The next opponent the third Anstey team face are the young students from Leicester University, and the students currently stand on the third place in the league leader board so they’re no slackers. The live ratings for the students for a couple of them are 1500, one who’s about 1400 and the last who’s about 1260. The first two players for the Anstey side are Mike Griffiths and Leo Abraham, two of the strongest players Anstey has, who regularly play for the third team, so this maybe an equal pairing. Leo is 1360 but he has proven himself a worthy opponent against 1500 and occasionally 1600 opponents before, so a worthy opponent for a 1500.

The next two players for the Anstey side are Noor Datoo playing against the 1300 and (again) no slacker at all; Noor has faced off against 1300 and 1400 rated players, so an equally matched board 3. Finally, on board 4 for Anstey, is Oskar Rudczenko, who is rated 1100 but he’s starting to show some growth as a player, so possibly an equal match, but we shall see.

Board 1: Mike Griffiths plays white; David Reid plays black

Mike opens with the english playing c4 and d3; black responds with Nf3 and d5 attacking straight away. Mike does like to trade pieces as soon as he gets the chance, so a pawn trade it is. Both players continue to fight for centre control and another trade of pieces occurs, this time with knights being exchanged. Mike fianchettos his light-squared bishop and black uses his own light-squared bishop to counter the fianchetto. Mike castles kingside and black castles queenside. Black takes Mike’s fianchettoed bishop. Mike pushes his b pawn up, supported by the a pawn, to attack the c6 knight provoking it to move. Black moves his knight to the d4 square, supported by the e5 pawn, and Mike instantly goes for the trade hoping for a rook endgame.

Mike soon gets what he’s looking for as black trades dark-squared bishops and takes an offered queen trade; we’re now in endgame territory. Black pushes his kingside pawns to rain down onto white’s king, and Mike responds with small pawn moves to wait for the pawn storm and lock up the structure. This shuts down black’s play on the kingside, which forces black to make some play with his pawns on the queenside, where the b and c files are semi-open. Mike’s only pawns on the queenside are the a and d pawns, which means his pawns will be under slightly more pressure than usual especially if it starts to rain pawns.

Mike soon trades his a pawn off for the b pawn, and black has a past a and b pawns. Although, Mike has two past d and e pawns, and as both players occupy the c file with their rooks a trade of rooks occurs, leaving Mike’s d and e pawns disconnected. As black storms the queenside, Mike rushes his king over to c2 as his rook blocks the b pawn from promoting. Another trade occurs, this time with rooks, and black attempts to break through on the kingside, which he succeeds in doing. However, Mike has a past e pawn, so it’s a race against the rain with both pawns and both pawns queen.

However, Mike is barely out of the woods, as black can make a second queen. Mike gives a few checks, but blacks king runs down the board to his pawns and with the queens help black makes another queen. Mike feels forced to resign. The score starts off with Leicester Uni taking the first point, but this match is far from over!

Board 2: Jake Howard plays white: Leo Abraham plays black

Leo opposes the queens gambit, and plays a slav defence type of set up for his defences, and he loses a pawn a few moves into the game. Although, one pawn doesn’t make too much of a difference, especially at the start of a game so Leo pushes on to try his best being a pawn down. The game continues with Leo trying to make some counter play on the queenside, advancing his queen to pin the c3 knight to the white king and putting more pressure on the knight with his dark-squared bishop. However, white prevails and manages to castle without much damage to his position.

White then proceeds to further evolve his position by attacking Leo’s light-squared bishop, and successfully trading it for a knight. Another trade of minor pieces occurs and we are in a rook and queen game. Now, with Leo being down a pawn, and pieces getting traded off the more Leo will feel that one missing pawn. The game was now made up of a queen and two rooks for each side, and white kept pushing his positional advantage to win some pawns. Leo tries his best to defend his clumsy position, but he was still falling short of equalizing the game.

Eventually, it came down to a queen and a rook for both sides, and Leo was about to get overwhelmed as he fell into a few tactical traps and his opponent managed to find a mating pattern and followed through with it quite well. Unfortunate loss for Leo, but you can’t win them all. The score is now two points to Leicester Uni, but it’s not over yet. Lets see how Noor did.

Board 3: Noor Datoo plays white; Gnanvardh Pentakota plays black

Noor starts the game with e4, and his opponent responds with e5. Knights come out on c3 and c6, and Noor pulls his bishop out to c4. After this, black fianchettos his dark-squared bishop on the kingside and castles kingside, whereas Noor continues development of his other knight and bishop. Noor lines his queen and dark-squared bishop together to strike at the fianchettoed bishop on black’s side. Black advances his f6 knight to counter the strike, so Noor moves the bishop to attack black’s queen. Black blocks with the dark-squared bishop, but Noor plays h6 to dislodge the knight on g4. Both players trade dark-squared bishops, leaving Noor’s f6 knight on g5, and black sacs the g4 knight to trade knights and pick up a pawn in the process.

A few pawn moves later a queen trade occurs, and Noor castles queenside. Black then starts raining pawns down the board as Noor calmly rotates his knight from queen to kingside, and centralises his light-squared bishop, which also pins the black knight to a rook. Noor develops his d rook to a more active square, and black fianchettos his light-squared bishop, stopping the pin on the knight, but the bishop is undefended. Noor starts poking around the black king’s position with h4 h5, and moves his knight closer to blacks vulnerable king. The black king then hides on h8, with Noor starting to surround the black king, and black snaps by moving his knight out of the the pin, but blundering his bishop.

Black makes a few strange moves after this blunder, as he sacs his knight and checks Noor’s king on e2, but then moves the same rook a few more times in a thoughtless kind of manner, only really using his pieces to attack rather than improve his position. Black even trades his rook for a bishop for not much reason. This lets Noor improve his own position and grasp around the black king, as he is very close to mating, he just needs to spot a knight move to e6 and his doubled rooks can start checking the king. Noor doesn’t spot this, but does trade his rooks for black’s only rook and queens a pawn to start to check mate his opponent. Black resigns soon after, which leaves the score two points to Leicester Uni and one to Anstey. One more point and it will be a draw, which is a better result than a loss.

