The third match of the season for Anstey 4 and the Anstey team are the underdogs once more. Anstey 4 go up against their first team with 1500 rated players, near to 1600, in the season. Kirby Muxloe appear to be a mighty team, but frequently being the underdogs the Anstey team may be prepared and ready to face these stronger opponents. Will this be a match of David vs Goliath, or will it be goliath stompth on chess players?

Board 1: Oskar Rudczenko plays white; David Walton plays black

Oskar plays e4 and black plays d6, black after the game said he was playing an opening called the black lion, it’s a variation of the philidor defence. Oskar advances his c, d and e pawns to the 4th rank making a big centre and developing his knights. Whereas, black had made a solid pawn structure and developed a knight and his queen. Black attacks in the centre with e5 trying to open the centre and give himself some space. Oskar advances his pawn to keep the centre closed as to not allow any space for black.

Black then starts an attack on the king side by advancing his h and g pawns with the help of a knight, and Oskar simply keeps developing himself into a comfortable position by castling kingside and preparing an attack on black’s backwards d pawn. Black continues to position what pieces he can over to the kingside of the board, but Oskar repositions his pieces to stop the attack. Black continues to advance and Oskar advances his knight to a very strong square, which black trades off and has to retreat a knight backwards after Oskar retakes with a pawn.

Oskar still prepares his attack to open the centre of the board and begin demolishing the black position. After black keeps advancing Oskar simply deals with the attack in simple and few moves. Black tries to double up his rooks on the now open g file but Oskar doubles his rooks and adds a defensive bishop for good measure. Black now tries to reposition his queen in order to threaten a mate in one. By this point Oskar is down to 8 minutes on the clock whereas black has 20 minutes, which may have been a factor in missing the mate in one and losing to checkmate on the very next move. Oskar believes he played a very good game and probably the best he has so far in his chess career, he doesn’t want to toot his own horn, but it does feel good to do a bit of showing off occasionally. Kirby 1 – Anstey 0.

Here is Oskar’s game for anyone to look at: https://www.chess.com/a/272rigAp6Jdyp?tab=analysis

Board 2: John Walker plays white; Anstey plays black

Unfortunately, the player who was intended to play on board two for Anstey was not able to play, which meant that Anstey had to default a point towards Kirby. Kirby 2 – Anstey 0.

Board 3: Jakub Miler plays white; Nigel Wollen plays black

Jakub plays d4 and his opponent plays d6. Jakub takes as much space as possible with e4 and developing his knights, whereas black develops in a very strange way by putting his knight on f6, playing c6 and putting his queen on a5 and moving his queen immediately afterward. Possibly trying to play a black lion similar to Oskar’s opponent. Jakub responds quite well to his opponents strange moves by developing his bishops, and black attacks in the centre, which Jakub responds well by pushing his d pawn to d5 and trying to lock down the centre as black has less of a space advantage.

Black pins Jakub’s knight to his queen and Jakub mirrors his opponents move, which black responds to and both players castle kingside shortly after. Both players move their rooks to the e file in anticipation of the e file opening up. Black positions to put more pressure on Jakub’s d5 pawn and Jakub offers a bishop trade, which black accepts. Black advances his knight into the white position, which is immediately kicked out with a pawn. Both players trade off their last bishops as well as a knight trade. Black stabilises his centre before attacking Jakub’s centre with his kingside pawns, and as soon as the f file both players trade off their rooks leaving only a queen and a knight for both sides.

Jakub places his knight on a nice outpost square, and black manages to infiltrate the white position and force a queen trade, which could have been better executed if he had also won some of white’s pawns as well. With the queens off the board black reactivates his knight and centralises it. Jakub starts to launch a queenside attack with his pawns only, which is a little rushed and it does start to cause him problems when he allows a past c pawn for black. This may have been when Jakub was low on time and still trying to notate, which was not his bad I should have said he can stop notating if he is below 5 minutes on the clock.

