The last match of the league season. It’s been quite the league for Anstey 3, a lot of new players and exciting games. A lot of the Anstey 3 players have gone up in rating, which is a great sign for the team and the club as we are attracting new players, and they are either getting better or already strong players. Anstey 3 have solidified their position in 5th place out of 9 on the division 4 leader board and, considering a lot of our players are new to league chess, I’d say it’s a good result.

Now, before this match, El Capitan had to show the ropes to a brand new player (Curtis) right before the match, as well as making sure everyone was playing at the right board. It was quite the busy evening with 8 boards and 16 players for one match, a lot of energy and chatter in the room ready for a good showdown between Ashby 5 and Anstey 3.

Board 1: Borislav “The Toaster” Lazarov plays white; Mick Brown plays black

The Toaster starts off loyal to the jobava london opening. Black adopts a more passive set up so Boris goes for a three pawn attack. Black tries to be aggressive by pinning both of Boris’ knights to his queen and king, and black trades a bishop for a knight. Black also plays d5 to continue his campaign against the white position, but Boris defends and castles. Both players improve their position with castling, moving rooks to more active squares and improving piece position. Boris counter attacks the centre with c5, and this starts a capture chain when black takes on d4, then Boris takes on d6 and both players trade dark squared bishops.

However, after black recaptures the pawn, Boris has to defend his position before retaking the black pawn. Black captures another one of Boris’ pawns but Boris makes a battery with rook and queen which pins the black knight to the black rook and queen battery. Black defends, but black loses a knight in the process. Black tries to start another offensive, but Boris jumps into c5 checking the black king with his queen. Black blocks with a knight and both players make a couple of improving moves. Boris moves his light squared bishop to a2 and launches a knight forward to put more pressure on f7. Black defends by placing his knight on d7, which is a little loose as the white queen is pinning black’s c6 pawn to the undefended black queen.

Boris spots this and reacts by forcing a trade of rooks off the board, and if black retakes Boris takes the d5 knight with his a2 bishop; black can’t retake otherwise he’ll loose his queen. As Boris goes for the rook trade, black resigns as he is down two pieces. Boris wins with a tactical advantage. Anstey 1 – Ashby 0.

Board 2: Jamie Rhodes plays white; Mike Griffiths plays black

White launches into the accelerated london system and Mike plays solid by linking up his knights and preparing c5. Mike plays c5 and takes the d4 pawn. White retakes and Mike takes the c4 pawn, which white recaptures, and Mike advances on the queen side with b5. White has to retreat his light squared bishop, which gives Mike an extra tempo to castle. White also castles and advances his own b pawn to b4, so Mike has to retreat his dark squared bishop to b6. Both of Mike’s bishops are on the b file aiming towards the white king.

Both players make improving moves and Mike repositions his knights to the centre of the board, whilst making sure they are still linked up. White advances one of his own knights in the centre and Mike trades off that knight with his dark squared bishop. Afterwards, Mike spots a tactic in which he can trade a knight for a bishop, so he goes for it. White’s pawn structure is slightly damaged on the kingside, but the f file has now opened up on white’s side. Mike takes the open diagonal pinning a white pawn aiming directly at white’s king. White offers a light squared bishop trade and Mike takes it to get closer and closer to an endgame.

Both players start to play around white’s pinned d pawn. Mike doubles his rooks in front of the pawn, and white sees not point in trying to defend it as Mike has enough resources to take it. Instead, white gives his king some loft, and both players trade a rook and a queen each. Mike tries to get the remaining rooks traded off, as he has a pasted e pawn and trading would give him a past c pawn too. White refuses the offer to threaten mate in 1, which Mike appropriating responds by playing g6 to give his king loft.

Mike plays a5 to break up white’s queen side pawns, which white allows and both plays now have one past pawn on the queenside. Although, this doesn’t last too long, as after a few advances and manoeuvres Mike offers a trade of pawns and both players trade past pawns on the queenside. Mike is now the only one with a past pawn on the e file, and he tries to trade rooks still and eventually he manages to force a trade of rooks. Mike also manages to get his opponent into zugzwang and has opposition against white’s king, which means he’s able to force the white king away from the e file. White resigns; Anstey 2 – Ashby 0.