Board 4: Steven Cheung plays white; Oskar Rudczenko plays black

The game starts off as a classical Roy Lopez: Berlin defence, with white castling on the fourth move. Oskar then plays for a6 and b5 to get rid of the annoying light-squared bishop, and Oskar then fianchettos his light-squared bishop. Then, black tries to pin the other knight to the queen, which Oskar stops with bishop to e7 and proceeds to castle kingside. White prepares a pawn attack on the queenside, and Oskar asks what white’s dark-squared bishop is going to do as he plays h6. White decides to retreat his bishop to e3, possibly preparing a pawn advance in the centre of the board.

Oskar starts to look for break-throughs in the position, and starts with a pawn advance on the queen side of the board, but that gets shut down. Then, Oskar goes for a centre break through, and after some calculation he thinks it’s the right, which is the best computer move in the position. This causes a series of trades, which leaves a semi-open d file and a very weak d pawn in white’s position. With the help of a rook, a queen trade occurs, and Oskar starts to move his pieces forward to constrict his opponent. Black rooks are now doubled and Oskar opens the position even further with another pawn, but black makes a move that complicate the position: he takes a defended h pawn with a his dark-squared bishop.

Although, Oskar is surprised by the move, he doesn’t phase and finds the best computer move once again: checking the king with his own dark-squared bishop and if the king moves it will be mate in one. Steven is shocked by what Oskar plays, so he moves his bishop back to defend his king, which results in a bishop and rook trade. However, Oskar then finds a deadly knight fork, checking the king and attacking a pinned knight, which is pinned to an undefended rook. Another trades happens, but this one leaves Oskar up a full bishop. White tries to defend his position, but it’s only a matter of time to fall when you’re a piece down, or a blunder from your opponent. Oskar doesn’t blunder a piece, but he does lose a pawn, which luckily doesn’t matter too much. A few moves later white resigns leaving the score two-all for the uni students and the rural outsiders.

Final Say

Another draw for Anstey 3, which is okay again a draw is better than a loss. Also, it does mean we are gaining a point per draw, so we will be climbing above teams that are losing a lot, and when we do win one or two matches we’ll start to really climb on the leader board! For now though, Anstey 3 are in eighth place out of nine, due to an illegal team that was played against Ashby 4, which is disappointing, but if we win one or two, we’ll be in fourth or third place as a win counts for two points on the league table. Our next opponent is Kirby Muxloe 2, who aren’t doing too well so we will hopefully win against them, and it will be a good match as we’ve got seven players lined up for each team! See you all soon.

Thursday 10/11/2022. Anstey 1 welcomed Wigston 3 to the Methodist Church Centre in this in LRCA Division 2 clash and scored an emphatic 4-0 win, the first whitewash in the division this season. With John back from injury Anstey looked to field their regular first team of Julian, John, Matt & Mick until Mick himself withdrew in the pre-match warm up after a reaction to a course of anti-biotics. The last-minute change saw super-sub Boris once again stepping in. No such luck as a night off Boris! With the team lists hurriedly updated Anstey had a decisive on-paper advantage (7,048 vs 6,633) and as the clock ticked past 19:30 battle commenced.

The first game to finish was board 2, John playing as white against Les Corlett. After a steady opening Les left his a-pawn en prise which John gobbled up with his rook infiltrating on the queenside. John’s pieces streamed forward squeezing the life out of black’s position. It looked like John was really enjoying the game as he threw in a nice tactic to win another pawn:

Les carried on courageously but John forced home his advantage and took the win. Anstey 1 – Wigston 0.

Boris was white against Paul Mottram on board 4 and was the next to finish. Boris went for his trademark kingside attack throwing his pawns forward opening the h-file and winning a pawn followed by ganging-up his rook and queen on said h-file. Paul defended by swapping off the major pieces but this left knight and 7 pawns vs knight and 6 pawns and a +3 advantage. Knights are tricky pieces of course but Boris made no fatal errors as he ground out a 60-move win. Anstey 2 – Wigston 0.

Matt fished next playing Stuart Dawkins on board 3 with the black pieces. Against Stuart’s e4 and c4 setup Matt delayed the breaking d5 until he was a bit more developed and castled. Stuart expanded on the queenside but delayed castling giving Matt just enough time to grab the white pawn on b4 with his bishop and defend in the centre. White offered an exchange of queens giving black a solid edge. But white’s light-squared bishop was lurking with menace on g2 and had control of the whole diagonal. Matt went for the plan of swapping it off but lost his edge in the double rook, knight and 5 pawns vs 4 ending. As time ticked down both sides made errors, the rooks came off leaving another tricky knight endgame. Luckily Matt managed to win another pawn and with connected passed pawns (and no further mistakes) Stuart resigned. Anstey 3 – Wigston 0.  

Julian faced off against Andrew Pike with black on board 1. In a departure from his regular setup Julian came out of the opening slightly cramped. Andrew continued to press his space advantage but just when he seemed to be about to break through an inaccuracy allowed black’s dark-squared bishop to get into the game with Bd4+. Julian followed this up with the delicious 26. … Nxd5:

Unfortunately, Andrew then made another mistake, Julian pushed his b-pawn all the way, giving up a rook but queening the pawn. In a hopeless position Andrew’s flag fell. Anstey 4 – Wigston 0.

Anstey 1 remain unbeaten in the league and move up to second place.

Anstey captain Matt Connor told East Midlands Railway:
I’m relieved! Mine and Julian’s games could easily have gone either way but I’ll gladly take the win. We’ve made a solid start to the season but so far have only played the bottom 4 teams, the next few games will be make or break!

The next challengers of the Anstey third team is none other than the current top standing team in the division: the fourth Ashby team. They are on a current winning streak of three out of three matches, and we are aiming to break that streak! The players for tonight’s match are (in board order, starting on board one): Ben Vaughan, Bob Grindrod, Mike Griffiths, Aarav Sinha, Oskar Rudczenko, Yuvraj Sadhra, and John Graham-Brown. A lot of players for a chess match, which is always welcome, and a lot of players means good games are even more likely.

It was a good evening, even though el captain was slightly late for the match, but we got sorted out quick enough after the captain’s arrival. Ashby brought a strong enough team for us to play against, with most of their roster being 1500-1400, with a few players between 1300 and 1100.

