The second match of the league season and we are up against a club, who have gained a second team for the first time (as far as I’m aware). There are other teams who have gained more players to then have more teams, which is great for the growth of chess! Again Anstey 4 are the underdogs in this match being out-graded on every board. The player, who was the least out-graded, was out-graded by 140 rating points with other players being out-graded by almost 200 points. Not the first time Anstey have had this sort of disadvantage, but it does not mean Anstey have lost either, as we have beaten teams who are stronger.

Board 1: Mick Broadhurst plays white; Aarav Sinha plays black

Aarav plays black against a simple 3 knights opening. Aarav responds with Bc5, which allows the centre fork trick, where white captures the e5 pawn which results in black’s pieces being forked by a pawn protected by the white queen. This is quite common when a bishop is placed close to the centre of the board and the e pawn is only protected by a knight. It’s basically a trade of knight and pawn for bishop and pawn, in Aarav’s case.

Aarav sets up a simple tactic where he would win a queen, which white does defend against. Aarav goes for it anyway, as he is prepared to trade queens and lose a knight in the process. White does capture the sacrificed knight, but does not recapture Aarav’s queen and instead he forks the king and a8 rook. At the end of the capture sequence, Aarav will be down a piece, but Aarav can easily recapture the knight which is trapped on a8.

Aarav repositions his queen a little, as well as developing a knight, and white attempts to win material. However, Aarav simply defends by counter attacking, and at the end of an 18 move game both players have the same amount of minor and major pieces, but Aarav has a queen in place of a rook. White resigns as this is a middle game that will most likely be dominated by Aarav as he has a queen and white does not. Anstey 1 – Heathcote Arms 0.

Board 2: Oskar Rudczenko plays white; Dave Ricketts plays black

Oskar starts with the scotch game opening, and black protects the e5 pawn with d6, which leads Oskar to capture the e5 pawn and trade queens off the board. This means that black has to sacrifice his castling rights, which is not too bad for black but it is not favourable. Oskar then plays quite aggressively with Ng5 trying to fork the black king and h8 rook. Black defends and Oskar reinforces the attack with Bc4, but black responds with f6 forcing Oskar to make a decision. Oskar’s decision is to retreat the knight back to f3.

Black now plays aggressively himself with g5, which Oskar is not afraid of and simply develops the other knight, which black pins with a bishop. Oskar defends the pin, and black makes a knight advance into the white position. Oskar unafraid again by castling (O-O-O), and black blunders a knight on f7, which Oskar captures. Black now initiates a trade of bishop for knight, and advances his knight further into the white position.

Now, black makes an immediate blunder, which Oskar did not see at all until he played this move. Black moves his light squared bishop to e6 protected by the king on e7, but because of the open d file and the criss-cross apple sauce bishops on h5 and Bb4+ black is going to get mated in 1 move. Black can block the check with a pawn, but Oskar can capture the pawn and checkmate the black king. Oskar and his opponent were very surprised of this, and Oskar only thought he was trapping the advanced knight; what a turn of events! Anstey 2 – Heathcote Arms 0.

Board 3: Richard Maconnachie plays white; Jakub Miler plays black

Jakub chooses to play the sicilian defence against e4, and white chooses to play the alapin, which is a common weapon of choice against the sicilian. Jakub takes some centre space controlling a lot of the dark squares with a stone wall pawn structure. White trades a bishop for a knight and to double Jakub’s pawns on the c file. Jakub has the upper tempo so he decides to tickle white’s e4 pawn with his minor pieces and castles.

After Jakub pins a white knight to the queen, things start to liven up on the kingside. Jakub maintains the pin and white deals with the pin by brining his second knight in to try and trade off the bishop using both of the knights. Briefly, Jakub’s knight does a little dance all the way to g6 and finally gets traded on h5. There is quite a bit of tactical tension when Jakub tries to shoo the white knight away, but the knight does a little dance of it’s own ending up on g4.

The dark squared bishops are traded off, and Jakub keeps attacking on the kingside (winning a knight for a pawn in the process. Jakub’s knight is on f4 defended by the e5 pawn and has a rook and queen battery on the h file. Jakub manages to create an open d file, which win’s him two pawns and gets a rook for rook trade. White misses a tactic which gives Jakub an absolutely winning tactic, where Jakub can sacrifice a rook in exchange for a mate in 3. White resigns and Jakub walks away with a good smoothly played game. Anstey 3 – Heathcote 0.

