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.
Jakub plays on board one as the black pieces. White plays a queens pawn opening and both c pawns get traded off quite quickly. Both players play quite well throughout the match and appeared to be equal in skill, and this game does go on for some time as you might expect from a classical game. This is a more positional game where both players try to take advantageous squares to put more pressure on the oppositions pieces and position. However, white has a small advantage in the endgame as he has a couple more pawns compared to Jakub, which ends up making the difference as Jakub does not feel able to defend the position. Jakub does resign.
Anstey 0 – Kirby 1
Board 2
Oskar plays on board two as white. Black turns the game into a version of the pirc defense with c6 and d6. Oskar develops quite a nice advantage out of the opening and does end up putting a lot of pressure onto the black position, but Oskar misses some moves that black can play as defensive resources. This means black does eventually come out of the middle game not much worse that white, even has a small advantage according to stockfish16. However, the game soon turns into a drawn game. Both players do play some more chess, but Oskar does try to make sure he gets a draw as he thinks he is losing. Eventually, Oskar does offer a draw and his opponent agrees as both sides have defended pawns on opposite colours to each of their opposite coloured bishops.
Anstey 0.5 – Kirby 1.5
Board 3
Hayden plays black and white plays the italian opening, and Hayden mirrors white’s pieces with his own with some exceptions as white plays a few waiting moves of h3 and a3, which are not good moves to play when you are ahead of your opponent in development. Hayden opts to trade a knight and a dark squared bishop, and as white plays f4 to open up the black centre. Hayden counter attacks white’s centre, which he doesn’t have to do he could retreat his knight to reinforce his own centre, but he opts to play aggressively. White trades off a knight for Hayden’s last bishop, and Hayden takes a free pawn, which is okay and it doesn’t give white much opportunity so free material is always good. Hayden defends well and brings in his other rook. White trades a pair of rooks, and white goes for an attack on Hayden’s king and white does checkmate Hayden.
Hayden did play quite well, but he does need to see not worry when his opponent does attack something and sometimes retreating backwards can be the best defensive resource.
Anstey 0.5 – Kirby 2.5
Board 4
Reidan plays white on board four. The opening develops naturally for both players as they both prioritise piece development, which is great to see. This too was a long and positional game as both players seemed quite equally matched. This game, just like on board 1, takes shape in the endgame where both players have traded off a few pieces each. Both players have two rooks and a minor piece each; Reidan has a bishop where black has a knight, which is thought to be slightly better depending on which piece can move more freely and be placed on strong squares. Both players move their pieces trying to squeeze some sort of advantage out of the position, and eventually Reidan manages to win one of black’s rooks. Reidan’s opponent was quite surprised when he realised he was losing a piece, and he did play a few moves on but he did soon resign as Reidan is up a rook, which is quite devastating in the endgame.
Jakub played on board 1 as the white pieces against a slightly higher rated opponent, but Jakub is improving quite quickly and he may even be underrated. The game starts off as a usual indian game, but on move 2 Jakub’s opponent plays e5, which is the Budapest gambit. From here we get a very slow and positional game as Jakub uses up more time than his opponent. In the end it comes down to a queen and bishop endgame where Jakub’s king is quite weak, but not weak enough to get mated. Jakub’s opponent keeps trying to find a checkmate but non appear. By the end black had three queenside past pawns and Jakub had two past kingside pawns, but Jakub manages to make a perpetual check and they both agree to a draw.
Heathcote 0.5 – Anstey 0.5.
Board 2
Oskar, El capitan, plays on board 2 and plays the scandinavian defence. This is again a very slow game, but a lot happens in this one. Oskar applies some pressure to white’s position and keeps applying pressure. Disallowing his opponent to castle, but white does castle anyway and Oskar takes a knight for free. White tries to create threats of his own, but Oskar defends and keeps applying serious pressure trying to win the white queen. Oskar also plays some very tricky moves and even allows white to take his queen, but it means Oskar went up an exchange whilst also trading queens. The end game is quite one-sided too where Oskar forces white to retreat his bishop to defend the king and Oskar wins yet another piece for free. White resigns.
Heathcote 0.5 – Anstey 1.5
Board 3
Curtis plays on board 3 and he plays as white using the italian, and black opts for a philidor defence set up. Both plays develop their pieces quite normally, black pins Curtis’ knight to his queen, but all of a sudden Curtis plays Nxe5. Black did not see this at the time but Curtis is actually threatening a mate in 3, that is if black takes Curtis’ queen, which black shouldn’t take. Instead, black should take Curtis’ knight and exchange a bishop for knight and go down a pawn. Although, I suppose black thought, “oh free queen” and then fell into a mate in 3 trap, which would be difficult to see as this wasn’t even the first 10 moves of the game. So Curtis wins.