Board 1: Ben “El Presidente” Vaughan plays white; Dominic Lennon plays black

El Presidente’s game starts off with the carro-kann defence exchange variation. Although black seals in his light-squared bishop with e6 after the pawns are exchanged, so it’s a bit of a carro-french hybrid with the so called “french bishop.” A knights and bishops start to get developed with bishops taking d3 and d6 positions, and Ben brings his other bishop to g5 pinning the knight to the black queen. A few moves later, Ben’s rooks are on the f and c files, then black black decides to develop his queen to b6, and Ben mirrors this on b3. However, black then shys away from this move by playing his queen to d8, allowing Ben an extra tempo to improve his position further. Ben talked about maybe developing a big attack with his queen and bishop, threatening mate to tie down black’s f6 knight, then putting more pressure on the d7 knight by playing knight to e5.

However, Ben being human, makes the knight e5 move first before making the battery and then black shoos the queen away with pawn to a4, meaning he can’t have the queen infront of the bishop, so the game continues as normal, but with Ben having a small advantage. Although, Ben gets a big advantage soon enough when his opponent traps his own knight, leaving Ben up a full minor piece! Black retakes with his queen, and Ben then improves his other minor pieces with tempo attacking black’s vulnerable queen. Then, Ben makes good progress on the queen-side of the board with bishop to b5, knight d4, and queen b3. Black then tries to take back the initiative with f6 to break down white’s pawn structure, but Ben plays bishop to c6 x-raying the bishop and rook. Black takes on e5 anyway, and Ben takes back with the rook. The bishops are traded off and Ben brings his knight in.

However, Ben thinks he has blundered his knight as queen to d6 is played, but he can just play pawn to b5 solidifying the position for white. Ben unfortunately doesn’t find it and plays rook c to e1, and gives back the material advantage. Ben takes a few pawns an black makes a threat to check the king with a queen and rook battery. Not seeing a way forward, the players agree to a draw and shake hands, so it’s an even start for Anstey vs. Ashby with half a point each.

Board 2: Tom Gerrard plays white; Bob Grindrod plays black

Bob plays the french and his opponent chooses to follow the advanced french, and we get a normal french set up where the c pawns are traded off, and there’s always these ideas for black to play queen b6 and knight to f5 to put more pressure on the d4 pawn. Both players develop a few more of their pieces, and Bob fianchettoes his dark-squared bishop and white plays knight to a4, which attacks black’s b6 queen and defends b2. Bob then goes queen to c7, but then Tom plays rook to c1 to pin Bob’s c6 knight to his queen, so Bob feels obliged to play queen to d8. Tom centralises his knight, and (soon after this) Bob plays h6 to try and kick away the bishop on g5, so white re-positions the bishop to f6 to challenge black’s dark-squared bishop supported by the advanced e5 pawn.

After this, a couple of minor pieces get traded off, and Bob wins a pawn, which supported white’s bishop. After the scrap, both players reposition their queens, and white begins to attack. Firstly, bringing his rook down to c7, and then pushing his kingside pawns to try and dislodge black’s defences. Fortunately, for Bob, his opponent didn’t see a game winning tactic, where he can sack his rook for a pawn, and if Bob retakes with his queen white can fork the queen and king with a bishop. Bob then realises this is a threat and retreats his king back to the 8th rank of the board.

After this, the g file gets opened up and Tom goes for a few tactical plays, which finishes with Bob’s backwards e pawn getting put under heavy fire. Trying to equalise, Bob tries to encourage a queen trade by checking white’s king, but both players miss another supposedly winning move, which is king to h2, because the e pawn is just under too much pressure and the attack opens up black’s position. However, these two are not computers, so they trade queens and the position equalises, just as Bob wanted. Both players use their two rooks to capture pawns, both rooks are traded off after a few more moves and both players agree to a draw with only one pawn each. A white pawn on g5 and black pawn on a6. Now, both teams have a point each and it’s time to go to board 3 with Mike Griffiths.

Board 3: Mike Griffiths plays white; Jamie Rhodes plays black

Mike started off with his usual english opening, and his opponent responded, “soundly but passively” as Mike himself put it. After some time and trading some pieces, Mike was a pawn up in the middle game, and the game proceeded very evenly. Both players traded off some more pieces, and eventually got into a rook endgame. Mike states he had quite a few chances to force a stalemate and call it a night, but he decided to risk a loss and tried to go for a winning endgame. Mike had 3 pawns and a rook; Jamie had two pawns and a rook, but black had a passed pawn.

Unfortunately, Mike had to sac his rook for the newly made black queen, but he did still have two passed h and g pawns against black’s king and rook, it was still all to play for. Mike managed to herd black’s king away from the pawns, and he managed to slowly but surely advance his pawns towards black’s side of the board. Eventually, Mike managed to queen one of his two pawns and it was a rook vs queen endgame, and some time later Mike forked both black’s king and rook. Black had not much choice but to resign as a queen, pawn and king vs a king is a convincingly lost game. Mike admits he took a risk going for the win with such a tight game in his hands, but it was surely worth the risk as he had won the game and given his teammates a lead in the match! It is now two points for Anstey, and one point for the leading team in division four: Ashby 4.

Board 4: Mick Brown plays white; Aarav Sinha plays black

The game starts off with a d4 d5 opening, with Aarav playing an early bishop to f5, and with white playing a catalan set up with knight f3, e3 and c4. Both queenside knights are developed to the c6 and c3 squares, and white shuts down black’s dark squared bishop with c5. White then starts to attack black by pinning the c6 knight to the king, but Aarav stops the pin by castling kingside. Now there is no reason for the bishop to be on b5, so white takes the knight and Aarav retakes with the b pawn. Then, white castles before launching another attack with queen a4, this time attacking the c6 pawn. Aarav defends the pawn with his own queen, but white jumps the knight into e5, which wins the pawn as Aarav cannot defend the pawn with anymore pieces.

Knowing this, Aarav offers a knight trade with Ng4, but white takes on c6, which attacks Aarav’s e7 bishop and the bishop repositions on g5. Although, something went completely wrong with white’s calculation, because Mick moves his knight to e7, checking the black king but also blundering his knight as Aarav has bishop takes e7. What was white thinking? White then scares off the g4 knight and the black knight repositions on h6. White retreats his queen to play b4, and Aarav attacks in the centre with e4, supported by the bishop on f6.