Board 3: Noor “The Prodigy” Datoo plays white; Eden Watts plays black

Noor starts with e4 and black starts with c5, which and the opening position turns into a closed sicilian with black controlling a lot of the dark squares, and Noor controlling the white squares and having a vienna gambit position with e and f pawns on the 4th rank and knight on c3 and bishop on c4. The position quickly opens up as black plays d5 and when the e file opens black plays queen to e7 and Noor blocks with queen to e2. An interesting choice by both players. Noor pins the c6 knight to the black king and both players develop their queenside bishops. Noor centralises his c3 knight and a knight trade occurs, which helps Noor gain an advanced e and f pawns.

Black brings his queen back to d8 and Noor castles queenside and black castles kingside. Noor finishes his development by bringing his kingside rook and knight into the fight. Black chases away Noor’s light squared bishop from b5 and offers a light squared bishop trade. Noor doesn’t take, but firstly advances his e pawn a little further into black’s position and attacking black’s dark squared bishop. Black now trades light squared bishops and retreats his dark squared bishop to c7. Noor now pokes and prods at black’s kingside threatening attacks or mate in 1 multiple times.

Noor continues the assault on the black position with g4 after black plays g6 and h5. Black brings a rook over to h8 to defend as Noor takes on h5, and Noor brings a rook into the attack, which allows black to take on h5 with rook and attack Noor’s queen. Noor ignores this and threatens a queen and king pawn fork, but black does a desperado and sacrifices his queen for a knight before taking Noor’s queen, meaning black is up a piece.

Noor keeps attacking the black position and shreds open black’s pawns. Black’s king is vulnerable and Noor keeps giving checks forcing the black king out of comfort and into Noor’s territory. However, Noor gets a little greedy and doesn’t see a trap. Black sees the trap and checks Noor’s king a couple of times and wins one of Noor’s rooks. Noor keeps checking the black king trying to find a mate somewhere, and he has some progress doing this, but black wins more material with a knight forking Noor’s king and last rook. Noor resigns; Anstey 2 – Ashby 1.

Board 4: Ric Dawson plays white; Aarav Sinha plays black

White comes out with d4 and Aarav plays e5 trying to play the englund gambit, but white declines and advances his d pawn to the 5th rank. White carries on building around his advanced d pawn and Aavav plays around the advanced white pawns. Aarav tries to break up white’s pawns, but white fortifies the d pawn with the e and c pawns. Aarav develops a bishop and queen battery on f2, which white defends with queen to e2. Aarav develops his last knight and centralises his dark squared bishop to d4. White attacks the bishop and Aarav counter attacks the light squared bishop. Both players take each other’s bishops and knights, which results in Aarav having a disconnected d pawn behind white’s centre pawns.

Both players castle and Aarav repositions his knight a few times to get it into a good position and attacking white’s queen a couple of times. White advances his b pawn to break up Aarav’s pawn structure, but later advances the b pawn to the 5th rank and hangs his c pawn, which Aarav picks up with his knight. Both players advance their pawns (Aarav concentrating on the queen side, where as white concentrates on the king side). Aarav continues to advance his pawns but hangs his own a pawn, but after that white blunders his knight with check and Aarav now a couple of white’s centre pawns.

White tries to make counter play by trying to force mate in one, but Aarav has enough resources to make sure there is no mate in one. White tries to deflect Aarav’s queen from the defences, but Aarav defends well and creates a good attack, which opens up white’s king. Aarav still has to be a little careful as white still tries to threaten mate in 1 and infiltrates the black position, but Aarav makes just the right moves to defend.

However, Aarav’s resources run out when he moves his knight ready to checkmate his opponent and Aarav gets force checkmated in two moves. A very unfortunate end to a good hustle by Aarav. Anstey 2 – Ashby 2.

Board 5: Curtis Blunt plays white; Joshua Cherrington plays black

For his first league match, Curtis comes out with e4 knight f3 and his opponent goes into the petrov, which Curtis knows a little bit about. Both players develop their dark squared bishops and move their d pawns to the 4th and 5th ranks. Black is a little faster to castle, but Curtis’ pieces are a little more developed. Curtis develops his light squared bishop and black pins the f3 knight to Curtis’ queen. Curtis now castles and has quite a pleasant position, but Curtis gets into a position where he admitted he didn’t know what to do, so he blocked the bishop pin with his own bishop and moved his pieces and pawns a little bit to improve his position. Both players improve their positions a little more and Curtis offers a trade of light squared bishops, which black ignores and moves his queen, but Curtis now forks black’s queen and light squared bishop to capture the bishop with his knight. Curtis can’t retake with this bishop, but he has the bishop pair.

