Board 1

Jakub plays as black on board 1, and he opted for a sicilian defence against e4, and white opts for an open sicilian. The game seemed to develop quite calmly for the opening phase and both players try to play quite positionally and slowly, which is how most people play a sicilian as it is quite a complex opening. Both players spend quite a lot of time on their moves, particularly Jakub’s opponent, which is good for Jakub as it means he can play to win on time as well as on the board.

The game goes to an endgame, where Jakub is on the back foot and he has to play quite defensively in order to not lose quickly. It is quite a messy endgame as both players create opportunities to win, but both do have weak pawns they need to defend as well, so there is some chaos. Although, Jakub is still playing on the backfoot, but he is up on time by quite a significant margin so he can still try to win on time. However, his opponent manages to find a winning idea and Jakub now struggles to defend himself. Jakub resigns.

Anstey 0 – Syston 1.

Board 2

Oskar plays white on board two and his opponent opts for a caro-kann defence, which Oskar’s opponent admitted that he has been struggling to play with over the league season. Oskar opts for the fantasy variation, which does confuse black a little as he does not know the fantasy very well. Black responds by making a counter attack on the pushed d pawn, which Oskar ignores and develops another piece. After tis Oskar continues to try and develop his pieces as actively as possible and making threats to force black to respond to Oskar’s moves directly.

Black does not play very accurately and ends up being behind on piece development, which can be very bad, and a few moves after the opening and black makes a serious mistake of pushing his pawns a bit too much and creating enough weaknesses for Oskar to exploit. Now black’s position is very weak and Oskar has some very easy ways to create serious threats. Soon, black gives his queen up and resigns right after.

Anstey 1 – Syston 1.

Board 3

Reidan plays as black and white opts for a roy lopez (aka the spanish opening), which Reidan has played himself, so he has some familiarity with this opening. The game develops fairly smoothly for both players, as they are still developing pieces. However, Reidan is not as experienced as his opponent and he does make some small inaccuracies, which don’t matter too much individually, but they do matter when there are multiple of them. Reidan is getting much better as a chess player, but he still has a few things to learn. Although, his opponent was significantly higher rated than him, so we can’t be too hard on him.

Reidan falls under some quite significant attacks from white, which is may have needed to pay a bit more attention to as the attacks start off quite small but then they turn into quite big attacks, and Reidan’s king starts to look weaker and weaker. By the time Reidan realises how much trouble he is in, it’s almost over as his opponent has a very strong mating attack that Reidan will find difficult to stop (if at all). Reidan unfortunately gets checkmated.

Anstey 1 – Syston 2.

Board 4

Hayden plays as white and his opponent plays the sicilian defence. I’m not too sure how familiar with the sicilian Hayden is, so this maybe quite an interesting learning experience for Hayden. Both players develop fairly normally, but Hayden does develop a little too passively as his opponent is able to start attacking quite soon after the opening. Black does end up having a little more space than Hayden, which can make the game a little more difficult, especially if a player does not know how to play with less space.

Although, Hayden does do quite well for some time, but Hayden does unfortunately succumb to the pressure his opponent is putting on him. Hayden does not see that his opponent can win a piece and Hayden does lose a piece. Credit to Hayden as he does play on to try and see how he can play down a piece, but unfortunately his opponent does execute his attack quite successfully and Hayden resigns.

Anstey 1 – Syston 3