However, this weakens black’s structure too much, and white plays e4. Aarav has to take with the d pawn, but white doesn’t take back yet and plays bishop takes h6, which means both bishops are piled on top of each other and both without protection. This allows for the fatal f takes e4 as the f1 rook skewers the bishops. Aarav takes on d4 with his e pawn, and protects the dark-squared bishop over the light-squared bishop. White continues the attack, but keeps holding on.

White trades the bishop and knight off, which allows his queen to join the attack. However, Aarav still defends well and with a few more shuffles of rooks and queens there’s not much white can do to gain a solid advantage. Aarav was on the cusp of losing, but pulled through against a player who is 300 rating points above Aarav. Both players agree to a draw, making it two and a half for Anstey.

Board 5: Oskar Rudczenko plays white; David Holmes plays black

Oskar starts with d4, preparing to play the jobava london. However, his opponent plays b6 most likely preparing to play the owen’s defence, so Oskar follows the theory for the next move, but black then prepares to fianchetto his other bishop too. Confused, Oskar just plays basic chess and develops his pieces to decent squares and gains centre control. Oskar castles queen side to line up a rook battery down the board with the queen on d2. With the occasional waiting move, Oskar gradually makes space and gains an advantage quickly because of this, as well as tempo from his opponent’s confusing play.

Starting to get impatient and thinking about attacking, Oskar plays e5, attacking black’s d6 pawn, blocking the dark-squared bishop, and stopping black’s knight from developing at all. Black doesn’t take and instead castles queenside, leaving the pawn on e5 and hang over the black position as black later plays d5, completely closing the centre. Oskar carries on forward, beginning an attack on the kingside and using pawns to break through black’s position, but black starts to panic and starts pushing his queenside pawns. Oskar tries to take advantage of this as he sees a very nice outpost square for his knight on c5, so as black pushes his pawns Oskar repositions his knight.

Black’s pieces are stumbling over each other and Oskar’s pieces have as much space as they’ll want. With a failed attack on the queenside, Oskar switches right back to the kingside and breaks black’s structure with a quick g4 and this opens up a very nice open file, the only open file. Oskar takes control immediately and doubles rooks, whilst black trades off the powerful night, but Oskar replaces the knight with a pawn, still freezing the position and black’s hopes of drawing. Black tries to defend from Oskar taking black’s pawns but Oskar still keeps going.

After a rook trade and a captured pawn, black goes all into the white position and abandoning the king. Black then secures winning a pawn, but Oskar need not worry as their is an imminent mate on the black king. However, Oskar misses it and pins the rook to the queen, but white checks the white king which wins the queen. Oskar still has some hope as he has a knight and rook working together, but white has a forced mate in 3 that Oskar needs to take care of, but he misses it and black wins with seconds to spare on his time. Damn… it is now two and a half for both teams.

Board 6: Graham Bird plays white; Yuvraj Sadhra plays black

Yuvraj faces a b3 opponent and plays e5, and Graham plays e3 so Yuvraj plays the principled night to f6. White develops his knights and so does Yuvraj, which makes one question why mov b3 in the first place. Yuvraj continues to develop his minor pieces, and white does so too. Yuvraj moves d5, but as soon as he does his opponent pins the black knight to the black king. Yuvraj castles kingside, which is when he loses a pawn to the short sequence of bishop takes c6 and knight takes e5. Yuvraj’s knight gets replaced with a bishop, but this makes the e5 pawn weak and so the white knight can take on e5. Yuvraj scares the horse away with queen to d6, and white simply puts his knight back to f3.

Now, Yuvraj offers a trade of knights, and white accepts but Yuvraj replaces the knight with a pawn, which is where white mis calculates and moves his knight to g5. Yuvraj’s dark-squared bishop covers g5, so white loses a piece. White tries to make something from the loss of a piece by playing queen g4, x-raying the bishop and the g7 pawn, but with a simple bishop to f6 the g7 pawn is defended well enough. The bishop move also attack white’s rook, so white has to move the rook to b1, and Yuvraj tries to trade queens but white doesn’t want any trading going on, so Graham moves his queen closer to the centre. Yuvraj won’t give up on a queen trade though, and still offers a queen trade. Yuvraj chases the white queen around for a few more moves until he forces the white queen in a corner and uses his bishops to herd the white queen into the path of the black queen.

Yuvraj takes the kind queen trade offer from white, and castles queenside leaving the board with a very early end game and with most pawns still on the board. Yuvraj mobilises his pieces and attacks the white position firstly with his pawns, then he starts to work his rooks into the position. Soon later he chops up the kingside and bullies the white king a little bit. A rook trade is forced by Yuvraj, and because of his extra pieces Yuvraj keeps taking white’s pawns and eventually he starts to push his pawns against white’s zero pawns. It was a long game, but eventually Yuvraj came through with a win and checkmated his opponent with a rook and king. Anstey are winning with a one point lead!

Board 7: John Graham-Brown plays white; Stephen Holmes plays black

John starts off with e4 and black starts off with the owen’s defence with b6. John develops appropriately and black goes for a small tactic by pinning the c3 knight to the king, so then black can freely take the e4 pawn. However, John seems to know what to do and defends the e4 pawn before black pins the knight, and when the bishop does arrive John simply unpins with bishop to d2. Black seems to have not acknowledged the e4 pawn is well defended and still captures the knight even though there is no reason to, so the game continues where John has a very small advantage with the bishop pair.

Both players develop their pieces, both sides castle and black tries to attack in the centre with c5. John takes the pawn and the d file opens up. Black places a knight on d5 and John takes advantage of this by pinning the knight to his opponent’s undefended light-squared bishop with his own bishop. Both players position their rooks on the d file, and after the position opens up a bit, the rooks are traded off along with quite a few other pieces, and not many pieces remain on the board for both players.

Black does eventually get an advantage though when white’s king becomes slightly more vulnerable, and black uses his queen to herd white’s king around the kingside of the board. John also attacks the oppositions king and he picks up a few pawns along the way, however, black might get a bit more than what John had intended as black moves his pawns up along with his king and John’s king. White’s king becomes locked into a position, by the black queen and the finishing blow by black with a pawn knocks John’s king out cold. This leaves the score with both teams having an equal amount of points (three and a half).

