22/6/23

On a bright, warm Thursday evening Anstey’s junior side travelled over to Ashby’s second team in the Harrod Cup 2nd round. This is the only Summer rapid play that Anstey have entered (the Chapman/Birstall Cup is classical time controls) and the format is 20 minutes plus 10 second increments (bonus time per move). Each player plays two games over 4 boards, one game with the black pieces and one game with the white pieces.

Ashby’s second team were slightly weaker in the first round and the juniors faced a tough task as Ashby 2 were a bit stronger this time around. One thing is for sure though, our youngsters would fight!

Board 1 – Tom Gerrard v Alex Street
Score: 2-0
Alex undoubtedly had the toughest test on the night. Making a welcome debut for us, Alex was very much in at the deep end, facing the rapidly improving captain of Ashby’s 2nd team, Tom Gerrard. Alex took his time in both games, enjoying his debut for the team and although both games didn’t go his way, losing material and consequently the games on both occasions, Alex gave a good account of himself. Tom was very gracious in victory and offered Alex some advice in both games as they had a look at them both after the game and after some of the other players had gone. Alex’s attitude to his games – even though they were losses – is admirable and his desire to learn is heartening.

Board 2 – Eden Watts v Yuvraj Sadhra
Score: 1-1
In the battle of the quiet players, Yuvraj faced Eden Watts who out graded the Silent Destroyer by almost 200 rating points. A grading difference which, in the first game at least, counted for nothing as our Yuvraj lived up to his nickname with devastating effect – the Silent Destroyer blitzing his opponent in no more than 15 moves with a devastating combination leading to a forced mate and a resignation from his opponent. In the reverse game, Eden got his revenge with a fine game forcing a mate.

Board 3 – Ric Dawson v Curtis Blunt
Score: 1-1
Curtis hasn’t played many competitive games but is already looking assured and confident as an OTB chess player. He was facing the seasoned Ric Dawson and played exceptionally well in the first game, getting himself a clear pawn up. Whilst trying to solidify this position, he advanced his King onto a poisoned square allowing his opponent to skewer his King into check with a Bishop and a Rook en prise behind it. Curtis threw in the towel and resigned. Even more determined in the second game, Curtis quite frankly blew his opponent away, getting a monster passed pawn onto the 7th rank, which created multiple threats allowing Curtis to play a clean Rook up and forcing a resignation from his opponent.

Board 4 – Joshua Cherrington v John Graham-Brown
Score: 2-0
Young John faced another rapidly improving younger player in Josh Cherrington, in the battle of the improvers. Seemingly Joshua’s improvement is slightly more advanced than Young John and despite an incredibly valiant fight in both games, young John perished in both with Josh finding a couple of very nice checkmates.
Joshua’s improvement also allowed him to beat your author in a casual knockabout afterwards, clearly demonstrating that he is improving very quickly.

In the end, a big 6-2 defeat that clearly does not tell the whole story, with at least 2 or 3 of the games that could have gone either way.