Heathcote 0.5 – Anstey 2.5.
Board 4
Reidan plays as the black pieces and white plays the spanish or the roy lopez and Reidan opts for the morphy defence. This was a very entertaining game to look at as Reidan launches all of his kingside pawns towards white’s king, which could have ended up being a very strong attack but unfortunately Reidan made some inaccuracies, which may have cost him the game because when you launch your kingside pawns quite aggressively then either one of two things will happen: either you will checkmate your opponent or your opponent will checkmate you. Unfortunately, the latter happened with Reidan as his king was vulnerable and white was able to capitalise on this.
Anstey plays against another Wigston team, and there is a rating difference between the Anstey team and Wigston team, which is to be expected at this point. The average rating of the Wigston team was around 1400, whereas the average rating of Anstey was around 1200.
Board 1
Jakub Miler is on board 1 and the game started off quite well with Jakub having a small disadvantage playing as black, which is to be expected. Jakub was doing quite well throughout the match, but he was on the back foot trying to gain back the initiative and maybe start an attack of his own. Things started to look like they were doing to go into an endgame, which they did, but white had a past h pawn and the other pawns (a-e pawns) where all locked in place by each other. This could maybe be a draw, but dealing with an a or h pawn is more tricky because they are on the edge of the board. However, Jakub’s opponent herded Jakub into a zugzwang, which means any move that Jakub makes will be a losing move. Jakub did play one a little longer to try and see if he could make a draw, but Jakub did realise there wasn’t much else he could do as so he resigned.
Board 2
Alex Street was up next on board 2 and his opponent also is named Alex, so it was Alex v Alex. The start of the game was as expected, both Alex’s are good players and do know their chess. This game was very dynamic and interesting to watch as both players were being offensive in their defences. It was a very close game throughout the match, but both players are very good and managed to create significant threats whilst dealing with significant threats. However, Anstey Alex had a small advantage throughout the game, which was may have been small but it made a big difference in the end. Anstey Alex constantly put pressure on his opponent’s position, which his opponent eventually succumbed to as Wigston Alex hung mate in 1. Anstey Alex did not see the mate in 1 but Wigston Alex resigned anyway. Even if Anstey Alex did not see the mate, he still could have taken a free piece, which was hanging for the last 10 moves of the game. Both players did see the hanging piece, but they had better moves to make.
Board 3
Oskar Rudczenko plays on board 3 as black opening with the modern scandinavian. The game did go okay for the opening phase, which was good considering how the scandi is considered a dubious opening by some. However, early in the game Oskar had made a mis calculation and went down an exchange, which was not great, but it was not too bad of a position still. However, the real killer was how Oskar’s queen was cut off from the rest of the board, which Oskar did not understand fully until he had trapped his own queen. White did not win the queen, but the queens were traded off. In the endgame, Oskar had a disadvantage of having a bishop in place of a rook, which was not a disaster but’s it’s not preferred. Oskar tried to make some counter play, which did give his opponent some trouble, but at the end white had a few too many threats for Oskar to count. Oskar missed a forced mate in 3, which his opponent spotted and started playing. Oskar resigned before the mate could happen.
Board 4
Reidan Minhas played on board 4 against an opponent who was over 300 elo points above Reidan, which is quite a significant difference. However, Reidan plays on and is willing to take up the challenge. The game starts off as usual since both of these players do know chess quite well and may not make any big blunders. The game carries on at quite a steady pace, both players make some progress and some trades and Reidan keeps his cool. Both players continue to play, but the game starts to slow down and both players start to make less and less progress in the position. Eventually, it does become clear that this game might be a draw, which Reidan would be very happy with as his opponent is much better than he is. Soon enough both players do agree to make a draw, rather quickly during the evening as Reidan was the first to finish his game. Well done Reidan, he should be very proud of this game as it shows how much potential he has.
Send off
A 1 1/2 – 2 1/2 loss for Anstey, unfortunately, but the Wigston side were quite strong so we did well to score 1 1/2 out of 4. Our next match will be against Heathcote Arms, which maybe a more equally matched evening, as Heathcote are not the strongest club in Leicestershire, but they are certainly a friendly club!
17.1.24 Anstey’s 2nd team took on Loughborough’s 3rd team, seeking revenge for a disappointing draw in the home leg of the fixture.
With Mike absent on board 3 elsewhere at his wife’s birthday celebrations (nobody would miss that either Mike!), El Presidente recruited upwards from the first team, using the Toaster Boris to fill the board 1 slot, moving John down to board 2, El Presidente to board 3, and retaining Noor on board 4. A strong line up that should have been confident of the win.
