Tom Gerrard (Ashby 3) vs Deepa Kalyanji (Anstey 2) 1-0

A first league game for Deepa with her spot secured in the last minute, it was tough game against more experienced opponent. White started the game with 1. e4 and after the standard continuation with 1…e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 Deepa’s opponent played 3. Bb5 entering the ‘Ruy Lopez’.

Reluctant to exchange her knight for White’s bishop, Deepa decided to try and gain advantage using the piece to attack her opponent’s centre. Unfortunately, in the process she overlooked the White’s bishop’s diagonal coverage and had to give up the knight. Not impressed by the latter, Deepa started pushing her centre pawns in an attempt to create initiative. Her opponent managed to counter the threat and with a piece up consolidated his position with a clear +6.1 advantage based on Stockfish (depth = 20) as provided by chess.com.

With the lead in development and material, Deepa’s opponent started his plan by exchanging the knights and offering a further exchange of bishops which our teammate correctly ignored and instead decided to try and expand on the queenside (Q-side). Unfortunately, White used the opportunity to create a double attack with the move 16. Qd3 threatening checkmate on h7 and picking up the pawn on b5. Deepa was unfortunate to fall victim to the commonly encountered in chess ‘tunnel vision’ and protected the pawn as opposed to the checkmate which was delivered on the next move. 16…a6 17. Qxh7# 1-0.

Tough first league game for Deepa, but we are sure that she will learn from the experience and take the lessons for her further games and wins.

Oskar Rudczenko (Anstey 2) vs Jamie Rhodes (Ashby 3) 0-1

Our second team captain started the game with the king’s pawn (1. e4) and after the same response from Black as in the above game, Oskar decided to play 3. d4 leading the action towards the Scotch game.

Oskar’s opponent decided to leave the book immediately by protecting his e-pawn with 3…f6 which is uncommon reply with the engine clearly not impressed and providing evaluation of +1.8 with equal material. Seeing the reply, Oskar advanced his d-pawn, gaining space and attacking the c6-knight which found itself in a dim situation on the rim. Our teammate continued his attack in a ‘beserker’ style, explanding on the centre and sacrificing pawns to gain initiative. After further giving his opponent the opportunity to castle and create a passed pawn on the Q-side, Oskar found himself in a position highly unfavoured by the engine, but fortunately he was playing a human. Our teammate’s opponent saw beautiful fork on move 13, completely ignoring the White’s light-squared bishop and the fact that his powerful knight and his king are on the same diagonal. Oskar is not one to miss such a chance and counter-forked his opponent with the best move, 14. Bc4+.

After picking up the knight, Oskar continued consolidating his position with further exchange of bishops, clearing the a- and b-file through pawn exchange and doubling his rooks on the a-file. With two-point advantage in material and more active pieces, our second team captain looked to solidify his position through simplification. Unfortunately, eager to exchange the queens, Oskar completely forgot about his knight on b2 with the latter becoming a rook’s dinner after being abandoned by the white queen.

Unfortunately, 25…Rxb2 was the turning point of the game and despite our teammate’s best efforts, when the dust settled, his opponent found himself with a two-pawn advantage, with the players left only with pawns and one knight each. Stockfish clearly likes Black with evaluation of -3.2.

His opponent managed to capitalise on his winning position and after Black pushing his passed pawn to the sixth rank and exchanging the knights, our teammate resigned.

Stephen Holmes (Ashby 3) vs Leo Abraham (Anstey 2) 0 – 1

It has been a couple of months since Leo’s last appearance for the second team but he proved that no chess mastery was forgotten on his part. Just like in Deepa’s game, the Ashby player decided to play the ‘Ruy Lopez’ opening to which Leo responded with the ‘Old Steinitz defence’ as per chess.com’s opening database.

After attack on the bishop with a6, White went into the thematical bishop-knight exchange on c6, thus giving up the bishop pair but deteriorating Black’s pawn structure on the Q-side. Indifferent to the configuration of his Q-side pawns, Leo continued his development with ‘fianchetto’-ing both of his bishops, castling kingside (K-side) and keeping his knight on f6, protecting the king. His opponent decided to pin the knight with 11.Bg5 and create a queen led battery on the e-file supporting the thematical pawn break 15.e5.

The centre was opened up and the queens decided to leave the board after being exchanged on the e-file. Our teammate then decided to exchange his second knight for the opponent’s only bishop in an argument that the bishop pair is worth more than the knight pair. And it was not long before Leo would provide evidence of the superiority of his bishops after forking a knight and a rook with the great move 19…Bf6.

After White picked up the h7-pawn as a consolation price, Leo was considerate to take the route of picking up the knight through a rook exchange, hence leaving less pieces on the board. The decision to keep the bishop pair later paid off, after our teammate managed to isolate his opponent’s knight while simultaneously open the d-file for the powerful black rook. The latter managed to infiltrate the White’s K-side and with the help of the two powerful bishops delivered a beautiful checkmate with our teammate getting the W.

