacked with the Staunton gambit. Both players took their knights out to challenge the centre and Brian threw another pawn in the battle for the centre, exchanging it for Black’s e5-pawn. The pair of light-squared bishops left the board to hit the chess pieces’ pub and the players continued the battle for the centre. Brian’s knights put significant pressure on Black’s doubled isolated pawns on the e-file which his opponent tried to ease by opening the d-file and exchanging queens. After eleven moves of knight and pawn battle, the players found themselves in a completely drawn position (literally 0.0 engine evaluation based on Stockfish 15, depth = 20, powered by chess.com) when The Griller decided to castle kingside (K-side). Both players finally decided to start developing their armies with the Ashby player castling queenside (Q-side), and with the open central files and still plenty of pieces on the board along with opposite side castling, it looked like there will be fireworks on board one, albeit in a drawn position based on the engine evaluation. Surprisingly, Brian decided to offer his opponent a draw and being the captain of his team, the Ashby player went to check the other boards. With the second board players already agreed the draw and gone through the game analysis, he was not satisfied with the match situation and decided to think about it, only to eventually succumb to the pressure and accepting the half point.

Although it was a shame to stop the game at a dynamic point after only 15 moves have been played, brilliant strategy was showcased from The Griller which eventually paid off.

Paul Gibson (Ahsby) vs Borislav The Toaster Lazarov (Anstey) 0.5 – 0.5

Although Boris The Toaster found himself in the same team as Just Mick, the close rating between the two players granted the latter the opportunity to get the white pieces only for the third time this season. And in all fairness, there was fire on board 3 throughout their game which will be discussed below, but in a nutshell Boris was scheduled to play on his regular spot on board 2. The website maintenance guy was facing again Paul Gibson in a rematch from the reverse fixture. The Ashby player opened with the king’s pawn which was met by Boris with his regular Caro-Kann defence. White engaged in the Exchange variation and played an early Bf4 which was followed by normal development from both players, following book lines until move 9 when the Ashby player decided to retreat his dark-squared bishop to g3 following an exchange offer. Our teammate took the bait and doubled his opponent’s pawns on the g-file, and after a quick “engine move” a6 and White castling K-side, The Toaster played a rather dubious b5 instead of tucking his king to safety with 0-0 (K-side castling). White hurried to occupy e5 with his knight which led to the light-squared bishops shaking hands and leaving the board, followed by a pair of knights. Looking to quickly equalise (completely oblivious of the fact that he already had secured a slight advantage a few moves earlier before the dubious b5), Boris offered an exchange of queens. White instead attacked the black g-pawn, and with the open f-file and the threat against the f6-knight in cases of short castling or the rook protecting the pawn, The Toaster’s only good move was to move his king to f8, which surprisingly he found. Our teammate followed with another best move to kick the queen away, and then gave his opponent a 1.9 advantage with equal material with a weird-looking Ke7. Fortunately for Boris, his opponent never looked on the queenside to activate his knight and pawns, and instead shuffled his major pieces, trying to create double and triple batteries on both the e- and f-files. The Toaster brought his major pieces to the party and held the fort throughout a shuffling sequence of four moves for each player, with our teammate offering a draw (still at +1.9 evaluation) which was refused with the words “Too early”. On move 24, White finally decided to bring his knight to b3, aiming at rerouting it to c5, only to face an exchange offer with Nd7 from Black. The Ashby player decided to exchange the knights, losing a fair chunk of his advantage based on the engine evaluation. With White trying to challenge the black pawns on the open files, it took four moves until the evaluation was complete equality, and after a couple more moves, at evaluation of 0.0 the Ashby player said “I would take that draw if it is still on offer” and the players shook hands.

A solid draw for our teammate who managed to escape a defeat with some timely play.