On a night with sub-zero temperatures, El Presidente made the mistake of dragging John The Torturer to the away venue, thinking that they may turn up on time, when Loughtborough’s venue (not their players) decide to open up at 7:30 – the time that the match is supposed to start. El Presidente and The Torturer enjoyed the practice of keeping warm by walking on the spot. Boris and Noor calmly walked in within time for the match to start, and battle commenced.
First to finish was El Presidente, playing white against Stewart Gordon, the league association’s webmaster no less. Stewart employed the open Sicilian, and subsequently offered a mass trade of pieces on the d5 square, after both players had developed sensibly in the opening – however, neither player had castled. After the mass trade of pieces, El Presidente was left with an open d file, and had the move, playing Bc5 – denying Stewart’s right to castle – giving him trouble developing his final two pieces. He moved the light squared Bishop (El Presidente assumed with the idea of playing Rd8 – contesting the open file) and then tried to trade dark squared Bishops, which was refused. Stewart then made the sudden, game deciding blunder by castling Queenside, allowing El Presidente the opportunity to play Ba6 mate, and the rather stylish Boden’s mate.
Second to finish was Noor, playing with the black pieces against Les Lant – rated at 950 and significantly less than Noor’s rating. Les opened with e3 and d4 – a peculiar move order but a solid one nonetheless, and both players proceeded with the task of developing their pieces. After a couple of pawns were exchanged, and a Bishop for a Knight, Noor created the not-so-subtle threat of a Queen and Bishop battery along the a8-h1 diagonal. Noor then set about opening up the board and trying to overwhelm Les. Les in his wisdom didn’t fall for it, and Noor played a lovely Ng4 move, attacking a Bishop placed on d3, and the f3 pawn – guarding the g4 square – could not take because of the battery. Les moved his Queen to back the Bishop up, alongside his Rook. Unfortunately, Les recaptured Noor’s Knight with his Queen instead of Rook, allowing Noor to capture the Queen with his other Knight that was watching the e3 square. He had meant to capture with his Rook of course but got the move order wrong. From then on, Noor made no mistakes, driving home the advantage in the centre, trapping a doubled Rook and forcing a resignation.
Boris The Toaster was next to finish, entertaining The Torturer’s conqueror in the return match – Reece Whittington – with Boris having the white pieces. Play started with the Queen’s pawn and both players sensibly developed pieces onto good squares. Reece launched a counter attack in the centre with c5, Bb4, Qa5 all followed by Ne4, putting pressure on the c3 Knight. Boris remained calm, played his moves well and didn’t crumble under pressure, and repelled the pressure with some well timed moves of his own, and somewhat freeing his position at the same time. Boris found a neat little pin after Nxc3 with Qd2, thus pinning the Knight against the Queen on a5 which would be free. After unpicking this situation, The Toaster got his Bishop to an advanced square on d6, removing Reece’s castling option and permanently installed the Bishop on a3 – controlling the same diagonal an keeping his opponent’s King in the centre. Reece played for activity on the Kingside and the centre, but this was accurately repelled by The Toaster, creating threats of his own and ripping open the centre with some well-timed pawn thrusts. Reece played more Kingside but made the game changing blunder already a pawn down, allowing Boris to skewer his two Rooks with a Bishop where Boris had activity, material and a won game.
Last to finish was John Robinson, The Torturer, facing El Presidente’s conqueror in the first game Peter Hickman. Employing his favoured King’s Indian Defence with the black pieces against Peter’s 1.d4, The Torturer developed his pieces to good squares whilst Peter’s pieces seemed to fall over themselves, resulting in a lovely looking position for John, with some well situated pieces and so many options for The Torturer. Peter managed to get some pieces and pawns traded off and the position approached equality as the game entered the endgame phase. The Torturer played very well and forced a mistake from Peter, which subsequently led to another and having declined a draw offer earlier in the game, John converted the fact that he had all the aces in hand, and proceeded to force a resignation from Peter when The Torturer took an undefended Rook that Peter had missed in time trouble.
A 4-0 win for the 2nd team that couldn’t have gone much better! Well played everyone.
El Presidente speaking to Talksport: Obviously we are delighted with the win – I didn’t expect a 4-0 whitewash, although some of the form that our guys are in, it might not be a total surprise.
First time playing against the newly made team 2 of Leicester Uni; it’s always good to see a club grow. It’s 4 vs 4, and Curtis did request to be put on stage for the match (picture below), which he was very chuffed about.
Board 1: Curtis Blunt (black) vs. Ben Taylor (white)
E4 & e5 start transposing into a vienna, which quickly transposes into a berlin like game. No tension on the board as both players develop their pieces and escort their king safely to the corner of the battlefield. Both players play one more waiting move each (a3 & a6) until white finally releases some tension by providing piece tension: centralising his knight on d5. Curtis keeps the tension for one more move before deciding to capture the knight on d5.
