Anstey have baptism of fire in league division 1

Thursday 12/10/2023. Anstey 1 travelled to The Black Swan in Shepshed for their inaugural game in the LRCA league division 1 full of hope. Mick was unavailable (sacrilege – Ed) so Noor stood up to the plate making his third appearance for the first team (thanks Noor!). With division 1 having five boards per match this season new first team regulars Boris & Ben joined Julian and captain Matt to make up the team.

Shepshed had started the season on a flyer beating champions (and favourites) Syston 3 – 2 in their opening match but fielded an even stronger side this time out. With an average 270 rating point difference per board this was going to be a tough night for Anstey.

And so it turned out. Board five was first to finish, George and Noor blitzing through their game. George didn’t fall for Noor’s little trap and ended up two pawns to the good with a completely won endgame.

Ben finished next on board three, getting a great draw against Bobby never having been in any trouble. The same could not be said for Matt who was too passive and then missed a simple tactic in time pressure.

So with the match score Shepshed 2½ – ½ Anstey it came down to Julian and Boris, Julian was doing ok against Alan Agnew but had an inferior pawn structure whilst Boris had a very interesting endgame against Sean Sheahan. Sean was up two pawns in rook an and same-coloured bishop ending but was severely down on time. Boris dug in and defended hard, playing super accurately. Sean made a mistake and a draw played out. A superb result for Boris.

During this time Julian had lost a piece for a pawn, Alan took no chances and remorselessly improved his pieces and position. Nothing Julian tried to get counterplay worked, Alan broke through and the defence crumbled leading to a nice mate.

Board 1: Alan Agnew vs Julian Tarwid [DRAFT]
After a steady opening an exchange of minor pieces gave Julian as white doubled pawns on the kingside. As the middlegame progressed Julian lost a piece for a pawn or two. Alan proceeded to play with remorseless efficiency, improving his pieces and snubbing out all efforts of counterplay. Eventually he got his central pawns rolling and with his pieces beautifully coordinated crashed though and mated the white king on the back rank.

Board 2: John Molyneux vs Matt Connor
Matt went for a solid setup as black but missed a chance to expand on the queenside with … b5 and ended up with a way too passive position:

John played 12. f4! then jumped his knight to f5 and castled long. It took a few moves for black to untangle his pieces before he finally rustled up some counterplay. After a tactical sequence a pair of minor pieces and the queens came off before Matt (in a bit of time pressure) walked straight into a deadly pin from which there was no answer and he resigned.

Board 3: Sean Sheahan vs Borislav Lazarov
Boris went for his standard setup with the white pieces and came out of the opening with a +1.5 advantage after Sean jumped his f6 knight into e4 instead of concentrating on development. He couldn’t maintain it though and a tense middlegame ensued. On move 26 Boris played a reasonable looking rook move:

But this allowed Sean to play the very nice 26. … Bxc5!! winning a pawn. Black then doubled rooks on the a-file and infiltrated, eventually winning the a-pawn with an exchange of rooks. Now 2 pawns down Boris dug in and made Sean work hard. Sean was getting very low on time made an error on move 44:

After 45. Kd2! Rc2+ 46. Kd3! Rb2 47. Kc3 Rb1 48. Rxb3 Rxb3+ 49. Kxb3 c5?! 50. dxc5 the position is probably theoretically drawn. There was still fun to be had though in the next 17 moves as pawns were whittled down, white’s king got in behind black’s pawns, the bishops came off and both sides queened a pawn! In a level king and queen vs king and queen position the draw was agreed.

Board 4: Robert Henfrey vs Ben Vaughan
Bobby played a very steady system against Ben’s favoured European opening as black allowing Ben to equalise fairly easily before he was slightly inaccurate with 7. … a5. But Bobby eschewed playing e5 (gaining space and hitting black’s knight on f6) on moves 8, 9 and 10 and the game settled down to a fairly staid affair. A few minor pieces were traded off and with no side looking to jeopardise their position with any sort of attack a draw was agreed. A great result for Ben.

Board 5: George Kolbusz vs Noor Datoo
George played a very solid if slightly passive opening but chased Noor’s bishop on g5 with h6 then g5 gaining space on the kingside. Neither side had managed to castle when Noor went for a trappy pawn push with d5:

Unfortunately for Noor this loses the pawn after 13. … Bxb5. Despite a few inaccuracies from both sides shortly afterwards George simplified the position exchanging the queens and all the rooks and when his knight jumped in the c4 forking the b2 and e5 pawns he had a winning position. The remaining minor pieces were swapped off leaving black 2 pawns up in a king and pawn endgame and with no chances Noor resigned.

