Sheffield and District Chess Association

With Matthew Webb and Adam Lang not part of Bradford B’s initial lineup, it was clear that we would have to go seriously astray not to win this match. And indeed, on most boards from early on, things were either pretty even or going our way. Andrew’s Slav-like setup on 1 was very solid, Peter on 4 (more about 2 and 3 in a moment!) looked good on the White side of a Bogo-Indian, Martin and Mike were also solid on 5 and 6, while Ryan looked at least equal with a Queens Indian setup on 7 and Andy had an edge with White on 8. Paul on 2 and myself on 3 probably had the most complex positions but both of us were also looking good – Paul a pawn up and reasonable position on the White side of a Benko, myself with the better structure in an …e6 Sicilian, though I was facing a sharp kingside attack.

After this, things more or less went to plan. Peter finished quickly (sorry, didn’t see and don’t know exactly how he won). Ryan also won convincingly and quickly: opening of the e-file and light square pressure led to the win of the exchange, and eventually a rook and queen mating attack. Likewise, Andy: capitalising on his space advantage, he created a pawn wedge on d6 and then forced the win of a rook and the game.

On board 1, while Andrew’s opponent Steven Jones attempted to play actively, he left himself behind in development and with a few weak squares. White’s king became stuck in the middle of the board, the weaknesses emphasised when Andrew castled long. With a choice between being mated and shedding lots of material he chose the latter: but there was never any serious counterplay.
Meanwhile on 5, Martin’s early win of a pawn eventually became a knight + 7 pawns v knight + 6 pawns ending. The win came through tying his opponent’s knight down to passive defence on g1 and gaining zugzwang to break through on the queenside.

So 5-0 and looking good. But both Paul and myself were to rue the time trouble we’d found ourselves in. Paul was by now two pawns up and with a strong position: but some hesitant play led to Andy Bak countering strongly and the game was quickly over. The finish to my game was tragi-comic: a piece up and with forced mate, I also stumbled badly, somehow managing to help-mate myself in 3 moves. Well done to my opponent Gary Corcoran for finding some good moves in my time trouble, in a pretty desperate position!

Finally, Mike’s game on 6. In a fairly drawish position, Mike J managed to find some pressure in an opposite coloured bishops ending. Eventually he was a pawn up, then two pawns, and this combined with pressure with his king – all maintained in spite of great time trouble. Soon after the 42 moves were reached, his opponent resigned.

So 6-2. Arguably we should have done better – but this was a good enough result.

Sheffield A Bradford B
1. Andrew Ledger 1-0 Steven Jones
2. Paul Cumbers 0-1 Andrew Bak
3. Jeremy Hamm 0-1 Gary Corcoran
4. Peter Hempson 1-0 Damian McCarthy
5. Martin Howard 1-0 Gawain Ako
6. Michael Johnson 1-0 John Saxton
7. Ryan Burgin 1-0 Robert Pells
8. Andy Mort 1-0 Werner Rieser
6-2

Jeremy Hamm
Sheffield A

A positive result for Sheffield F. Everybody played with great passion and in solid style. Sam Cobbold the up and coming star was first to finish in crushing style, leaving his opponents pieces battered and bruised.  Not long after Steve Withington came away with a tidy draw against a young sharp player – Adarsh Vani. Following on from this, Henry Withington delivered check mate right next to me, sealing another point forSheffield F. The mood was loosening slightly but the quiet hall of Woodseats Social Club still remained. Boom! Another win for Sheffield F, away came Bill Ward with a smile on his face as usual. Nano seconds laterI also heard Mark Kirkham had arrived at a positive result. My game was a long old Caro Kann slug, quite solid in most parts but thanks to a weakness on my Kingside my opponent found the good tactical shot of winning a piece. I resigned soon after. Bringing up the final results were Kevin Marshall who won an interesting and long fought battle. Chris came homewith a draw, but having seen the end of his game he certainly had winning chances, he threw the kitchen sinkat Amol, but Amol caught it and gave it a wash for Chris. Hopefully the next match will bring more success.

Chris Willey 1/2 – 1/2 Amol Vani
Kevin Marshall 1 – 0 Mike Wilford
Steve Withington 1/2 – 1/2 Adarsh Vani
Bill Ward 1 – 0 Wasim Ahmed
Shane Frith 0 – 1 Michael Johnson
Henry Withington 1 – 0 Yash Kapur
Mark Kirkham 1 – 0 Zahra Ahmed
Sam Cobbold 1 – 0 David Brown