After a bit of trading there remains no more tension once again, and both players make identical moves (c3 & c6), but Curtis’ move is the more forcing to push white’s bishop to a2, which Curtis challenges with his own bishop. Both players move their c pawns again, but Curtis is the one to try and press for an attack with b5. White counter attacks with a knight, but Curtis takes on c4, which does not win a pawn but it does force white to damage his own pawn structure. White trades the knight for a bishop.
Curtis is doing quite well, his position is good and he has ways of improving his position, such as he can move his knight to c6 to really dominate the queen side on the dark squares. Curtis could also move his queen to the semi-open b file and double rooks, or create a queen and rook battery on the b file. Curtis is doing well up until move 18, on move 19 Curtis moves his knight to g5, which is good in theory as it attacks an undefended dark squared bishop. However, moving his knight to g5 blunders as white can simply take the undefended knight with his queen.
After this Curtis quickly starts to trade most of his pieces off, which is not what someone should do when they are down a clean piece. Curtis does stop trading pieces, but the only piece he has left is a rook against a bishop and a rook. A few moves later Curtis resigns, which is an unfortunate ending to a good looking middle game. There maybe some inaccuracies during the start, but it is still a good looking game. After the match, Curtis did get some coaching from our budget grand master (Julian Tarwid, a polish 1900 player aka The Engine).
Board 2: Jakub Miler (white) vs. Fraser MacDonald(black)
The game starts as a benoni defence with black having a little bit more space than white. Both players develop their pieces with no tension on the board as of yet. Black advances his centre and Jakub counter attacks, which provokes black into playing a very aggressive move, which is Ng4 attacking the f2 pawn twice with the bishop on c5. Jakub does defend this threat quite well, but the way he defends this threat allows black to fork two of Jakub’s minor pieces. Therefore Jakub will unfortunately be playing down a piece.
Jakub is forced to give up the bishop otherwise black will fork Jakub’s rook and king on f2. Then Jakub rotates the knight onto g3 and forces the black g4 knight to move, which may have been a mistake as the black knight moves to a better position on e5, which threatens to trade pieces off the board and because Jakub is already a piece down he really does not want trades. However, in this case Jakub is forced to trade pieces, and Jakub does try to make things difficult for black with Qh5, but black has a simple way of defending.
Jakub does keep trying to dig his foot in some how, but black again has quite simple defences, so instead of trying to attack black’s pieces, Jakub tries to make big threats to try and freeze black’s pieces. Jakub moves his queen away from the black king to make sure the queen cannot get attacked easily, then Jakub doubles rooks and as soon as black makes a misplay, Jakub takes the b7 pawn. A ridiculous move that seems impossible, but black cannot retake otherwise Jakub would be able to deliver a forced mate on e8 with his doubled rooks.
Black deals with this situation well though, and Jakub has to move his queen back. Not a lot happens from here on out as black forces some more trades off the board. Jakub does move his king onto the same diagonal as his queen, which would normally be a blunder, but the f pawn can block this pin so the skewer is not really a threat in this case. Jakub does of course try his best to create counter play and keep the game alive, but before the game ends black manages to take two of Jakub’s very loose pawns and creating two past pawns, which would be very difficult for Jakub to defend with only a rook against a rook and bishop.
Board 3: Hayden Padgett (black) vs. Gnanvardh Pentakota(white)
The game starts with a four knights italian opening, in which there is no tension in the position at all until move 7 where white centralises one of his knights and Hayden immediately trades off knights and centralise one of his own knights, which white does not trade off. White instead puts more pressure on the black knight and Hayden moves his knight out of the centre, which allows black to play d4. Both players trade off pawn for pawn and Hayden moves his queen into an xray, which is not great but it does not come with terrible consequences. Both players simply trade off a few minor pieces. Soon after this Hayden trades queens and they are now in an endgame where both sides have two rooks and a bishop, as well as 7 pawns each.
Hayden immediately takes control of the open e file, where as white solidifies his pawns on the queenside and Hayden tries to break the pawns apart with c6. White expands on the queenside and tries to prevent Hayden from expanding on the king side with h6, g5, but Hayden still expands and both players trade pawns. White stops Hayden from advancing his g pawn further. Hayden tickles one of white’s rooks to try and get some firm control of the e file, which white denies and so Hayden trades off a pair of rooks to try and keep control of the e file. However, Hayden now trades another pair of rooks off the board, which means this position is more likely to be a draw.