Just Mick Sandham (Anstey) vs Lawrence Hayden (Ashby) 0.5 – 0.5

Super-sub Just Mick was scheduled to play the solid Lawrence Hayden whom Ben drew in the reverse fixture. Unlike the top boards, Mick and his opponent engaged in a sharp battle, which was so intense, the board 4 players spent considerable time spectating. Our teammate’s e4 was met by the Petrov’s defence, led down the Four Knights game road and taken onto the Scotch route by the Anstey player. Black snatched the d-pawn, probably expecting from Mick to take back with his c3-knight, but the Anstey Tiger threw in his surprise weapon – the Belgrade Gambit. Looking at the sharp position on the board, the Ashby player mumbled that he has no idea what to do in this position, to which Just Mick graciously replied that he is completely lost and both players had a short chuckle, joined by their neighbours on board 4. (The Toaster probably would have laughed too, but he was busy trying to survive his opponent’s attack) Black brought his knight to b4, challenging the strong white d5-equivalent in the hope that Mick will take it and give Black the opportunity to develop his dark-squared bishop. Our teammate took the black d4-pawn instead and after a series of exchanges, two knights left for the stables and Just Mick emerged a pawn down. Although the engine evaluation slightly favoured Black early in the opening, Mick played energetically and started pointing all sorts of pieces towards the opposing king, developing his dark-squared bishop and queen quickly, and castling Q-side with the idea to start his typical K-side attack. Black managed to “park the bus” and stay solid, deterring the white pieces from storming just yet. Just Mick slowed down just for a second, playing h3 instead of the recommended by the engine h4, giving again slight advantage for Black based on engine evaluation, after which the Ashby player managed to ease up the pressure slightly by exchanging the second pair of knights. This gave our teammate the opportunity to gain a tempo against Black’s light-squared bishop, followed by a queen swing to the Q-side, looking to infiltrate the back ranks of Black’s position. The Ashby player looked to activate his bishops which were aiming at the white king from their long diagonals and pushed f5, giving our teammate a slight advantage (still a pawn down), but Mick missed the opportunity to either bring his light-squared bishop to the party or open the position in front of the white king, and instead pushed his g-pawn, giving back the advantage to Black. Nevertheless, the energetic play from our teammate had his opponent on the back foot, and Black tried to exchange queens and ease up the tension. Unfortunately, in the crucial position Just Mick missed two interesting ideas – pushing a4 to control b5 (preferred by the engine) and continuing the K-side expansion with h4. Instead, Mick played his rook back to d1, X-raying the black queen, but easing the pressure exerted on the black light-squared bishop. This gave Black the opportunity to push his d-pawn and bring his queen to the party, eyeing now the fort in front of the white king with all his diagonal controlling pieces. Our teammate tried to shuffle his queen out of danger on an active square, threatening infiltration on the Q-side, but with a few pawn pushes the Ashby player cleared out the danger on the Q-side, gaining a crucial tempo in the process to pick up the white rook on h1. Just Mick finally developed his light-squared bishop on c4, hitting the black equivalent on e6, and the black queen on h1. There was only one good move for Black – Qb7 which would have given him a -7.7 advantage, but low on time the Ashby player did not find it and instead took the second white rook on d1, followed by a bishop exchange on c4, ending in a +1.3 position for our teammate. With both clocks running down, the players were moving quickly, and Mick missed the crucial pawn push b4, challenging the Q-side pawn structure to open lines for the powerful white queen, and instead gave his opponent a tempo to bring the black a8-rook into play. At the end, in a -0.8 position, two points of material down, and hearing that about 0.87 seconds earlier Ben had won, our teammate offered the draw. His opponent thought of taking is straight away with about 3 minutes left to play (quite tricky when you have a queen vs two rooks on the board), but the home team captain reminded him that this would mean a loss for Ashby. There was a short discussion between the two of them, and eventually the Ashby player took the draw.

Another spectacular game from Just Mick, who is looking very sharp over the board these days. And the author must admit, games like this and the following one are what brings him joy when doing the reports.