Board 4: Hayden Padgett plays white; Ray Beach plays black

Hayden starts with the italian game and castles as quickly as possible. Hayden keeps developing his pieces and black tries to start an attack by pinning a knight to the white queen, which Hayden ignores and keeps developing his pieces. Black then starts to throw pawns on the queen side with b5, which forces Hayden to move his light squared bishop to b3. Black tries to hunt down the bishop with Na5 and takes on the next move. Afterwards, black locks down the position on the queen side and forces Hayden’s knight back to b1.

Hayden starts retaliating on the kingside with h3 and g4 to sway away the bishop to unpin the white knight. Hayden starts to hunt down the bishop with his now unpinned knight, but the black queen swoops in to take the knight away from the board. Being a knight down, Hayden threatens an attack on the black king with the black queen defends. Hayden retreats his queen and moves his knight forward, and moves his d pawn to try and break up the centre, which he does but he losses a pawn in the attack and black has traded a bishop for knight.

Hayden tries to infiltrate the black position with his queen, but black keeps defending and Hayden has to keep retreating his queen. Black castles kingside on move 27 and advances his knight to attack Hayden’s dark squared bishop, which Hayden retreats. Black keeps developing an attack and Hayden tries to move his pieces to defend. Both players start to trade more pieces and even queens, which is not good for Hayden as he is down material. Hayden gives it all he’s got trying to turn the game around somehow. Unfortunately, this did not happen, and Hayden resigned like the gentleman he is. However, Hayden did last a while against a higher rated and much more experienced player, which is a good sign for the future of his chess play. Presently, he still has a lot to learn. Anstey 3 – Heathcote 1.

Board 5: Bill Roberts plays white; John Graham-Brown plays black

John faces the Roy Lopez opening, and John responds with the Berlin defence. White develops his other knight and John develops his bishop to c5, which does allow the centre fork trick but white does not see it or chooses not to go for it. Instead white castles (O-O), and John makes a bit of a weakening move by playing d5. Normally, the b5 bishop of the Roy does not mean the c6 knight is pinned, but because John pushes the d pawn there is now a pin on the knight, which means John is in some trouble.

White trades pawns and takes the e5 pawn, which puts more pressure on the pinned knight and John defends with the light squared bishop. White plays d4 and John retreats his bishop from c5 to d6. White sets up a discovered attack by playing Re1, which John stops by capturing the knight and because the bishop is protecting the knight white has to take back with the d pawn. John moves his attacked bishop back to c5, and white advances his pawn even further into the black position with e6. John now makes an attempt to counter attack by trying to win a piece, but John loses a queen in exchange for a rook and a pawn.

Both players now have an equal number of minor and major pieces, but white has a queen in place of a rook. John does try his best to counter attack white, but unfortunately white has a queen, which can be very hard to defend against without a queen of your own. The ending position means that John will get checkmated in 1 move and John resigns before this can be played. Anstey 3 – Heathcote Arms 2.

Board 6: Reidan Minhas plays white; Gordon Milner plays black

Reidan plays the italian game with Bc4, Nf3 and d3 along with e4. Both players develop their pieces normally, and white trades a bishop for a knight, which does double Reidan’s pawns on the c file. White tries to advance his kingside pawns after castling, which can be dubious depending on if the opponent can punish this. However, Reidan blocks the advancing g4 pawn by playing g5. White advances his queen side pawns, and Reidan advances in the centre, which results in an explosive trade of pawns and pieces. At the end of the chaos, both players have traded off a pawn and a pair of bishops each.

Reidan manages to castle kingside on the 18th move of the game. Reidan takes the open d file. There are a couple more pawns being traded off as the board opens up even further, which could lead to some good attacking chances for both players. Both players trade queens off the board too, which reduces the attacking chances for both players and often means the game will be decided more slowly.

Both players trade pawns throughout the game, but Reidan has a more active king which can mean a lot in the end game. At this point Gordon had offered Reidan a draw, but Reidan declined and proceeded to play. The position Reidan was in might be considered a draw, if not a difficult win, but Reidan managed to play very well and got himself into a completely winning position. Black had gotten into zugzwang, which means that any move black makes is a bad move. Black resigned and Reidan won his first league match! Anstey 4 – Heathcote 2.

Final Words

A very nice win for the Anstey underdogs considering we were significantly out-graded, but we won with some luck and some great play from our players. Our next match will be against Kirby Muxloe 2, which I’m looking forward to as Kirby are a nice club of players just like so many clubs in Leicestershire. For now, our position in the league is 4th place out of 8 teams with one loss and one win, which is a nice comfortable position to be in. Until next time, I hope you all have a good day or night and we’ll talk when we have played our next match!