Both players now try to get their kings more involved in the game, which you need to do to have a better chance of winning an endgame. White trades off a pawn for pawn and Hayden does his best to freeze the kingside of the board. White carries on to try and make progress, but Hayden does his best to stop white and Hayden does start to repeat moves, but white still tries to find a way to win. White marches his king down to the h file to try and get behind the black pawns and start taking some free material, but Hayden has the same idea and he is quicker than white, so white will at some point have to move back to defend his own pawns.
White moves his bishop to defend what pawns remain, but on move 47 white makes a blunder and allows the chance for Hayden to win. Using a computer to look at the position, white had to start moving back to defend himself, but white kept moving forward behind the black pawns. However, Hayden does not see it as he thinks he will lose if he does not start moving back, so Hayden moves his king back to c3, but if he had moved to a5 it would have been a win. This is quite a hard move to find and I did not see it until now, but it will be a good game to learn from.
Hayden does start to move his king back around to defend himself and (using an engine) the position is still a draw, until Hayden moves his bishop away from the d6 pawn on move 51, which now gives white a past pawn. Hayden does try to defend the position, but it is difficult to defend as black has got an isolated f pawn, which Hayden will need to defend as well. However, Hayden unfortunately is not able to defend and he resigns on the 65th move of the game. A good end game to look at in which Hayden could have won, but again it is a difficult move to see and it is a good lesson for Hayden to learn.
Board 4: Reidan Minhas (white) vs. Yingxin Chen(black)
E5 c5 start to the game with black playing a najdorf type set up for the first few moves and Reidan playing an italian set up. No tension at the moment as both players are developing their pieces. Reidan castles and black prepares to castle whilst Reidan is preparing to play e5, which Reidan does do successfully and this forces black’s f6 knight back to d7. Reidan trades his e pawn off and pushes some pawns forward, I suppose waiting for his opponent to make some moves herself.
Black pushes her e pawn forward and Reidan blocks the pawn’s path with his c3 knight, which black immediately trades off for her own knight. Black manages to grab Reidan’s h pawn, which was loose, but Reidan does create some counter attack with Ng5, which attacks the bishop and attacks black’s pawns in front of her king. After black retreats her bishop back to it’s home square Reidan has some good opportunities to make some attacking moves, such as Qh5 which would put lots of unpleasant pressure on the black position.
However, Reidan instead took on f7 with his bishop, which black retakes with her rook and Reidan takes the rook with his knight, but Reidan has just lost a piece. Even though it is a rook he has obtained, he has traded a bishop and a knight for a rook, which is not a favourable trade. Afterwards, Reidan moves his queen up to d5 with check, which black blocks with her bishop and Reidan has to move his queen out of the way. Black now centralises her knight on d4, which is known as a pillsbury knight when a knight is defended by two pawns. Reidan moves his queen again, which allows black to develop her queen to an active square on f6. This threatens Nf3+, which was a threat to win an exchange but Reidan defends against it well.
Redain again shuffles his queen once more, which allows black to move her bishop into a good position, and this is not good for Reidan as black is arranging her pieces to attack and checkmate white. Reidan does miss this and black does manage to checkmate Reidan. The start of this game is promising for Reidan as he had a significant advantage in the opening and start of the middle game, but unfortunately Reidan chose to exchange two pieces for a rook. Afterwards, Reidan was not able to create an attack and he shuffled his pieces more than is necessary.
Not a great result for Anstey 4, but there were some shining moments for each player. With every loss we learn something, which is all that matters really.
Our next match will be against Melton Mowbray, which maybe hard as they are one of the 3 top teams in the league. Not expecting much, but I’m sure it will be good to play another game of chess!
Thursday 26/10/2023. Anstey 1 made the trip to the Wigston Liberal Club for their third match in LRCA league division 1. Having just missed out on a win against Thurnby the week before captain Matt tried to boost team morale by saying that all he wanted this time out was three wins for white (on the odd boards) though to be fair against the early league leaders that was always going to be a big ask. Ben was back from holiday so for the first time this season Anstey fielded their regular side. Wigston didn’t field their strongest possible side but still out-rated Anstey 10,204 vs 8,790. The teams shook hands and battle commenced.
The first fatality was Julian on board one with white against Martin Burrows. He seemed to be doing ok out of the opening but just a few moves later he had resigned. (Some kind of catastrophic error? – Ed).
Boris faced off against Lewis Tuner as white on board three. The game was fairly even but as all the minor pieces came off Boris lost a pawn. But with most of his pawns on dark squares and all but one of Lewis’s pawns on light squares there was still plenty of work for black to do. Though he did it inexorably, infiltrating with his queen and with the queens exchanged he had created a monster passed-pawn. Boris tried in vain to rustle up some counterplay in the rook and pawn ending but ultimately it came to nowt with black’s pawns crashing through.