Here’s the write-up for the Sheffield D match (with Oskar’s awesome victory against James Adair included… I must point out that I also saw the great Bg5+ move that was the catalyst for him turning the position around, if only because it was the only thing I could personally console myself with after my position collapsed around me!):
With 5 of our top 7 players missing and a last minute default also reducing our numbers, there was a chance we could have frozen like rabbits in the headlights against the current Woodhouse Champions. However, this side are made of sterner stuff and despite being heavily outgraded on every board, we resolved to make York work for their wins.
And work they surely did…for a long time I held out hope that we might even manage an upset or at least push York all the way, and whilst it didn’t quite pan out that way, the team can rightly be proud of putting up such a good fight against such overwhelming odds.
First to finish was board 2 – Paul managed to get pawns deep into the heart of James’ position and a counter attack never really got going… Paul’s Q and N proved once again how effectively they work in tandem as James’ king was forced into a fork and his queen was lost. I followed shortly afterwards; my queen, king and rook stuck on the back rank and my knight pinned to my king as Detlef used his space and the winning of an exchange to expertly press home his advantage.
3-0 became 4-0 eventually…Miles had lost a pawn in the opening to Jean-Luc, who gradually advanced on the king-side and was even able to give up the exchange to create two immense passed pawns on the sixth – Miles gave up his rook for both but that left Jean-Luc with a knight extra in the king + 2 pawns endgame and there was only going to be one winner of that.
The match was then lost with the next result – but this also saw us register our first half point as Tom picked up an excellent draw against Richard. A very sharp opening with threats all around the board eventually reduced down into a rooks and minor piece endgame which looked very, very level.
Three games to go…and things were delicately poised. On top board, Oskar and James had decided that pawn structure, solid play and slow, strategic build up was not the order of the day and appeared to be going at each other with scant regard for the safety of their kings, or for that matter, most of their pieces. Oskar landed a speculative rook sacrifice on g7, and followed it up with a not-so speculative bishop sacrifice on g5 which wrecked James’ position and enabled Oskar to equalise and expose James’ king. A few precise moves later and it looked as though James might pull through…but one inaccuracy was all it took; rook check, queen check, and with the rooks and the queens coming off and Oskar’s handily placed pawn on b7 unstoppable, the game was up. Another stunning victory for the rising star of Sheffield chess.
4.5 – 1.5… and our scoring wasn’t quite complete. With literally seconds left before the time control, Mike played a sneaky king move which, whilst leaving his bishop en prise, was going to force a drawn endgame. Alexander spent 35 minutes trying to find a way to avoid the draw…but failed to do so and despite being K+B+P vs K at the end, he could not force a win.
Which left Stuart and Martin’s game… a French defence in which Stuart’s kingside pawns dissolved to leave him with half-open files against Martin’s king and a target in an off-side queen. Neither proved decisive, however; Martin’s pieces moved menacingly around to the queenside, there was a time scramble, and when the dust cleared Stuart had a few less pawns and a long, lingering defeat to look forward to. He opted to resign instead and the match was over.
James Adair 0 – 1 Oskar Hackner
Paul Townsend 1 – 0 James Bowler
Jean-Luc Weller 1 – 0 Miles Edwards-Wright
Detlef Plump 1 – 0 Andrew Hards
Alexander Combie 1/2 – 1/2 Mike Newett
Martin Carpenter 1 – 0 Stuart Crosthwaite
Richard Mounce 1/2 – 1/2 Tom Wills
Dave Adams 1 – 0 DEFAULT

Here’s the Match report for the IM Brown match today, Hull vs Sheffield E

Sheffield E made the long trip to Hull on a very windy day to face the team currently top of the table. They had beaten Huddersfield 6 – 2, a team we lost 2.5 – 5.5 to in our last match. Things also didn’t look too promising when their team sheet revealed they were led by five 170s! Most of the games were very close with the final score of 1 – 7 perhaps not fully doing justice to some decent positions for our team.

From the bottom, Eric was struggling for play out of the opening and gradually got pushed back. Colin was slightly better but slowly the position turned around the time control. I didn’t see any of Nat’s game but it was quite close. Keith seemed to have at least a draw when his opponent underpromoted to a knight (a position worthy of a puzzle book Keith informed me!) and lost. Srini exchanged off pieces to emphasise the weaknesses in his opponents pawn structure and then marched his king from d8 all the way to a2 to pick up a pawn and later the exchange and out only point of the day. Dave was a little bit worse out of the opening and his opponent managed to get a strong knight on the sixth rank and eventually generated a strong attack. Daniel was a pawn up for a long time and got the position down to queen, knight and five pawns versus queen, bishop and four….grabbed a second pawn just before the time control but there was just too much counterplay and lost a queen and pawn endgame.
Dave Stephenson 1 – 0 Daniel Sullivan
Eric Gardiner 1 – 0 Dave Glossop
Shaun Culkin 1 – 0 Chern Yean Sim
John Thackray 0 – 1 Srinivasa Muthukrishnan
Ian Bell 1 – 0 Keith Davis
Bryan Hesler 1 – 0 Nat Holroyd-Doveton
David Mills 1 – 0 Colin Whitehouse
Richard Callis 1 – 0 Eric McKenna

Milan Zpevak registered for Nomads B.