Thursday 25/05/2023. Anstey’s Chapman Cup team made the trip to the Black Swan Inn in Shepshed for this LRCA 2023 Chapman Cup round 1 fixture against Shepshed. After last year’s Swiss-style event (which you may recall Anstey won in some style…) the Chapman Cup this year reverts to a FA Cup style knock out tournament. With only six teams though this meant that two teams had byes in the first round and progressed straight to the semi-finals (LOL). You’d have thought that the reigning champions might have had a bye but no such luck.

The Chapman Cup has a handicap system in place effectively giving lower rated teams a head start in the match (meaning the higher rated team has to win more points on the real boards to win the match). Anstey benefited from this to great effect last year having the bonus in five of the six matches so it was with some surprise that after the players’ ratings were totted up Anstey out-rated Shepshed by 305 points giving Shepshed a ½ point lead in the match. This was due to Shepshed’s board 4 (ringer? – Ed) being unrated and given a notional rating of 1300 which is to the letter of the law if not in the spirit of the game (he was clearly a much better player than 1300, he registered 92.9% accuracy!! – Ben) (sanitised for publication).

Anyhoo… the captains tossed for colours, Shepshed winning and choosing white on odd boards. The players shook hands and battle commenced.

Board 1: Robert Henfrey (1906) v Julian Tarwid (1947)
Bobby went for a solid if slightly passive opening allowing black to equalise easily then activating his pieces in the centre of the board and getting an edge. White then started to expand before Julian tried to open up the white king by exchanging knight and bishop for rook and pawn. Bobby missed a defensive resource then Julian snaffled another pawn before Bobby blundered:

Bobby played the natural looking move 28. Qg2?? allowing Julian to smash out 28. … Rg4! with multiple threats. Bobby gave up his queen for rook but his position was hopeless, Julian made no mistakes and simplified to a completely won endgame. Bobby resigned.

Board 2: Matthew Connor (1769) v Graham Harrison (1881)
Matt was the only Anstey player out-rated by his Shepshed opponent. Graham played a slightly unusual but flexible move order in the opening but was a bit passive. Matt played natural moves before deciding to castle long and launch a kingside attack. Graham’s queen was active but his other pieces were a bit tied up. Matt opened up the h-file and looked to have a crushing attack looming:

Matt was very low on time and he continued with 25. g5. This was ok but 25. e5! would have been decisive, the idea to free up the e4 square for the c3 knight to join in the fun and if 26 … d5 then 27. f5. The game continued for a few moves but Matt’s position imploded due to the time pressure and some nice defensive moves by Graham, Matt blundered then lost on time (FFS – Ed).

Board 3: Kevin Bennet (1661) v Borislav Lasarov (1701)
Boris got an advantage right from the opening doubling white’s c-pawns with an early BxNc3. Kevin eschewed the chance to go a pawn up by taking black’s c5-pawn but this would have landed him with tripled pawns! Each side pushed central pawns and after a mass exchange (including the queens) black came out a pawn up. Boris consolidated his advantage before a couple of inaccuracies allowed Kevin to slowly get back into the game and eventually recapture the pawn he was down. Having done the hard work, the position came down to knight and 3 pawns against bishop and 3 pawns when Kevin made a fatal mistake:

Instead of going with 53. Nb3 in an effort to create another passed pawn, Kevin played 53. Ne2? trying to defend but after 53. … f3 54. Nd4 Kd3! 55. Nxf3 Bxf3 56. Kxf3 Kc3! black wins the race to queen his rook pawn first (by 1 move but 1 is enough!) and white resigned. Great calculation by Boris!

Board 4: Ben Vaughan (1636) v Igbinobaro Osaretin (1300?)
Out of the opening the position was roughly level when Igbinobaro eyed up and pinched white’s b2 pawn with his g7 bishop. He then went after and took white’s a2 pawn with his other bishop. Ben calmly developed, swapped off the dark square bishops and despite being 2 pawns down had a +1 eval. A couple of inaccuracies on both sides followed but Ben won a pawn back with a roughly level eval. Pieces were swapped off and Ben won back his pawn deficit leaving both sides with 2 rooks, a knight and 4 pawns each with black having a tiny advantage due to his outside passed pawn. But then Ben made a defensive error allowing black’s knight take white’s c-pawn leaving him a pawn up with connected outside passed pawns. But Ben is a battler (resilient – Ed), he gave up his knight for the two passed pawns leaving him a rook and 3 pawns vs rook, knight and 2 pawns. But black’s king was stuck on the side of the board and with the time ticking down Igbinobaro had to be careful not to mated there. As the time scramble developed, Igbinobaro gave up his knight for 2 pawns (and the rooks came off) leaving him a pawn up. Mr Resilient engineered his defence brilliantly swapping off a pawn leaving king and rook pawn vs king and with the white king behind the pawn the position was drawn! A great performance Ben, a real joint-captain’s effort!

So with 2 wins and a draw Anstey take the match despite the ½ point handicap!

In the other round 1 match Wigston overcame a 3½ (!) point handicap by winning on all 4 boards against a relatively weak Market Harborough side to win 4 – 3½ and to set up a Wigston vs Anstey semi-final. Kirby Muxloe play Loughborough in the other semi-final on the 15^th June.

Anstey joint-captain Matt Connor told Sky Sports:
I am delighted with the win, relieved actually that my “oops” didn’t cost us going out in round 1. Great wins for Boris and especially Julian, he’s something else isn’t he? But it was Ben’s resilient performance (have we mentioned that?) with his back against the wall that brought the result home. It sets up a great semi-final against Wigston, two more wins now and we are champions again! Why do Anstey players eat mushrooms on toast in the morning I hear you ask? It’s the breakfast of champignons…