Ben played Stefan Savic as white on board 5. He played a steady opening variation and for 30 moves the game was very close even considering Ben’s doubled, isolated but passed pawns on the b-file in a queen rook and five pawns each endgame. Ben got a bit tangled up trying to defend and blundered a pawn as black’s rook and queen switched direction to attack white’s king. Ben moved his queen over to defend but fell into a classic remove the defender tactic and lost his queen for a rook and resigned.
So the three Anstey wins with white wasn’t happing…
Mick finished next on board four with black against Lee Robinson. Deploying one of his famous wing openings he got into an ok position though for much of the middlegame white had a noticeable space advantage. Lee missed a chance to take advantage of black’s overworked queen but Mick dug in and defended hard. Lee improved his knight and found a great outpost on e6 but then traded it early for black’s bishop on c7. White still had +2.7 advantage but Lee lost the will to continue and agreed to a draw, praising Mick for his play and saying he deserved a draw. A great result for Mick, outrated by 367 points.
Last to finish was Matt on board two, black against Phil Horspool. A fairly normal looking opening became a bit Mick-esque when Matt played for a speculative looking (but planned) attack on the kingside with h6 and g5 followed by jumping his knight into f4 and leaving it there when challenged with g3. Phil snapped of the knight with g3xf4 but had a problem with his bishop on e3 after g5xf4, the bishop remained enprise for 5 or 6 moves before it was captured. Matt had a promising looking attack but couldn’t see a concrete way through and this gave Phil some time to organise his defence. But then as the time ticked down Matt castled long and Phil had a glimmer of counterplay and went for it. Matt had seen the five move sequence which included temporarily losing his queen only to fork white’s king and queen a few moves later and in theory to come out with a huge material advantage. Only inexplicably didn’t take the queen and blundered a second chance to win the game. Phil came out with a queen for rook, bishop and 2 pawns but with black’s exposed king probably stood better. With both sides perilously low on time a draw was agreed.
So Wigston took the win:
Wigston retain their 100% start to the season while Anstey drop to 7th:
Anstey captain Matt Connor told East Midlands Today: Well, we were well beaten! I can only blame chess blindness for my blunder, the only crumb of comfort being the outcome of the match wasn’t dependent on my game! A superb result for Mick
Here we go, the 4th match of the league season in Leicestershire against the 3rd team of the Syston club (the only club in Leicestershire to have a Grandmaster). Playing for Anstey are Oskar Rudczenko, Curtis Blunt, Jakub Miler and Reidan Minhas. Yet again, Anstey are the underdogs when we look at the rating points of each player, but players can be underrated and others can be over rated, and Anstey are far from a weak club. This may be another tough match, but when you lose you learn, and when you win you realise your real strength.
Board 1: Oskar Rudczenko (1205) vs Oscar Brown (1400)
Oskar plays white and his opponent plays a sicilian defence as black. Oskar opts to develop his pieces before opening the position with d4, which is okay but at some point it does bite Oskar back a little later. By the time Oskar has castled and developed three minor pieces his opponent has only developed two minor pieces, but black does have some play with Bg4 pinning a knight to Oskar’s queen. Oskar can no longer play d4, which makes his position a little more cagey.
Oskar defends the pin with Be2 and afterwards both players develop and improve their position slowly but surely. Until Oskar advances his e pawn to e5, which does work quite well and as Oskar had intended it. Black initiates a trade of bishops, Oskar recaptures with his queen which does fall into Nd4 with the threat of forking Oskar’s white rooks, so Oskar has to move the queen back to d1 to defend. Black offers a trade of knights which Oskar does not mind but he develops his last bishop whilst he can. Black trades the knights off and offers a bishop trade, which Oskar forces as he move his queen out to threaten mate in 1.
Black simply trades the bishops and snaps the c pawn with his knight on d4. Oskar attacks the knight and the knight moves to attack the now isolated queens pawn, which Oskar cannot defend, so he allows for black to take the pawn with a rook fork, but Oskar wins the queen for his two rooks. This can be an okay trade if the opposing rooks cannot coordinate, but this does not matter as Oskar has very little time on the clock at this point. Oskar tries to make his position work, but having only seconds to think of each move he has to move fast. At the end of it Oskar traps his own queen just after running out of time. Syston 1 – Anstey 0.
Board 2: Curtis Blunt (1137) vs David Bedder (1375)
Curtis plays as black and plays the Giuoco Piano game, which is a variation of the italian opening. Both players move some pawns and develop pieces to improve and stabilise their positions. White plays a3 and b4 to make Curtis move his dark squared bishop to b6. White offers a dark squared bishop trade on e3, which Curtis accepts and white has a semi-open f file and a useful pawn structure with doubled e pawns. Both players castle and Curtis plays d5 to break open the centre of the board, which white happily accepts and trades pawn for pawn and bishop for knight. White moves his knight to f5 to make an outpost, which Curtis counters well with his own knight and Curtis trades knights, and white takes back with the rook.