Borislav Lazarov (Anstey 2) vs Brian Wood (Ashby 3) 1 – 0

After finding out about ten minutes before the match starts that he is playing White, Boris decided to do the responsible thing and asked our first team’s second top player Julian about the opening to be played. Met with the two d4 options – London System vs The Catalan, Julian hesitated a little as he is a notorious fan of d4 openings and suggested the opening named after the people famous for Estrella and Barcelona. Boris obliged in spite of his confusion or plain lack of knowledge on any lines in The Catalan and the game started with the closed variation.

Completely unaware of the key pawn breaks in the position, Boris decided again to do the responsible thing and after spying on Leo’s game, copied the latter’s idea and ‘fianchetto’-ed both of his bishops. His opponent decided to prepare the thematic e5 pawn break, used against many d4 openings, however, in the good tradition of the London system (even though Boris decided not to play it) our teammate placed his knight on e5, blocking the pawn advance.

Black tried to destabilise White’s powerful knight with another thematical pawn break, 10…c5, but White’s e-pawn had the decency of finally start the working day and helped out. Brian’s pressure, however, was just beginning and the Ashby player exerted a series of pins on Boris’ queen and rook, making our teammate use tempo after tempo to get his pieces out of the pinning web. In the process, Black managed to even get a clear advantageous position, but was a tad too timid to take the opportunity and instead played 18…a6. Boris decided to stop playing with fire and got his queen out of the way of attack completely ignoring the apparently winning move (according to the engine, for Boris was just a good move) Nc6. Both players continued to ignore the threat of the latter move until, Black miscalculated a long sequence and played 21…Nf8 burying his knight in a dim situation on the rim. Finally deciding to use the presented opportunity, Boris finally played 22. Nc6 attacking the queen, and after Black’s strongest piece hid away behind the rook, the knight retreated to put pressure on the light-squared bishop.

Although it looks scary, in the above position Black could play Nfd7 holding everything together but miscalculation from Boris’ opponent provided our teammate the opportunity to break open the K-side with the thematical exchange 25.Bxf6. With the main cover of the black king destroyed, Boris hurried to bring his rook to the attack with the e1-e4-h4 rook lift, creating a battery on the h-file. Black was not yet ready to give up and brought a brave knight to try and hold onto the position while trying to run the king towards the centre, but the battery accompanied by the sneaky h-pawn proved too strong to battle and despite bringing the queen Black found himself under too much pressure and resigned.

It is worth mentioning that the players showed class and respect to each other and although they started the evening as rivals, they ended it with the happiness of making a new friend with the same bug in their brain – the amazing game of chess.

Graham Bird (Ashby 3) vs Hal Jardine (Anstey 2) 1/2 – 1/2

The first game of ‘the big guns’ was on board three with our top rookie this year Hal taking on a strong opponent. Prior to the game, Hal unintentionally put the whole team under pressure after he had issues with his phone and postponed his arrival until 19:25, five minutes before the match starts. In his chacteristic way Hal forgot to bring a pen but nothing could deter him to play beautiful chess on the night.

The game started with both players deciding to play the first moves with the principle of pieces before pawns in mind, engaging in the ‘Black Mustang defence’ variation of the Reti opening, or for short 1.Nf3 Nc6.

The players continued their development by ‘fianchetto’-ing their dark-squared bishops, with White looking to control the centre while Black cautiously taking some space with e5. After getting his army ready, Hal showed his class again by playing a typical engine move, popular among Grandmasters in situations where there is nothing to do – 9…a5!. Hal’s opponent responded with 10.e4 kicking the bishop out of White’s K-side and after reshuffling of the pieces, our teammate managed to place his knight on f4.

Hal brought his queen in an attempt to break open the K-side which he succeeded to do with the help of his light-squared bishop. Eager to create counter-attack, his opponent placed his rook on the open h-file, completely ignoring the double attack on his knight, protected only by his queen. Our teammate did not hesitate and picked up the free piece with the hope of also exchanging the queens, but his opponent wisely kept them on the board. Unfortunately for our teammate, he did the notorious relaxing when in advantageous position and let his opponent’s queen to infiltrate on the seventh rank, then further provided White with the opportunity to equalise material with better piece activity. However, luck was on Hal’s side and his opponent missed the best move Bc1 (X-raying Black’s bishop on h6, attacked by the rook as well), too eager to create a battery on the open h-file.

Hal attacked his opponent’s queen and the latter decided to start building the h-file battery with White’s most powerful piece in front. The battle on the K-side continued and Hal’s opponent finally got the opportunity to play 25.Bc1 with the X-ray for Black’s bishop prepared. After long consideration of the position, Hal decided to go Tal’s way and sacrifice in a beautiful, although dubious way his queen, which the engine evaluates as a straightforward blunder.

Nevertheless, our teammate showed amazing calculating skills and gained plenty of initiative for the material ‘loss’ (1 point which is the equivalent of one pawn) and further used his knight to put immense pressure on White’s position. The horse-shaped piece hopped around the board, creating threat after threat until it got to the critical f4 square, paralysing the king with threats of Hook mate from the h-file. At this point, Hal’s winning idea was a battery on the h-file, but instead our teammate miscalculated and decided to play the only drawing move in the position 31…Rh3+ and after brief consideration, both players agreed to a draw.

