Date: 31/8/23

Anstey’s first team in the Harrod Cup finished off their 2023 Summer with a home game against Anstey’s promising Junior side. In what has, frankly, been a shocking Harrod Cup campaign for the club, a combination of the poorly constructed rules, and lack of player availability has combined to leave the first team meandering to a mid-table finish.

The team news before the match was released to the juniors early, to try and intimidate them to give them a chance to prepare. In reality, all it achieved was giving Curtis a chance to practice his pre-match trash talk having learned that he was to face El Presidente on board 1. Drama occurred on the day as the first team’s board 3 – Noor – revealed that he couldn’t play and, due to the constrictive grade restraints and dual player rules, Anstey 1 were unable to name a substitute. The excitement shown by the juniors on the night, learning that they only had to get two points to secure a famous draw, was actually a joy to see (and it didn’t stop the trash talk!).

Board 1 – El Presidente v Curtis

El Presidente didn’t bother with the coin toss and allowed the Junior side to play with the white pieces in the first round. Curtis was not intimidated one bit against the leader of the club and produced some of his best chess. The first game was equal for a very long time with El Presidente trying to find a way through – unsuccessfully. Curtis fought hard and repelled every single threat with his own very sensible moves and it could be argued that Curtis was winning with his spatial advantage. Unfortunately, these sensible moves had cost Curtis a lot of time and right in the heart of the endgame, Curtis made a blunder and compounded it by making another in time pressure and subsequently resigned.

Game 2 was a little less equal as Curtis fought even harder but was a little too aggressive by allowing El Presidente to win a Rook for nothing after a powerful fork. Curtis saw and tried a computer line afterwards (El Presidente had a look at it at home afterwards), but it still led to the loss of the Rook. Curtis resigned a few moves later, correctly seeing no point in playing on as El Presidente looked to trade pieces off with the material advantage.

As many at the club have eluded to, Curtis and many of the other juniors have bright futures and we are all looking forward to seeing them progress this year. Curtis fought so hard and with that amount of heart and desire, Curtis is going to go a long way.

Board 2 – Mike Griffiths v Jakub

Board 2 was the experienced Mike against one of the more recent additions to the squad – Jakub. Jakub is very much an up-and-coming player as he looks to settle down at the club. Jakub has been with us a while now and has made steady progress so far. He was up against Mike Griffiths who would prove a stern test.

Unfortunately, the measure of the test over both games was too much for Jakub. One of the games looked very close but Mike showed his class and experience to win through with both the white and the black pieces. Again, this was not without a fight from the lion-hearted juniors that we are privileged to have on our side.

Board 3 – Alex v Hayden

In the battle of the juniors on board 3, Hayden was playing in only his second game for the club. He was facing the slightly more experienced Alex, in a game Alex was expected to triumph in, purely based on the fact that he is slightly more experienced and slightly more advanced in his progress than Hayden.

While El Presidente was trying not to lose his first game, your author was unable to comment too much on the other games, hence the summary like reports. All I knew from the first game is that Alex blundered a rook (or at least I think that’s what he said!) and Hayden played exceptionally accurately and very well to finish the game off. Alex set traps for Hayden but they were repelled easily and Hayden converted the winning advantage. At the time, this created some major excitement for the junior side as it secured them 1 of the 2 points they needed to secure a momentous drawn match.

In game 2, Alex levelled things up on the night with a much better game, inviting a mistake from Hayden, which was duly capitalised on.

In the end, the 1st team scraped the win by 5 points to 3.

It goes without saying that the Junior players can be very proud of their performances and their development to date. We as a club look forward to seeing the progress as we think that some of these guys will be exceptionally good in a year or twos time.