Curtis gives a check with his queen on b6, which white blocks with his rook and Curtis lifts his rook to e6 to start to take advantage of the pinned rook. White tries to deal with this by attacking Curtis’s queen with a knight, which Curtis deals well with by moving the queen to a different spot on the same diagonal, so still pinning the rook. White can deal with the pin quite easily with other moves like Qe2 and Raf1, which I suppose white did not do because he was worried about his pawns getting attacked.
Again white tries to attack Curtis’ queen with a knight and Curtis deals with this well by moving the queen to e3. At this point white I imagine gets quite frustrated and just offers a queen trade, which Curtis accepts. White recaptures with the a1 rook, so Curtis attacks the vulnerable white a pawn, which white defends by moving his rook back to a1. Curtis plays f6 to stabilise his e pawn, but white immediately attacks Curtis’ e pawn with d4 and Curtis trades the e pawn off. White recaptures with his knight, which Curtis immediately attacks and white defends with c3.
Curtis restricts the white knight with a6 and white advances his pawns on the kingside with g4. At this point both players agree to a draw, which maybe rightly played as the computer does say that their position is slightly better for black by about 0.2. Black is to play and the computer says black’s best move is to play b6, 29: Re1, c5 to advance on the queenside, whilst white’s play might be to focus on the kingside and centre. Nevertheless, both players played a good game with both getting 91% accuracy according to stockfish on chess.com. Syston 1 1/2 – Anstey 1/2.
Board 3: Jakub Miler (1130) vs Aron English (1294)
Jakub starts with d4 and the game transitions into a queen’s gambit declined with blacks second move being Nf6 and then e6 rather than e6 being before Nf6. After e6 Jakub strikes with Bg5 and black strikes with Bb4 so both players have pinned each others knights. Jakub plays e3 and black trades off the bishop for the knight, which allows Jakub to have two c pawns, so he can attack black’s centre twice. Black defends the second c pawn push and then plays Qa5+; Jakub blocks the check with his queen and black plays Qa3. Jakub finishes developing his minor pieces, both sides castle, and black trades his d pawn for Jakub’s second c pawn.
Black centralises his knight on e4 attacking Jakub’s queen and reinforcing the e4 knight with Ndf6. Black trades a knight for a bishop, both players make small improving moves and black trades a knight for a knight. However, Jakub moves Rab1 and white responds with Rb8, but because black’s light squared bishop is still on it’s home square this means the rooks aren’t connected. This allows Jakub to play Bxc6, because if black retakes then Jakub can take the rook on b8 with his b1 rook, and the position would result in Jakub being up the exchange and having won a pawn. Therefore, black does not retake on c6 and moves the bishop instead, which makes bxc6 now a threat so Jakub has to move his bishop.
Jakub now attacks black’s light squared bishop twice with pawns. Black attacks Jakub’s queen once and black sacrifices the bishop for a pawn, which does not make a lot of sense as the bishop was not trapped, but I suppose black did not see the squares he could move the bishop to? Either way, Jakub is up a piece and even though black gets two pawns it’s not exactly worth the trade. Now some more manoeuvring from both sides and black builds a queen rook battery on the c file, which Jakub challenges with one of his rooks and black sacs the queen for two rooks, which would be a bad decision, but a couple of moves later black wins Jakub’s bishop as it was pinned to Jakub’s king to stop checkmate. In the final position, Jakub has a queen for two rooks.
Eventually, the queenside pawns get traded down and a couple of pawns from the kingside, so it’s queen vs rooks and both sides have f and g pawns, which the computer does estimate is a draw with perfect play; both players agree to a drawn game. Syston 2 – Anstey 1.
Board 4: Reidan Minhas (725) vs Rohan Joshi (1200)
Reidan plays black against the london system, which Reidan starts to attack immediately with Bg4 threatening to pin white’s knight if white ever moves his e pawn. However, after the second knight moves to defend the potential pin Reidan moves the bishop to f5 instead, possibly thinking the bishop is doing less on g4 compared to f5. White makes the london triangle pawn structure and Reidan starts to advance his kingside pawns and then moves his knight to a5 to make an outpost on c4, which white immediately stops with Qa4+ and Reidan has to move his knight back to c6 in order not to lose it.