Curtis now manoeuvres his light squared bishop to attack black’s queen and cause some complications in the position, as his bishop can be taken, but if black goes into a capture sequence then he will lose a piece. Curtis now moves his bishop to check the black king and advances his own queen, but Curtis too falls into a knight fork, but he guards well and doesn’t lose anything from the fork. Black now allows for a dark squared bishop trade and Curtis has to take otherwise he loses a bishop, and Curtis counter attacks black’s advanced knight, but black attack’s Curtis’ light squared bishop with a double rook battery. Curtis can’t move the bishop, so he takes the knight and black takes the bishop. Curtis is forced to trade a rook for rook, but he wins a pawn after the exchanges.

Black forks the loose white knight and d pawn, but Curtis creatively offers a trade of knights and after the trade he threatens a mate in 1 with a back rank mate. Black makes loft and Curtis pins the black rooks to the black queen, but black offers a rook trade and Curtis refuses. Both players guards their rooks and Curtis offers a queen trade a few times with black refusing and trying to create mating threats. Curtis does grab a pawn, but so does black. Curtis’ queen and pawn get rook forked, and Curtis offers a queen trade once again, but now black takes and it up a pawn on the a file.

Both players now bring their kings out and Curtis tries to win the a pawn, whilst black tries to win the white pawn on the kingside. Curtis defends well and manages to create problems for black. Black offering rook trades when he can, but Curtis does defend well still. Eventually though, black forces a rook trade and black still has an a pawn. Curtis has to capture the a pawn with his king whilst the black king eats up the white pawns. Curtis resigns, but considering this was his first league game it was of very good quality! Ashby 3 – Anstey 2.

This is the link to Curtis’ game, as I deem it to be outstanding and a very good first game for Curtis. Well played good sir! https://www.chess.com/a/WbjM5mVGJdyp?tab=analysis

Board 6: Graham Bird plays white; Yuvraj “The Silent Destroyer” Sadhra plays black

This game starts with d4 and d5 with the game turning into a london type set up for white, and Yuvraj developing his minor pieces. Both players continue to develop their positions and improve piece placement without anything being captured. On move 11, the first trade occurs with Yuvraj trying to trade off white’s dark squared bishop for a knight and white opts for the bishop trade instead. Although, white spots a tactic where he moves his f3 knight and causes a few different threats for Yuvraj to deal with. Yuvraj is forced to trade light squared bishops, then he has to deal with one of his hanging pieces and a knight ready to fork his rooks. Yuvraj opts to loose the hanging piece to avoid the knight fork. White takes the free piece with the queen and now Yuvraj starts advancing his pawns with tempo attacking the white queen to try and displace it so Yuvraj can win back the free piece.

This doesn’t work, but Yuvraj still keeps advancing and attacking. Since Yuvraj castled queenside and white castled kingside, this can help Yuvraj to spring board a pawn storm against the white king. White develops his rook to a more active square, but Yuvraj keeps advancing his pawns. White doesn’t seem to understand what to do, so he repeats knight moves a couple of times. Eventually Yuvraj has a triple battery of two rooks and a queen all lined up against the white king, but unfortunately white manages to take a rook for free as Yuvraj can’t move his queen due to white threatening mate in one. Both players advance their pawns though, and white closes the diagonal of his queen to deliver mate, so Yuvraj can take the knight that took his rook and continue his attack.

Although, the white king still remains safe and white again threatens mate in 1, but Yuvraj stops this threat and his pieces can move freely. Yuvraj takes some of white’s centre pawns and manages to win back a piece with a tactic. White’s knight was defending a rook, which Yuvraj’s queen was attacking, but the knight can be taken by his rook which also defends his queen. White now trades queens and it’s an endgame with Yuvraj’s knight and rook against two rooks. Yuvraj takes the remaining white centre pawns and white decides to trade a rook for a knight. Yuvraj manages to win another pawn, which means he’s got two centre past pawns, but white has two kingside past pawns.