Shepshed maintain their 100% record and remain top, Anstey are in 6^th place with a crunch game against Thurnby next week.

Anstey captain Matt Connor told Sky Sports:
A tough start to our league campaign. It’s a big step up from division 2 to division 1 and I’m under no illusion that we’re not going to struggle, our sole aim is to avoid relegation. We are targeting the Thurnby games for wins and then try to sneak a couple of points against the higher rated teams. On an individual basis I’m delighted with Boris and Ben’s draws against superior opponents, two great efforts.

This was the debut for the 4th Anstey team and it is exciting to have so many new players who have joined the club over the last few months! In this match, there were 6 players from both sides ready to play some competitive chess. On the Anstey team, we had Amit & Aarav Sinha, Oskar Rudczenko, Jakub Miler, Hayden Padgett and Reidan Minhas. Anstey 4 were up against a team of strong 1300-1400 rated players, which meant Anstey 4 were out-graded significantly on most of the boards. However, this is Anstey and we may be the underdogs, but it does not mean we will roll over looking for a tummy rub.

Board 1: Amit Sinha vs. Sathsara Dissanayake

Amit, being on board 1 for the away team, played white and played a roy lopez opening (AKA the spanish opening). Black responds with an unusual move with d6 after Bb5 is played. Both players shuffle pawns and Amit strikes in the centre with d4! Black continues to develop and both players castle kingside. Both players develop their umoved pieces and black pushes the light squared bishop to b3. Black trades a bishop for a knight and black wins a pawn by capturing the only defender of said pawn.

Amit attacks on the queenside with c4 and black retreats his knight to b6, which attacks the c pawn twice and can win another pawn. However, both players ignore this and choose activity over material. Black strikes at the white d pawn with c5 and Amit pins the black knight to the queen, which black unties from quite quickly. The board is now almost locked up, but black is refusing to take on d4 with the tension between pawns.

Amit tries to manoeuvre his pieces to attack the kingside, but black defends well enough and the pieces Amit has tried to attack with start to get cramped in the corner of the board. Both players trade knight and rook, which helps to calm things down. However, black moves his pawns up in a timely manner to make some very dangerous threats for Amit. Amit resigns, because of the amount of threats for black to win material.

Amit is a good player, as I have played him, but he may not have been prepared for the strength of this young player. Wigston 1 – Anstey 0.

Board 2: Aarav Sinha vs. Madhav Eradi

Aarav played black for Anstey 4 against the Roy Lopez and Aarav plays the Berlin. Both players shuffle pieces and white strikes in the centre with d4, but Aarav sacrifices his light squared bishop to expose the white king! White accepts the sac and defends with Nh2. White also seals the centre shut with d5 and offers and queen trade, which Aarav takes after developing his pieces further. Aarav moves his knight up the board and white trades it off for a bishop.

Aarav tries to defend a misplaced pawn, but he unfortunately struggles to, so he tries to improve his position. However, Aarav still has some tricks up his sleeve being the tactic wizard he is. Aarav pins the rook to the white king, which white tries to deal with by advancing his own knight and forking Aarav’s king and rook. Effectively, both players trade rooks, and Aarav trades once again (a knight for a knight this time).

Unfortunately, white manages to get a past pawn and promotes it to a queen in the end game. Aarav was down a queen in the end game, which is losing, but he does not have to resign. Aarav allowed himself to get checkmated being the good sportsman that he is. Wigston 2 – Anstey 0.

Board 3: Oskar Rudczenko vs. Alex Shen

Oskar played as white and opened with the scotch. Both players took their time to make their moves and think about what they wanted to do. Black tried to play aggressively in the opening, which Oskar fought back. However, Oskar over looked his defences and black managed to gain 2 pawns for free, which is not what Oskar wanted.

In the opening Oskar was not at his best, as he was falling for various simple tricks, which caused him to be down 4 pawns out of the opening. However, his pieces were very active compared to black’s, and he was determined to make that count. Oskar made various threats with his doubled rooks supported by an active light squared bishop and queen. Although, black had quite simple defensive moves, black was only moving his queen and not developing his pieces.