White puts more pressure on Reidans now pinned knight with Bb5, which Reidan defends with Bd7. Reidan now tries to force the situation with a6, which forces white to make a decision to trade his bishop for a knight or to move the bishop back. White chooses to move the bishop back, which allows Reidan to advance his queenside pawns more to attack white’s queen. White move his queen and Reidan fires back on the kingside with g5, which white ignores to play Bxh7, which Reidan ignores and takes the bishop he was attacking with his g pawn.
Unfortunately, Reidan had missed a mate in 1 with either the bishop or queen moving to g6, as Reidan had moved his f pawn to the 6th rank earlier in the game. However, it is not as if Reidan was getting out played, he only missed a move, which happens to all of us. As long as Reidan practises his puzzles and tactic recognition he may be able to spot these types of moves more quickly. Syston 3 – Anstey 1.
Final Words
Anstey are not having a great season this year as a start, which is not the end of the world, as I know from experience that you can start rough but have a good ending. Anstey may have better luck a bit later, but the best thing we can do right now is to analyse, practise and prepare for the next match. Speaking of which, we will be playing against Leicester Uni 2 for our 5th match, which could go either way as the Uni team are slightly lower in strength and experience compared to most other clubs in Leicester. However, there’s no harm in preparing for a rough ride. Until that match has been played out, I hope you have a good day and I wish you fare well until next time.
Thursday 19/10/2023. Anstey 1 welcomed Thurnby to the Anstey Methodist Church Centre for their first home game in LRCA league division 1. Coming off a hammering by Shepshed the week before Anstey were targeting this match as a must-win with Thurnby likely to be their main challengers for relegation! With Ben away on holiday John stepped up from the second team to deputise and Mick being back from holiday took over the board five duties from Noor).
In likely to be a very rare occurrence this season Anstey actually out rated their opponents 8,852 vs 8,126 but unfortunately the numerical advantage came to nowt. Even the brand-new wooden sets and pieces donated to the club by Ben from his earning at the British Chess Championships couldn’t get them over the line.
The two Johns finished first on board three, pretty much playing out a grandmaster draw in twenty moves. John P as white eked out a small advantage but neither side looked that interested in starting any kind of attack and a draw was agreed.
Matt played Roland on board two and was the next to finish. In a change of approach this season Matt has eschewed some of his wilder lines with white and played much more solid openings. Or misplayed as it turns out. Having doubled black’s c pawns at the expense of a bishop for a knight exchange he missed a crucial move order nuance which allowed black to activate his pieces and untangle his pawns. The queens came off and it looked like Roland would be able to double his rooks on the c-file and invade but Matt defended accurately, and the game petered out to a draw.
Mick was playing the slightly inexperienced Ross Martin on board 5 as black. Now going for a more flexible interchangeable system he still ended up with a backward d-pawn but at least he managed to castle. Out of the opening white may have stood slightly better but with a more solid (than usual) setup Mick launched his infamous g5 and h5 kingside attack, doubled his rooks on the f-file and put white under some serious pressure. Looking for defensive resources white dropped his bishop back from b2 to c1 hitting black’s rook on f4 and offered a draw. Mick checked on Julian’s and Boris’s games and thinking that Boris was winning and Julian was about equal he took the draw. What both players had missed was that Bc1 left the pawn on d4 undefended and black could simply play Rxd4 going a pawn up with a winning position…
Boris was winning on board 4 against Michael Busby. Then he wasn’t. Then he was. Then he wasn’t. Then he was. Then he nearly gave away a draw before finally wearing down his opponent who made a final blunder and Boris took the win! (Yay, our first win of the season!). A 70-move thriller, a real rollercoaster of a game. Quoting Tartakower “The winner of the game is the player who makes the next-to-last mistake”.
Julian’s game as black against Ray Burgess was the last to finish and another long one with 80-odd moves, Julian playing the last 40-odd moves with less than a minute on the clock. With Julian going into time trouble Ray did have a 30-minute advantage as well as an advantage on the board. He’d pushed a pawn up to a7 and this was causing Julian a real headache, in the end he had to give up material to eliminate it. Ray then played carefully as Julian fought for counterplay and used up his time advantage in doing so. Julian did manage to create a passed-pawn but it was doomed, he promoted it to a bishop rather than a queen in an attempt to throw Ray off his game but it didn’t work. Ray snapped it off then gave back most of his material advantage to get to a won king and pawn vs king ending, rubbing salt into Julian’s wound by also under-promoting (sadly to a rook not a bishop).
So the match finished as a draw:
Both teams are going to find it hard this season but at least the shared points meant that Braunstone drop to last place:
Anstey captain Matt Connor told BBC Sport: Arrghh, so close! To be fair Boris’s game could have gone either way so we could have lost the match but Mick was mullering his opponent. A real case of “would’ve, could’ve, should’ve”!
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.
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.
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!
Anstey Chess Club 