Jakub though gets a little lucky and his opponent, after winning another pawn, loses his c pawn. Jakub now desperately trying to stay ahead of the clock blitzes out each move without much thought. At this point, Jakub could have been a bit more active with his king and actually play for a win, but he was very low on time so I don’t want to be too harsh on him. Jakub was in fact playing quite quickly and soon enough his opponent lost on time. Jakub had played quite a good game and I’m quite impressed with how far he has come so far. If he keeps up his practise I’m sure he will be a very strong chess player. Kirby 2 – Anstey 1.

Here is Jakub’s game for anyone to look at: https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/pgn/224haYLswk?tab=analysis&move=124

Board 4: Dan Watson plays white; Hayden Padgett plays black

Hayden plays black and plays against the spanish, aka the Roy Lopez opening, and Hayden plays the Morphy defence, which is where you play a6 after Bb5. White moves the bishop and both players develop their pieces in a principled way (knights out before bishops), and Hayden bats the light squared bishop to b3 with b5. White does not like this and so pins Hayden’s knight to his queen, which Hayden ignores and white trades the bishop for the knight. White also trades off the light squared bishop for bishop and infiltrates with his knight and attacking Hayden’s queen in the process. Hayden moves his queen and white forks Hayden’s last remaining bishop and knight with b4.

Hayden chooses to keep the knight alive and white takes the bishop meaning Hayden is a piece down in the middle game. White launches an attack with his queen on the kingside, which Hayden defends well by pushing a pawn one step forward forcing black to move his queen one step back. Hayden now really reinforces his e5 pawn is protected, but now white can take a pawn for free and fork Hayden’s king and rook.

Hayden is forced to give up the exchange and white prepares another attack by moving his queen to the side and moving his knight forward to prepare a mate in 1. Hayden sees the threat, but white plays a forced mate instead. Hayden unfortunately gets checkmated. This game was well played by both players, and I’m sure if Hayden practises more then he can over come the mistakes he made in this game. Kirby 3 – Anstey 1.

Board 5: Reidan Minhas plays white; Edda Walker plays black

Reidan plays the roy lopez opening and Reidan trades off the light squared bishop for a knight, which is not a traditional way of playing the spanish but this is how Reidan has chosen to play. Black retakes with the other knight and plays g6, whereas Reidan plays d4 attacking the centre. Black defends with by placing the queen on e7, which Reidan attacks and black defends by playing f6 and Reidan repositions his bishop to better support the centre. Black reinforces her centre and Reidan trades centre pawns. The board remains relatively closed with the exception of the open d file.

Reidan trades a knight for a bishop and black finishes off her development with O-O-O (notation meaning castled queenside). Reidan offers a queen trade and black accepts, so we have a queenless middle game. As soon as black develops her last remaining bishop Reidan snaps it up and trades his last knight for the bishop. Reidan tries to split the kingside pawns apart by pushing his g pawn, but black refuses this and locks down the kingside. However, Reidan tries to open the centre more with f4 and trades off blacks e pawn. However, black unleashes a tactic where she attacks Reidan’s dark squared bishop whilst attacking the e4 pawn, and Reidan cannot defend both, so he correctly chooses to defend the bishop, which black trades off, and loses the e pawn, which is far from the end of the world.

Both players trade off pawns, which leaves most of black’s kingside pawn to vanish and Reidan’s centre pawns to be eaten up. Reidan tries to advance his new g pawn, which has become a past pawn, so Reidan aims to queen this pawn and black intends to counter attack Reidan’s king. Reidan manages to double his rooks on the 7th rank and loses the past g pawn in exchange for one of black’s queenside pawns. Both players try to make more progress, but they agree to a draw. Kirby 3 1/2 – Anstey 1 1/2.

Final Words

Over all, this was a very interesting night. Some of us had good games, some had not so good games, some had okay games and there was some difficulty with the clocks. I’m proud of my own game as I believe I played quite well, and Jakub had played quite a good game too going up against a much stronger player and winning is a difficult challenge. The next team Anstey are to play is the 3rd Syston team, which may be okay to play against, but the Syston club is known to have the only Grandmaster in Leicestershire, so we will see if the Syston players have been practising with said GM. In the meantime, I hope everyone has a great day and see you when we play Syston!