Finishing Lines

This match ended in a draw on the night of the match, but there was a bit of bad planning by the Anstey team as we used an illegal amount of players from the second Anstey team, meaning that we have to forfeit the top board, which means we actually lose this match. This incredibly disappointing result, means we are now in seventh place on the leader board in division four, but we have still did very well considering Ashby 4 are the top team in our division, and it was a night to remember as there were a lot of happenings. Such as, low time and moves being blitzed out. An illegal move was thought to have been played, but on closer inspection this was not the case, and a good night of social analysis from both sides. We may not have beaten Ashby this time, but this gives us an idea of the team’s potential.

The next match is against a new club of the league: Leicester University. We don’t know much about them, but we’ll find out soon enough what they’re made of. Until next time, bye bye for now readers.

Tuesday 01/11/2022. Anstey 1 travelled to the deep south for the away match vs Market Harborough 2 in LRCA Division 2. Conditions were very different to their last visit with darkness, wind and rain vs a balmy summer’s evening. But the result was the same, another win for the soon to be hopefully unstoppable Anstey 1 LOL. MH are a friendly bunch and there was a jovial atmosphere between the players as they settled down, discussing the strength difference between divisions 2 and 3 (both teams having been promoted last year). The captains exchanged team lists, Anstey 1 again calling on super-sub Boris to stand-in for injury-hit John. With the teams evenly matched on paper (6,921 vs 6,933) battle commenced.

Boris played black against Jon Redding on board 4 and was the first to finish. In a sharp back and forth game where both players had chances, Boris accepted Jon’s gambit pawn on move 3 and after Jon played a few inaccurate moves coming out of the opening Boris consolidated his position and had a nice edge – a pawn up and a better pawn structure. Jon fought back and managed to infiltrate on the 7^th rank with his queen leading to winning a pawn. The major pieces were swapped off and it came down to a bishop and knight vs two bishops endgame. Unfortunately, Boris couldn’t take advantage of the two bishops as one of them was pretty much relegated to defensive duty. Plenty of probing followed on both sides, the light-squared bishops were exchanged and the position came out dead even. A draw by repletion followed shortly after. MH ½ – Anstey ½.

Mick played with the white pieces (for the first time this season) against MH’s captain Michael Garland on board 3 and was the next to finish. Michael gambited a pawn on just move 3 but Mick ignored it and carried on with normal development leading to a small but noticeable advantage out of the opening. Mick provoked g6 and f6 to weaken black’s kingside pawn structure before all the bishops were swapped off and the knight manoeuvres began. Unfortunately for Michael, one of his knights was stuck on the edge of the board and with pressure growing on the weak e6 pawn he missed the threat to trap it:

Michael rustled up a little counterplay on the open g file doubling rooks but ultimately it came to nothing. White’s queen roamed around the board with aplomb picking up a couple of free pawns on the kingside before swapping to the queenside and winning the other knight. Michael tried a cheap trick to give up his queen but Mick saw the back-rank mate threat and defended easily. Two knights and a pawn down Michael resigned. MH ½ – Anstey 1½.

Boards 1 and 2 both ended in time scrambles. Matt fished just before Julian playing David Curran on board 2 with the black pieces. No early gambits here, after a quiet opening Matt had equalised fairly easily. After an exchange of knights on e4 he made a space grab with f5 then e4, David responding with f4 taking the juicy looking e5 square away from black’s knight. Play transferred to the queenside and Matt infiltrated the 7^th rank with 21. … Rd2:

After 22. Qf1 Matt though long and hard over 22. … Rxc2 and lost a lot of time before not going for it (another missed tactic) instead retreating the knight followed by the rook. After a few poor moves on both sides the following wild position was reached:

All hell then broke loose. David went for more complications with 28. Bxe4 then recapturing with his knight eyeing f6. Pawns were exchanged and pushed with check before black’s knight swooped in to d5 both attacking and defending. After more rushed moves (including an illegal one, oops), Matt transferred a rook to the half open h-file and after a final blunder Matt skewered white’s King and Queen with Rh3. MH ½ – Anstey 2½.

Julian faced off against Romilly Ilersic with white on board 1. After getting an edge in the opening he went on to dominate proceedings, at no point did black generate any real threats. The only fly in the ointment, unusual for Julian, was that he used up too much time in the early middlegame and ended up chronically short of time just when he was in a position to play a rook sacrifice for a mating attack with 27 Rd7!:

But with just 10 seconds left on the clock he had to blitz out the moves and Romilly wriggled out and transitioned to an equalish position. With the match already won, Julian offered a draw that Romilly accepted (with relief). MH 1 – Anstey 3.

So a draw and two wins in the first three games and a promising league position:

Anstey’s next game is against bottom of the table Wigston 3, a must-win match in what already looks to be shaping up as a five-way scrap for top honours!

Anstey captain Matt Connor told East Midland News:
An excellent result on the road. I’m particularly pleased that we suffered no individual loss as “goal difference” could once again be an important factor at the end of the season.

Anstey’s second team made the journey down to South Leicestershire to El Presidente’s old club Wigston. Wigston find themselves in the same predicament as Anstey with too many players and not enough teams, with both Anstey and Wigston pushing to try and add another smaller division. With both teams keen to give players games, they agreed to a 7 board match and after negotiating traffic on all roads leading to Wigston, battle commenced just after 7:30pm.

So to the match and battle commenced. First to finish was Aarav with the white pieces against another young player – Madhav Eradi. Aarav opened with the Evans Gambit – Aarav, if you’re reading this please speak to Just Mick who is a massive fan of this line and would be happy to give you some pointers about playing it. Unfortunately, it seemed that the desire to notate was neglected and once notation stopped on move 15, Aarav was already in trouble having slid out of the book lines on move 8. Aarav and Madhav blitzed out the moves and when I looked over, neither player was notating and Aarav was a piece down with most of the pieces off the board. Not much longer after that, Aarav had resigned being heavily down on material and he looked very disappointed. El Presidente tried to reassure Aarav that there is plenty of time and I think he got caught out by his opponent playing quickly and fell into the trap of doing the same. Wins will come Aarav, take your time! Anstey were 1-0 down.