Les Fancourt (Ashby) vs El Presidente Ben Vaughan (Anstey) 0 – 1

The bottom board game was El Presidente Ben against Les Fancourt. Our chairman was looking to get a revenge for the loss in the reverse fixture and it is fair to say that he did just that in a splendid manner. Our captain met the 1.e4 from his opponent with his characteristic French (used to be, now he plays the Scandinavian). The players engaged in the Advanced variation, with our teammate challenging the centre immediately and bringing his b8-knight into the action. His opponent played the Paulsen attack with Nf3, and El Presidente replied with Bd7, leading the game into the Euwe variation, easily equalising, albeit with less space. The players continued their development with Bd3 and Qb6, and after White took on c5, giving Ben the opportunity to develop his dark-squared bishop with a tempo, the Ashby player castled K-side. Our captain on the night immediately put pressure on the lonely e5 pawn which had to be supported by a rook move. White looked to create counterplay by expanding on the Q-side, but El Presidente’s “engine move” a6 stopped the expansion before it went too far into Black’s territory. The players focused again on the central battle, with the white dark-squared bishop and black e7 knight joining the party, when Ben decided that his king needs to be moved somewhere safe and also castled K-side. Finding himself with almost a +1 advantage at the end of the opening/beginning of the middlegame, White developed his last minor piece with Na3 in an attempt to continue his expansion on the Q-side. Our teammate shuffled his pieces and created a battery on the c-file, while White continued to push his Q-side pawns, losing his advantage and gaining it again in a matter of a couple of moves. The white c-pawn kept marching down the board in an attempt to restrict the black dark-squared bishop, but our teammate created a nice battery on the b8-h2 diagonal, hitting the still lonely and weak white e5-pawn. Instead of going after full expansion with the engine recommendation h4, White decided to push his b-pawn and the battle on the Q-side started. El Presidente wisely decided to bring his e7-knight back to the queenside with a timely Nc6, blocking the white light-squared bishop and leaving his opponent with a close to terrible pawn structure, with weak e-pawn and isolated a- and c-pawns. Looking a little flustered by the great manoeuvring skills from the Anstey captain, the Ashby player blundered his a-pawn and gave our teammate a -1.4 advantage after the dark-squared bishop picked up the pawn with a tempo. on the e1-rook. Unfortunately, Ben lost a fair chunk of his advantage after he brought his bishop back, although he himself knew that Bb4 is the correct move (which was reflected on his scoresheet where he wrote “Bb4?”). The players shuffled rooks and queens in a four-move sequence where El Presidente had two opportunities to pick up the e5-pawn, but none were executed. Eventually, the pressure on the Q-side proved to be too great for the player with the white pieces, and he exchanged his light squared bishop for one of the black knights, giving our teammate a -1.4 advantage, with White being down a pawn, and having two big weaknesses on c5 and e5. Ben immediately attacked the c5-pawn and in an attempt to defend it, his opponent blundered the exchange by lining up his queen and rook on the d1-a4 diagonal, waiting for the black light-squared bishop to attack them, but our captain saw what he described as “ghosts from Qxb7” which otherwise led to a queen exchange, followed by Bxc2 Nxc2, leaving Black in a winning position at -4.6 evaluation. Instead, El Presidente attacked the a3-knight with a queen-led battery, which his opponent defended with Rc3, only to be hit by the top engine move d4, followed by Be4, restricting the d3-rook’s ability to defend the knight and X-raying the second white rook on b1. Seeing that the exchange is lost, White attacked the black queen with his knight, losing the c5-pawn, exchanging the knight for the black dark-squared bishop, and losing the exchange in a resulting position, evaluated at -7.0 by the engine with Black up four points of material. Naturally, our teammate immediately offered a queen exchange which was naturally declined, only to be seconded by a forced rook exchange on the weak back rank. The rooks were swapped off and Ben mercilessly started pushing his d-pawn towards d1, supported by his queen and rook. With the white minor pieces paralysed on f3 and g3 since move 13 (currently at move 36), the white queen tried its best to contain the pawn, but it was too little, too late. White shuffled his queen on the first rank, but eventually sacrificed the knight for the d-pawn, moving the minor piece for only the second time that evening. Finding himself with a bishop, a queen and four pawns against the overwhelming combination of a queen, a rook, a knight and five pawns (one of them a passed pawn), the Ashby player threw the towel.

Another excellent performance from our chairman, who is having a great season so far and deservedly occupies the second place in the Anstey performance rankings.

A happy team left the venue shortly after 10pm and headed to the team buses. After this result, Anstey 2 find themselves on third position in Division 3 of the Leicestershire Chess League. In their next fixture, the team will be playing against the leaders Loughborough 2 who are flying high with their youthful talented team, but after a narrow loss in the reverse fixture, the B-team will be looking to get another win under their belt.