Mike Griffiths (Anstey 2) vs David Holmes (Ashby 3)

Our top performer this year Mike had a serious challenge in front of him taking on the second top ranked player from Ashby 3. Mike started with the English opening and the game went into the symmetrical variation.

Both players developped with K-side castling and creating a King’s Indian style setup with ‘fianchetto’ of the bishops on g7 and g2 and knights on f6 and f3, respectively for Black and White. With symmetrical position, Mike decided to keep his dark-squared bishop in the centre while his opponent went for the ‘double fianchetto’.

Our teammate started building pressure on both sides of the board while keeping the slight tension in the centre. Black found himself backing off until the Q-side was completely closed and White’s dark-squared bishop found itself on h6, pointing at the f8-knight. With no other options for a breakthrough, Mike decided to try and open the centre with the pawn break 18.d4.

Opening the centre led to many tactical opportunities and positional decisions. Black managed to exchange a knight for the dark-squared bishop in an attempt to gain full control of the dark-squares. Mike managed to maneuvre his knights to control the powerful black bishop while on the other hand managed to open the long h1-a8 diagonal for his light-squared bishop after his opponent exchanged its black equivalent for a powerful centralised knight. Too focused on opening the centre, Mike’s opponent miscalculated a powerful relative skewer from our teammate’s bishop which led to Mike winning an exchange.

After a series of exchanges, Mike found himself with a rook against bishop and pawn with rook and knight still on the board for both players. While Black was busy developping his king, Mike managed to get his knight in a very good position with the opportunity to exchange it for Black’s bishop. After the exchange, Mike decided that entering a notoriously tricky rook endgame will benefit him, especially with the passed pawn on the b-file. His opponent found it difficult to protect his a-pawn which left Mike with a clear pawn-up with two passers on their way to become queens.

Our teammate started to push his pawns up the board with his opponent unable to defend or create counter-play. Nevertheless, the player from Ashby decided to try and create a counter-attack, getting in a position seeming hopeless with the b-pawn queening imminent.

Although completely losing, Mike’s opponent decided to try and get something out of the game, including offering a draw mid-way through a 20-minute thought spent on the above position. Unable to get anything concrete, Black tried a few checks picking up White’s pawns and hoping that after promoting the two pawns, White will not be able to catch the three black pawns on the road to become queens themselves. A tremendously solid player, Mike showed a no-nonsense attitude, promoted his two pawns to queens and shattered Black’s attempt for counter-play, eventually delivering checkmate.

Neil Roberts (Ashby 3) vs Matthew ‘The Killer’ Connor (Anstey 2)

On board 1, the undefeated so far this season Matt was taking on Ashby 3’s captain. The game started with the Bird’s opening to which Matt responded with a Dragon-like setup with ‘fianchetto’-ed dark-squared bishop and pawn on c5 supported by pawn on d6. His opponent decided to control the centre with pawns and keep the pieces behind them until move 10 which was a surprising rook lift.

‘The Killer’ responded with the typical engine move 10…a6 and after further reshuffling of the pieces, White decided to strike in the centre with d4. The centre was opened and White offered a queen trade, which our teammate politely declined. The light-squared bishops got exchanged instead and our top ranked player on the night decided to trade off one of his knights for the second bishop in the hope to capitalise on his dominance of the dark squares. Matt got active on the Q-side and White kept backing off, including undevelopping his rook. The players decided to trade off one set of rooks with our teammate keeping the control of the key c-file. ‘The Killer’ activated his bishop and got to a dominant position, evaluated as -2.9 by Stockfish with equal material. Instead of capitalising on the position, however, Matt decided to go for a beautiful, but very dubious move 29…Rxc3 losing an exchange.

White managed to keep everything together while Matt found himself in a very complicated position not even slightly interested in the time situation. Instead, with 11 minutes on the clock (his opponent had 55) our teammate managed to find excellent moves to keep it together and stay only a single point of material down. White decided that he needs to do something in his winning position and managed to get his queen on the eighth rank with a tempo. Matt was defending bravely in a difficult situation with less than 4 minutes on the clock when he received a gift by his opponent who fell victim to the discussed in Deepa’s game common in chess ‘tunnel vision’. Seeing the opportunity to both attack Black’s queen and place his knight on the perfect square c6 where it will exert great power, White completely missed a mate in one. Always a class act, Matt apologised for the following move and swiftly delivered checkmate with 36…Qe1#.

With Mike winning on board 2, Matt’s win was crucial for securing the win for the team. After the match, our second team find themselves in the middle of the table in Division 4 with their next match against the strong team of Market Harborough 3 who are leaders in the division with 7 wins and only 1 draw. Nevertheless, a big success for our second team who remain undefeated in 2022.

While the match was taking place, Julian and Mick stayed faithful to the club night and engaged in several Rapid games with 20 minutes time limit. Ben and John were also present but they decided to skip playing and focus on overseeing the action during the league game.

Whether you want to be part of the excitement during league games or just spend some time with casual chess and friendly banter, pop over to the Methodist Church in Anstey every Thursday from 7:30pm. All abilities welcome!