Second to finish was Boris The Toaster. Boris had the black pieces against Joseph Horspool, somebody that The Toaster had already played in the reverse fixture last month – it is a little unusual to face the same team so closely together. Against 1.e4, Boris employed his favourite Caro-Kann defence and his opponent employed the advance variation where we are straight down the book line where black shuffles his light squared Bishop several times to f5, e4 and having met h4 with h6, the light squared Bishop moved from e4 back to g6 and after h5 moved again back to h7. Not content with this merry dance, The Toaster’s opponent played Bd3, offering another move for the Bishop, which was taken. The Toaster’s light squared Bishop had enough for the day and was knackered! White had a slight advantage at this point, the engine giving it +1.2. Both players then sought to develop and castle – the Toaster won the race to castle but had a severely undeveloped Kingside with all of the Kingside pieces still on home squares and white ready to castle either way after black’s 12th move. After a few more moves back and forth, white played c4, seeking to mix it up a bit with The Toaster met with dc. The Toaster played Nb6-d5 which I thought looked correct but turns out to be an inaccuracy, the trade on c4 is better.

Next to finish was board 4 and new man Bob Grindrod who has joined the club this year, after a while out of the game having moved to the area. Bob was another player who was facing somebody that he had played before – the very slippery youngster Sathsara Dissanayake – hereafter to be known as SD! Bob had the black pieces and employed e6 in reply to SD’s 1.e4. Instead of the traditional reply d4, SD played Nf3 and Bob played Bc5. These 4 moves do not have an opening name but SD played 3. d4 which would be logical to force the retreat of the Bishop. Both sides developed their pieces, with Bob managing to get d5 in to stake a claim on the centre. By this time, SD had developed most of his pieces and castled, so Bob was behind in development and was fairly cramped for space with Knights on e7 and d7 and a light squared Bishop which at this stage was jealous of The Toaster’s compatriot on board 2! With the position seemingly level, Bob castled Kingside which allowed SD to trade a Bishop for Knight and finally allow Bob’s light squared Bishop a home on d7 at the cost of a pawn. Both players manoeuvred their pieces into better positions and although a pawn down, Bob had a very comfortable position against SD’s split pawns on e5 and c5, the c5 pawn being the extra pawn. SD played a dubious Na4 move, attacking a Bishop on b6 but this allowed Bob to attempt to deflect the Queen, which was on g4 and protecting the a4 Knight.

3-0 down and with things looking bleak, Mike was next to finish with the white pieces on board 5, facing El Presidente’s conqueror in the return fixture, Luke Muir. Employing his favourite 1.c4 English opening, the game started very evenly, with both players cautiously developing their pieces. Mike fianchettoed his Kingside Bishop and Luke spent a couple of moves initiating Bh3 and the trade off of the light squared Bishop. Mike traded the f6 Knight which was recaptured with a Bishop and got his Knight to e4, hitting the Bishop on f6. Mike felt this was crucial as Luke captured Mike’s g2 Bishop, Mike took on f6 with check and using the intermezzo to ruin black’s pawn structure before re-capturing on g2. The players shuffled their pieces about, denying one another crucial squares that the pieces were looking to occupy. With all of the pawns on the board, there were no open files and things looked pretty even.

Your author is a little unsure whether it was actually Mike or our board 1 that finished before the other but Brian The Griller was on board 1, facing off against somebody that he had beaten in the reverse fixture – Phil Watkinson with Brian having the white pieces. The game opened with Brian’s usual 1.d4 which was met with a Slav setup from Phil and transpired into an Alapin variation with 4. … dxc4 followed by 5. a4. Development of pieces was quick from both players with Brian trading off his Kingside Knight for black’s dark squared Bishop, opening the h file for Phil’s uncastled Rook, forcing 11. h3. Brian had to negotiate g5 a timely g5 from his opponent and found the only defence 13. g4 as mate was being threatened from a Queen on c7 and the open h file. Tension had remained earlier in the game via a Bishop on b4 and a Knight on c3. After Na2 and a questionable Ba5 from Phil, The Griller had the opportunity to trap the dark squared Bishop. Oozing class, Brian delayed the opportunity – it was trapped anyway, no need to rush. A sequence of moves allowed the Bishop to be released but the attacking potential and co-ordination of The Griller’s pieces is scary against black’s castled King. A monster a pawn ran up the board and The Griller’s Kingside attack really took shape.

I think that it was Noor who finished next but only just finishing ahead of El Presidente. Noor had the black pieces on board 6, facing off against Chris Brown who had beaten Mike after Mike blundered a piece in the return fixture. The players went down the lines of the Giuco Pianissimo – the quiet Italian which gets both players some play with their pieces. Noor’s slightly unusual approach to retreat the dark squared Bishop and the f6 knight costed him a pawn which was greedily accepted by his opponent. Noor’s pieces got in to a tangle early on as a promising looking Bishop on f4 had to retreat back to c8 after Qf3, threatening both Bishop and the b pawn and white enjoyed a couple of tempi developing pieces. After white’s move 13, the eval bar is at +4.9. After castling, Noor gave up a further two pawns by walking in to a couple of minor tactics deflecting the pawn’s defenders. Indeed, after Qxb7, the eval bar is now at +7.3. Instead of accepting a 4th pawn, Chris (logically) decided to try to trade Queens which the computer doesn’t like, dropping the bar down to +3.3. Some inaccurate play followed from Noor’s opponent and whilst Chris shuffled his pieces, Noor grabbed a pawn back and after a Queen trade, got another pawn back.

On board 3, El Presidente faced off against a new face and name Peter Collings with the white pieces. Peter met El Presidente’s 1. e4 with the Scandi and instead of the traditional 3. Nc3 hitting the Queen, played 3. Nf3 – a free developing move. One can play Nc3 at any time – why rush? Quick development ensued and the game remained fairly even after a couple of trade-offs of minor pieces. The critical position appeared below, where El Presidente offered a draw.

After the match, El Presidente spoke to Sky Sports News:

SS: You must be delighted with the result?