As Oskar ran out of threats, his pieces were much more active still, but black was catching up in development quickly. Oskar did not realise it at the time, but he was being herded into a bad position. Oskar’s bishop was placed quite poorly and was soon to become trapped. Clearly out matched and getting out played, Oskar resigned. Wigston 3- Anstey 0.

Board 4: Jakub Miler vs. Jack Clark

Jakub faces the London system, an very well known opening. Both players develop their minors pieces and quickly both players start to create some tension on the board. Jakub tries to break up white’s centre with the move c5, but white simply defends and Jakub offers a dark squared bishop trade, which white refuses. Both players move their knights more centrally and Jakub decides to trade a bishop for a knight as white was threatening a checkmate.

White manages to win a pawn with a smart tactic, and Jakub nabs a pawn himself. White threatens checkmate again and Jakub simply defends. Not a lot going on; both players are taking it one fight at a time. Until Jakub starts making small threats of his own, and he starts by winning a pawn and then he wins a rook by sacrificing one of his own for white’s knight.

Jakub nabs a couple more pawns and forces a queen trade, leaving white with no pieces and Jakub the only one with a rook. White resigns. Jakub is quite the strong player, and he certainly proved himself in this match. Wigston 3 – Anstey 1.

Board 5: Hayden Padgett vs. Ryan Jones

Hayden played as black and played the caro-kann defence, and white chooses the advanced variation. Both players develop their bishops and knights first: principled players. Hayden trades a bishop for a knight after bringing his queen out, and he castles after the trade. Not much going on so far. Hayden plays c5 to break up the white centre and to give himself more space. White offers a queen trade which Hayden accepts and wins a pawn, then Hayden trades a bishop for a knight. Hayden is doing a good thing by trading when he is up material, but it is only a pawn advantage that he has.

Hayden is doing quite well considering this is his first league match, he is making a few small inaccuracies but otherwise he’s doing well. Both players trade off their last pair of minor pieces and Hayden ends with two extra pawns, with white having an isolated kings pawn on e3 and an isolated c2 pawn. Hayden’s position is looking very nice. Now Hayden starts to move his king closer to the action and so does white. White tries to advance on the kingside, but Hayden shuts that down and white starts shuffling his king back and forth.

White’s king runs to the queenside and Hayden starts to break through on the king side. White defends and Hayden continues to push his f pawn forwards until it’s on the 3rd rank, which white has to blockade with a rook. Hayden expertly manoeuvres his rooks and king to advance his f pawn further into the enemy lines and eventually white has to sacrifice a rook for a pawn. Hayden’s position is looking brilliant, but Hayden does lose this match and I presume on time as the notations finish abruptly. Wiston 4 – Anstey 1.

Board 6: Reidan Minhas vs. Arav Ajaykumar

Reidan plays as white and opens with the queens gambit, which black declines. White opens the centre and trades queens, which makes Reidan lose castling right, but it’s not a losing advantage. Reidan manoeuvres his knights to more central squares and white trades one knight for another, and then castles. Both players develop their pieces to be more active, and Reidan trades a bishop for a bishop.

White manages to win a pawn or two after the opening stage of the game, which in an endgame will be the deciding factor. White tries to attack Reidan’s kingside, which Reidan does defend well, so another trade of minor pieces occurs. Reidan tries to make some progress on the queenside, by advancing his pawns up the board. However, Reidan seems to be on the back foot in this game as white increases the pressure on the black position, and manages to trade off a rook for a rook.

Reidan’s king gets attacked a few times being herded to the edge of the board almost, and white has got a lot of pressure on Reidan’s position. This does result in white promoting a pawn into a queen, and Reidan resigns. A well fought battle by Reidan, and this being his first match he did well to stay in the game for as long as he did against a much higher rated opponent. Wigston 5 – Anstey 1.

Final Words

The debut of the 4th Anstey team, which could have gone better, but Wigston did have a strong team and they do have a lot of strong players at their club. A couple of our players had their debut as well, as they had not played league chess before, and they did the best they could and that’s all that matters. You can always learn something from a lose and you may be more motivated to not lose the same way twice, rather than if you are to learn from a win. We’ve got a match against Heathcote Arms 2 next week, so hopefully we will win that match.

Authored by Aarav Sinha

Oskar as captain selected a strong initial team for the second team with himself on board 1, Aarav Sinha on 2, Jakub Miler on 3 and Hayden Padgett on board 4.

