Photography is credited to Oskar Rudczenko

Another night; another match. This time Anstey 3 play a home match against Melton Mowbray 3, but this time we’re hoping to get a win. Last time these two teams clashed it was a draw, but hopefully that doesn’t happen tonight as Melton have to default a board which means the score is already Anstey 1 – Melton 0 before the match even starts. Already a promising start for Anstey, and morale was boosted by the presence of the Anstey team 1 players as they play at home too.

For this match, Anstey 3 have Mike Griffiths, Noor “The Prodigy” Datoo and Yuvraj “The Silent Destroyer” Sadhra. All three are good players, but all three players are significantly outmatched by at least 80 elo points and with the most being 180 points. Who will win tonight? There’s only one way to find out, it’s time for the match to start!

Board 1: Ian Farquharson plays white; Mike Griffiths plays black

The game starts with an open sicilian, as Mike’s c pawn gets traded off for Ian’s d pawn. White develops his pieces on the queenside first, where as Mike tries to get his knights out and then prepare to castle. Just before white castles black trades knights with white and then both sides castle. Ian throws his kingside pawns at Mike’s king, which Mike doesn’t take very kindly to and sacs his light bishop to try and skewer Ian’s queen and king. Unfortunately there is no skewer as white can trade dark squared bishops. White manages to push his h pawn all the way to black’s kingside, and leaves it wedged between the h7 and g6 pawns making it an annoying thorn in Mike’s side.

White threatens mate in 1, which Mike spots and blocks it with his knight also serving to recentralise the off side knight. White threatens a fork and attacks Mike’s queen which Mike swiftly avoids and offers a queen trade. White repeats moves with his knight a couple of times and black trades queens and white retakes with a rook. Quickly after this, Mike moves his rook to c8 to take the semi-open c file, but white’s light bishop is monitoring the c8 square, which white promptly takes. Mike still has the c file, but is down a rook. Mike tries to win a pawn with his knight, but white offers a rook trade forcing to make Mike take or risk losing pawns. Mike resigns, which puts the score on equal terms.

Anstey 1 – Melton 1.

Board 2: Noor “The Prodigy” Datoo plays white; Peter Smith plays black

The game starts as an exchange philidor defence, where Noor retakes with the queen instead of the knight. Black of course develops his knight to c6, but Noor pins the knight with his light squared bishop. After black defends the pin Noor trades his bishop for the knight. Noor finishes his development and castles queenside. Peter shoves his c pawn into Noor’s face to attack the white queen, but Noor simply wipes it off by retreating his queen. Noor then presses the attack with e5, which forces black to take and offer a queen trade as Noor as a dangerous queen and rook battery all the way down the open d file.

Instead of trading queens, Noor moves his queen to the e file in front of his other rook, and black moves his to a5, which allows Noor to release a devastating and disgusting tactic of playing knight takes f7. Black cannot retake with his king otherwise he’ll lose both bishops, but he can’t retake with his light bishop otherwise it’s mate, so the only other move he can play is castles kingside. This minimises the damage a little as this is only a trade of a knight and bishop, but white is winning by a landslide. The computer thinks Noor’s current position is +13 in Noor’s favour. Although, there was a way Noor could try to win the bishop, which was to play knight to h6 check, which does still hang the knight, but if Peter takes it with his g pawn he opens up his king leading to a very dangerous attack against the black king.

The game continues with black pressing his pawns forward on the queenside, and Noor gathering his minor pieces around black’s king. Noor begins by trading his knights and then trading dark squared bishops, whilst black continues his pawn storm on the queenside. At this point, black doesn’t seem to care and is just allowing Noor to smash black off the board. Noor now uses his rooks to check the black king, and tries to create a mating net which Noor successfully does. After a rook trade, black continues his attack on the queenside, and at this point it’s now mate in 7, which Noor does find! Noor bring his other rook to the fifth rank, and one final blunder from black where he plays f5 and bring the position from mate it 7 to mate in 2. Noor finds it again, and black resigns. A very impressive performance from an already impressive player! Well done Noor!

Anstey 2 – Melton 1

Board 3: Steve Martin plays white; Yuvraj “The Silent Destroyer” Sadhra plays black

The game starts as a giuoco piano game, with Yuvraj’s dark squared bishop getting attacked by a couple of pawns before landing on b6. A move later white’s kingside knight goes back to it’s home square, which allows Yuvraj to threaten mate in one with queen to h4. Steve plays e2 and Yuvraj attacks the white queen with bishop to g4 and white responds by blocking the attack and attacking the black queen with knight back to f3. Yuvraj retreats his queen and trades his bishop for the knight and then trading queens to damage white’s kingside pawns structure. Although, white uses the double pawns to double pawn break through black’s centre on e5.

White continues to apply small amounts of pressure to black’s position, but finally Yuvraj manages to castle. Yuvraj centralises his queenside knight onto d5 with a check, so white moves his king to d2, which blunders a knight fork on b3. Yuvraj is now up an exchange which is a good improvement to his position. Yuvraj then goes after the lonely h pawn, but when white centralises his knight, Yuvraj tries to force a trade by checking the white king and attacking the central white knight. White’s king side steps the check and Yuvraj takes the white knight, allowing white to gain a protected past pawn.

Yuvraj then offers a bishop trade, but then white checks the black king and attacks a black rook. However, Yuvraj makes a fancy move by moving the other rook to c8 which offers a rook trade no matter how white takes. White refuses the trade and moves his rook, but this allows for Yuvraj to advance his rook with tempo on the white king. Yuvraj now moves his rook, but white makes another attack by threatening to win a pawn. Yuvraj doesn’t have to move his king to defend, but he does and he moves the wrong way, it’s now mate in 2 for white!

White takes the pawn with the rook, Yuvraj only has one move, but white doesn’t find the mating move! Instead of playing bishop to e7 check he plays rook to d7 check trying to find a discovered check on the black king to win some material. The discovered attack doesn’t quite work for white, as black can move the king to defend, but only now does white play bishop to e7 check and white loses a rook for free! White resigns and Yuvraj wins by the skin of his teeth! A bit of luck is all a chess player needs sometimes.

Anstey 3 – Melton 1.

Final Words

Finally Anstey 3 get another win! Which means we’re now in 5th place on the leaderboard rather than 6th! Well done to all the players of the third Anstey team for this great result! The next match we’ll be playing is on the 16th of March and we’ll be playing against Ashby 4, which is the top team in the league by 4 points, which is a huge margin. Not sure how we’ll do in that match, but we have been drawing a lot of teams, we have even drawn against the current second and third team (Loughborough 3 and Braunstone 3). We did have a close game the last time we played against Ashby 4 too, so who knows what will happen on the 16th.

Anyway, see you all after the 16th! I’m sure there’ll be some good games had not matter what happens, Ashby are always a good team to play against.