Damn right I am, I haven’t won a game since January in Classical chess, I’m absolutely buzz-‘

SS: I meant the team result

Oh – Is this being recorded? (Clears throat) Yes, delighted by the draw, it really feels like a win. Thank you to everyone who played, it’s a long way to come and I am really pleased for those that won. Noor looks like he’s going to be a little superstar for us this year getting a draw from 3 pawns down. Someone also said that Wigston’s first division 1st team were playing and them patzers were all finished before me and Noor! Great to see some old and new friendly faces though, on a serious note. I know for sure that the guys that lost put up a massive fight and I am proud of them all. Wins be a coming for them just around the corner – we win, lose and draw as a team. Can you edit that first part out please?

The second team occupy a respectable 6th place out of 9 and face off against Loughborough 2 on Wednesday which is sure to be a big game.

The first away match of the new season for the third Anstey team, and it was a very interesting one! All sorts of things happened, and you’ll get to read all about it in this week’s recap of the Leicestershire Chess League.

Anstey 3 played Melton Mowbray 3, and the Anstey team this time was Borislav “The Toaster” Lazarov on board one followed by Noor Datoo on board two, with their team captain Oskar Rudczenko playing on the third board. You maybe asking yourself why I’m only mentioning three out of four of the team’s players, and I’ll get to that when we talk about board four in this report. Melton Mowbray brought quite a solid team to challenge us, and their was good sportsmanship from both captains as we agreed to only play one player, who was rated 1600. Every other player would be our normal team players in division 4.

With the context explained, and suspense exuded, lets jump right into the games!

Board 1: Borislav “The Toaster” Lazarov plays white; Quentin Jacquemard plays black

Normal d4 opening with black adopting a semi-slav set up, and with Boris being very aggressive on the kingside as he pushes f3 and g4 to attack black’s light-squared bishop. The bishop retreats and black is forced to push h6 to protect the bishop, and Boris encourages a bishop trade which black accepts. Black then offers a trade of dark-squared bishops and Boris takes the time to develop his last piece (aside from the rooks) and black trades bishops leaving only brave knights on the board of 64 squares. Black has a slight space disadvantage with his knights slightly further back than white’s knights, which are firmly in the centre or attacking the centre. There is no tension on the board, for now…

On the very next move, black creates tension by playing e5, which attacks white’s d4 pawn. The tension is left there as both sides develop their knights to better squares and both sides push pawns and trade a pawn each. Boris makes some tension on the kingside with g5 attacking black’s h6. Black calmly castles queenside, and the standoff in the centre and kingside is still on-going. Black moves his knight to attack Boris’ queen, x-raying the d4 pawn with the rook to white’s queen. Boris says no and moves his queen to attack the f7 pawn with rook and queen, also attacking an undefended knight. Black offers a knight trade with exd4 attacking the c3 knight. Boris moves his knight and black has hxg5 defending his knight with the h8 rook.

Boris puts more pressure on the f7 pawn with his knight, and black plays rook d-f8 defending the f7 pawn. Boris then thinks he should take back the centre by playing rook takes d4, and a few improving moves later black solidifies his f7 pawn and Boris has two rooks on the d file. Black makes some counter play to attack the e4 pawn, but Boris defends and all the four knights get traded off leaving equal material for both sides with two rooks and a queen each. Boris makes black’s queen retreat and moves his queen forward. Black intercepts the white queen with his and Boris retreats his queen all the way back to g1 to allow black a fork of white’s king and e4 pawn. Boris, being a pawn down, nabs one of black’s pawns, but this unfortunately leaves his rook hanging even though he has doubled rooks, as he can’t retake because a black rook would checkmate on the back rank on e1. Boris resigns leaving a taste of disappointment in his mouth. Melton 1 – Anstey 0.

Board 2: Peter Smith plays white; Noor Datoo plays black

This game starts of with the usual e4 e5 with Nf3 and Nc6, Bc4 and Bc5. The last two knights come out to play and both players solidify their pawns with d3 and d6, an identical position for white and black. Although, when white plays h3, Noor breaks the mirror with Be3, offering an exchange of the light-squared bishops and white takes as Noor has to take with the f pawn. Noor’s pawn structure is slightly damaged, but it’s nicely placed behind two protected pawns, so it might be an asset in the future. White castles kingside and pins the f6 knight to the queen, and Noor says, “no you can’t do that.” Noor plays h6 to say, “go away bishop.” White then retreats the bishop back to d2, and the game continues at Noor’s disposal as he now has the initiative.

Noor finishes his king’s development by castling queenside. White manoeuvres his knights to try and set up a more defensive position, or to re-route the knights and Noor plays g5 with rook d-g8 to start a kingside attack. White mostly ignores this thinking everything is well enough defended and plays c3, trying to make some counter play in the centre and Noor continues his attack on the kingside. A couple of trades are made, and both sides have one less knight and pawn in their armies, which leaves Noor’s rook on g4 looking directly at white’s king, and the computer marks this position at about -4.2, which is a significant advantage for black!

Although, the position is only -4.2 if white plays g3, but white instead plays d4 and basically says, “where’s your attack? Come get me!” Something you really shouldn’t be saying partly because it’s rude, but now the position is -5. Noor can play exd4, which again leads to more exchanges and Noor would have a big advantage. Although, Noor has other ideas and doubles his rooks with rook h-g8, and white plays knight g3, which guards the king for now. Noor plays exd4, white plays c4, Noor plays d3, and white plays queen to e1, which blunders a knight as the only thing guarding the knight was the f2 pawn. However, the pawn can’t take because the bishop on c5 is pinning it to the king. White plays king to h1, and now it’s mate in 2 moves, because the h file is completely open. The black queen can go to h4 with check, then the white king has to go back to g1 and rook takes g2 is mate because the black rooks are doubled.

A terrific game from Noor as he beat an opponent, who was just under 200 points above Noor! Melton 1 – Anstey 1.

Board 3: Oskar Rudczenko plays white; Peter North plays black

The first moves of the game are e4 and e6, so we get a french defence with d4, d5 and then e5 from Oskar. Black immediately goes for c5 to try and disrupt Oskar’s pawn structure, but Oskar says, “no mate, I’m playing c3. I want to keep my pawn structure intact.” Black responds with, “okay, I’ll attack your d pawn with Nc6, Qb6, and Ne7, Nf5.” Oskar is in a bit of trouble unless he plays Be3, keeping everything together, but he plays Na3 and black gets scared and doesn’t take on d4. Black instead plays a6, which gives Oskar a chance to play Nc2 and everything is solid in the white position. Black develops his last piece to allow him to castle, and Oskar develops his rook to e1. Black castles and white goes wild with the move g4, trying to displace the f5 knight, but black goes Nh4 and is fine. Oskar does take the knight and plays g5, and black’s knight goes back to f5.