Leo was selected late as captain and managed a team of young but strong players consisting of himself on board 1, Curtis Blunt on 2, Young John on 3 and new player Reidan Minhas on board 4.

Just so our many millions of readers are aware, the Harrod Cup is a rapid play tournament in Leicestershire and isn’t mandatory for all clubs. Some clubs choose to take a summer break – but not Anstey. The players play the same opponent twice in the quicker format, once with the white pieces and once with the black pieces with a 20-minute time control with 10 second increments. Because of the nature of the games being rapid play, notating is not required and with 8 games to look over, it is hard to recall what happened in each one, so the rapid play reports will be shorter than usual and comprise a summary of the games.

Board 1 – Oskar Rudczenko vs Leo Abraham – result: 1-1

1^st game:

On the first board, 2 strong players against each other, Oskar was the first to play white and opened with the Scotch. Leo on the other hand has a counter and developed his pieces aggressively forcing Oskar to back down and play more defensively. Leo eventually managed to isolate Oskar’s queen with his side pawns, but Oskar still had more active pieces he could play with to make Leo play defensively for the rest of the game. Eventually Oskar was up by two pawns and unfortunately Leo lost on time, due to the immense pressure.

2^nd Game:

Leo now had his chance as playing white and Oskar was keen on playing the modern Scandinavian against him. Within the first couple of moves they both traded their knights and developed their pieces naturally without causing any threats to each other. Leo now playing to equal points was able to coordinate his pieces very well to create multiple threats on Oskar’s position. Eventually Oskar blundered mate in one on the back rank and Leo was able to gain advantage from Oskar’s mistake.

Board 2 – Aarav Sinha vs Curtis Blunt – result: 2-0

1^st game:

On the second board, 2 players similarly rated fairly playing against each other, Aarav played white first and played the Evans gambit where he could eventually play a swift Rook sacrifice which forced his opponent’s position to slowly crumble of which Curtis eventually resigned, after losing a Rook to a fork, between the King and the Rook which after posed a threat on his Queen and other Rook.

2^nd game:

Curtis now playing white he was able to make a counterattack on the Sicilian defence that the opponent had never played against before and he was able to sacrifice many of his pieces to eventually promote to a Queen and be up a Queen against a bishop. Unfortunately, he rushed his moves after being able to
give many checks and take many pawns and blundered his queen after taking a pawn that he didn’t realize was guarded by Aarav’s bishop. He then resigned on the last move when he lost his Queen.

Board 3 – Jakub Miler vs Young John – result: 1-1

1^st game:

Jakub played white in his first game and started with c4 “The English”. This ended up turning into a reversed Sicilian. As much as he wanted to Jakub never managed to castle his king to safety. Even so, to put the final nail into the coffin happened when Jakub blundered his rook. This caused him to eventually
resign as there was an eventual checkmate for John.

2^nd game:

Jakub, now playing black, started off with the Sicilian but after miscalculating a trade he went down a piece. Later John gifted Jakub’s lost piece back to him and gave him a very strong passed pawn. Jakub later saw a brilliant move where he was able to sacrifice a rook to secure a promotion and managed to
find a checkmate, few moves later.

Board 4 – Hayden Padgett vs Reidan Minhas – result: 1-1

Rookies both on debut finally play against each other.

1^st game:
On the 4^th and final board, Hayden was playing white, in a very closed position. A series of trades were rapidly played leaving Hayden’s king exposed with all his pawns surrounding his king were captured. During the middle game, Hayden struggled to maintain his security and tried constantly to move his King
to safety. Reidan was able to move his rook to an open file threatening check mate in 1 which unfortunately Hayden didn’t see and was checkmated with a rook and a bishop.

2^nd game:

Second game, Reidan now playing white, and Hayden had a strong start to the game, with him being able to capture a free bishop and was able to threaten checkmate very early on. This caused Reidan to play defensively. Despite Hayden breathing down on Reidan’s neck with his queen and bishop very close
to his king, he was able to hold on surprisingly. Then once again there was a quick series of trades. In the endgame Hayden was up in a king vs king and rook situation. Hayden was able to play well and remain cool to be able to checkmate Reidan just after 10 moves in the endgame.

STRONG EFFORTS FROM BOTH PLAYERS RESULTING IN A DRAW

The Juniors narrowly lost 5-3 by one game, which could have resulted in a draw between both sides.