Both players advance their pawns and Yuvraj manages to get both of his pawns a few moves away from promoting. However, white manages to get both pawns with Yuvraj pushing one of the pawns too soon. Yuvraj tries to make counter play and blockade white’s past pawns with his king. Yuvraj then goes for a rook trade and starts to advance his queen side pawns, which are two vs one of white’s pawns. Yuvraj almost manages to promote one of his queenside pawns, but white’s kingside past pawns are too strong and Yuvraj resigns. Ashby 4 – Anstey 2.

Board 7: Oskar “El Capitan” Rudczenko plays white; Brian Wood plays black

El Capitan starts off with e4 and black goes into a Scandinavian defence, which Oskar accepts, but it turns into a weird gambit with e6 after exd5. Oskar takes this pawn as well and starts to develop a couple of pawns in the centre (c and d pawns) and develops his knights while black develops a couple of pieces and starts moving his pawns one square on the queenside. Goofy looking but if he wants to play this Oskar doesn’t mind. Oskar castles kingside and black still playing odd moves, and Oskar tries to advance his d pawn with the support of his other pieces. Black does defend some threats, but Oskar manages to jump his knight onto e5 to attack the d7 rook and black moves the rook out of the way. Oskar now sacrifices his knight to fork black’s bishop and knight, but Oskar doesn’t see that black can counter attack his queen, so black remains a piece up.

Black now rushes to castle, but Oskar keeps on building a path for his c and d pawns so when black castles Oskar can play c5. This attacks black’s dark squared bishop, which black sacrifices to check Oskar’s king. Oskar takes this bishop, and then pawn forks black’s light squared bishop and rook. However, black goes in for a knight check on g4 and goes for an attack with his queen, so Oskar takes the knight, which black retakes with the bishop, but Oskar attacks this with his rook. Black doesn’t go for anymore attacks and acknowledges that he’ll lose another piece.

Black keeps trading though by doubling rooks on the e file and trading a rook for a bishop and a pawn. Oskar attacks the rook with his queen and x raying the h3 pawn to maybe start a checkmating attack on black’s pinned g7 pawn. Black defends his rook with his queen though, which double attacks Oskar’s knight, which Oskar defends. Still though, black takes the knight with his last rook and Oskar retakes. This means Oskar has an extra piece (two rooks and a queen) vs black’s queen and trapped knight. Black tries to counter attack Oskar’s undefended rook, but Oskar simply doubles up the rooks lined up against the black king. Black tries to check Oskar’s king, but there is only one check. Oskar now starts a checkmate by taking on g7 with his rook, and at this point black resigns. Ashby 4 – Anstey 3.

Board 8: Peter Anderton plays white; John Graham-Brown plays black

The game starts off as a spanish, and John plays queen to f6 on the 3rd move moving into the Gunderam variation of the spanish. White takes John’s c6 knight to take his e5 pawn, but John takes white’s e4 pawn with check after retaking on c6. White blocks with the queen and John develops a knight and white trades queens. After white castles, John attacks white’s knight, but white counterattacks John’s knight and a knight trade happens, but John’s bishop becomes pinned and John has to defend it. White attacks John’s bishop with his f pawn and John counterattacks the white rook with his light squared bishop. After white retreats his rook to e2 John defend his bishop again with his f pawn and white keeps the pressure on with d4. John attack’s the rook again with his light bishop and white moves the rook to e3.

Now, John plays g5 and white now takes John’s pinned bishop with his f pawn and after John retakes white takes with his d pawn and John castles queenside instead of retaking immediately. After castling John retakes and develops his h rook to the g file. During this time white takes another pawn whilst attacking John’s rook and John offers a rook trade, which white ignores and attacks the other rook. John moves his rook and retreats his other rook back to the 8th rank to guard his king. At this point, John felt the need to resign as his opponent had too much of a material advantage against him.

Final Words

At the end, Ashby win against Anstey 5-3, so Anstey will still remain at the 5th place on the leader board, which is good considering we’ve gotten a lot of new players for this league season. It is always nice to play against Ashby as there is the likely possibility that we can play more than four boards per match, and Ashby seem to always be up for a big match.

This season we’ve seen a lot of new players, and those new players have grown significantly compared to the start of the season. Whether their ratings show this significant change or not, we can see that their play style and consistency has improved a lot and a lot of these new players will keep improving as long as they keep their chess skills regularly exercised.

For now, we’ve got the summer cups ahead of us, and for some it’s a chance to rest and gather up our strength ready for another season of chess. Thanks all for reading and thank you to those who have played, it’s a privilege to be your captain. See you all for the summer cups!