Oskar slides his king over to make way for rook to g1 in the future (possibly). Black takes on d4 with the c pawn and Oskar takes back with his c pawn. Then, black gallops his knight in the middle of no where to b4 trying to trade the c2 knight, but Oskar simply plays knight to e3 trying to displace the f5 knight. Black takes with the f5 knight and takes back with the dark-squared bishop, completing his development of his minor pieces, and black’s light-squared bishop (or the french bishop) is still on it’s home square. Although, black finally develops his light-squared bishop on the next move.

Now, a fight starts to materialise for the queenside, with some rerouting of black’s knight and then a trade of light-squared bishops is offered by black and accepted by white. Another trade of knights occurs leaving black with quite a nice looking connected pawn on the c file. Then, white tries to set up an attack on the kingside with Rg3, looking to double rooks, but black defends well and there’s not much happening for white’s attack. However, Oskar still does for the attack, even sacking a pawn and the game for it, as the computer says it’s -3 when black takes on b2 with his queen. A few moves later though, black forces a queen trade and both players consolidate and defend their position. Black tries to attack and get a past pawn moving, but Oskar comes in with some counter play that blunders his bishop, but black doesn’t see it so black defends from a fake back-rank mate.

The endgame becomes filled with blunders by both players as different tactics swamp the board, but Oskar is low on time and black thinks he’s won so the game continues as if nothing is happening. However, black makes one blunder that Oskar doesn’t miss, and that is f5 which can be taken with en-passent by the e pawn and the e pawn is protected on f6 and is now a past-pawn. There is of course a mate in two on the board, but neither player sees this. Low time; black assuming he’s won.

Oskar does win a few moves later though, separating the black king from the h pawn, taking the h pawn and making a queen with it to ladder mate his opponent, with seconds to spare on his time. Melton 1 – Anstey 2.

Board 4: Steve Martin plays white; Anstey player 4 plays black

Now, I (as the captain) had thought that Yuvraj Sadhra was playing, but I had forgotten that he is still in India at this time with his family. We did play with a player down, which means that the score was Melton 2 – Anstey 2, so we drew with a player down which is a pretty good result. It also means we could’ve won with an equal amount of players, but let’s not get into the nitty-gritty of these things, as I don’t want to make myself look too bad.

Final Words

With this match said and done, this puts Anstey in 7th place out of nine with two draws and one loss, which is a lot better than last year as we lost most of the games at the start of the last league season. Drawing for us is decent enough, but we always and will still try to go for some wins whenever we have a chance. Our next match is away in Ashby against the very friendly and welcoming Ashby Chess Club. Win or lose, it will be a good night!

See you all in two weeks.

Thursday 20/10/2022. Anstey 1 registered their first win of the season in LRCA Division 2, putting up a good performance against a strong Kirby Muxloe side who out-rated Anstey by 7,288 to 6,933. Anstey remain unbeaten in the league having drawn against Braunstone in the first game whilst Kirby have now lost their first two matches.

With John on international duties (playing in the Guernsey Chess Festival), Matt and Mick shuffled up a board and super-sub Boris slotted in on board 4. At 19:30 the teams shook hands and battle commenced. Well, mostly, Julian had messaged in saying he was running and late and to start without him LOL.

The first game to finish was Mick with black against Kirby’s captain Ray Townsend on board 3. After another cagey start, some knight manoeuvring on both sides and the swap off of a couple of minor pieces Mick looked to start his trademark kingside attack with f5, g5, g4 and h5. At this point Ray blundered his queen to a discovered attack:

Ray played on a queen for a bishop down for another 30 moves but it was a complete rear-guard action. Mick took his time before eventually breaking through and forcing Ray to resign. Anstey 1 – Kirby 0.

Boris finished next on board 4 with white against David Walton. After an interesting game with white’s king stuck in the corner and black attacking on the kingside but with his own king stranded in the centre Boris blundered:

At this point Boris offered a draw… and David accepted! The very definition of a lucky draw because after 25. … Rh4+ black comes out with queen and king vs two rooks and a horribly exposed white king. And a -10 evaluation. In his defence David was short on time but even so a lucky ½ point for Anstey. Anstey 1½ – Kirby ½.

Julian faced off against Simon Lazarus on board 1. He was about 15 minutes down on the clock by the time he got to the board but blitzed out the first dozen or so moves and had comfortably equalised in a Caro-Kann Panov. White had a small space / activity advantage in return for a crippled pawn structure. Julian calmly manoeuvred and exchanged off pieces and it came down to a same-coloured bishop ending. Simon had a passed c pawn and exchanging off the bishops looked sensible but he had underestimated the mobility of Julian’s kingside pawns. He pushed them forward mercilessly and threatened to create his own passed pawn with white’s king too far away to catch it:

Simon resigned the completely lost pawn ending a couple of moves later. A 93.6% accurate game from Julian, he’ll want to improve on that! Anstey 2½ – Kirby ½.

Captain Matt was last to finish on board 2 with white against Kevin Dalley. In a terrible game by him he missed a chance to trap black’s queen followed by missing what would have been a beautiful tactic to create weaknesses around the black king:

He then mis-played the attack, retreated and lost a piece. Kevin gave him another chance by blundering a bishop back but then (admittedly in time trouble) Matt inexplicably gave away a knight when he had a slight advantage in an unbalanced position. A game best forgotten. But it didn’t matter as Anstey had already secured the win. Anstey 2½ – Kirby 1½.

So a draw and a win in the first two games and a mid-table league position:

Anstey’s next game is against Market Harborough 2, one they are definitely targeting for a win.

Anstey captain Matt Connor told BBC Sport:
I’m really pleased with this one, another engine-like performance from Julian and a great confidence-inspiring win for Mick. Yes, Boris got out of jail with that draw but that’s the way it is in this division, anything can happen!