Thursday 06/07/2023. Anstey welcomed Wigston to the Methodist Church in Anstey for this LRCA 2023 Chapman Cup semi-final fixture. After squeezing past Shepshed in round 1 Anstey were full of confidence though made two changes to that team with John and Mick coming in for Boris and Ben respectively.

The Chapman Cup has a handicap system in place effectively giving lower rated teams a head start in the match, meaning the higher rated team has to win more points on the real boards to win the match. In round 1 Wigston fielded a decent team versus a relatively mediocre Market Harborough side and faced a 3½ point deficit meaning they had to win on all 4 boards… which they did! Against Anstey, Wigston had a weakened team (with Lewis Turner playing his county championship match) and so they benefited from a ½ point handicap advantage.

So with Anstey needing 2½ points to take the match the captains tossed for colours, Wigston winning and choosing white on odd boards. The players shook hands and battle commenced.

Board 1: Stephen Smith (Wigston 1822) v Julian Tarwid (Anstey 1947)
Stephen went for a solid opening but Julian equalised easily. Before fully completing development white pushed his king’s knight forward swapping it for black’s queenside counterpart and when the queens came off black ended up with an unusual diamond pawn formation:

Despite the pawn structure black stands better due to the open lines and his piece activity. This was enhanced further after Julian played a couple of super accurate moves and when white exchanged his dark-squared bishop for black’s knight, black’s bishop pair ran riot in white’s position. Stephen gave up a knight and exchanged a pair of rooks to try and ease the pressure before finally blundering into a deadly mating net:

In an already hopeless position white played 30. Ke1? giving black mate in 2 with 30. … Bc3+. Stephen resigned.

Board 2: Matthew Connor (Anstey 1769) v Peter Collings (Wigston 1698)
Matt was the only Anstey player to lose in round 1 so was out to make amends. He came out of the opening with a tiny edge in a very classical game of chess, both sides playing their own game developing calmly. Until move 16. Having used up a bit too much time on the clock Matt decided it was going to be easier to attack than defend or just push wood and started a speculative kingside attack. This gave Peter something to think about and a couple of defensive mistakes when trying to complicate quickly gave Matt a crushing advantage:

Black is horribly weak on the white squares, Peter resigned after a few more moves before the inevitable checkmate in the middle of the board.

Board 3: Les Corlett (Wigston 1660) v John Robinson (Anstey 1701)
John didn’t mess about and gambited a pawn on move 3. He got a lead in development and then messed up white’s queenside pawn structure swapping bishop for knight on c3. But he never quite had enough compensation for the pawn, Les played calmly and very slowly untangled his position. Plenty of manoeuvring and probing followed with both sides playing ok but white’s advantage gradually increased. As time ticked down John had a few tactics to keep Les on his toes but none came off and with just a few seconds left on the clock John blundered a rook and resigned.

Board 4: Mick Sandham (Anstey 1637) v Chris Brown (Wigston 1425)
With the biggest rating differential this game was earmarked as a must win for Anstey. Mick rocketed out of the blocks and gambited a pawn in one of his favourite European openings. But Chris was well prepared and played very accurately. As minor pieces were swapped off Mick ruined black’s kingside pawn structure and had good compensation for the pawn. But with fewer pieces on the board it was hard to see a way to attack for white. Mick started to shuffle his kingside pawns forward but they never really got going. In the meantime, Chris activated his queen and rook on the open e-file, played Qh3 and pushed his own h-pawn. Mick checked with Nf5 and after Kf8 thinking he was threatening mate in 2 with Qh6 played Qd3-d2 unfortunately leaving the f5 knight en-prise with Qh3xf5. Oops. Mick played on as Chris was very short on time (down to less than 3 seconds on at least a couple of occasions) but he handled the endgame well and although Mick queened a pawn it was too late as Chis had queened first and white’s horribly exposed king was getting mated. Mick resigned.

Summary
So with 2 wins each Wigston take the match with the ½ point handicap:

Wigston will play Loughborough in the final.

Anstey captain Matt Connor told Sky Sports:
Our cup dream is over, I’m gutted. Our two defeats were actually very close games and, on another day, we could easily have got the ½ point we needed to see us over the line. But hey-ho, that’s knockout chess for you (not to be confused with chess-boxing), good luck to Wigston in the final!