Bradford Central were the visitors for Sheffield E’s latest attempt to earn some more points and climb away from the relegation dog fight.  The night before, I had looked at the teams they had put out and hoped that with a bit of luck we’d actually be pretty closely matched, grade wise at least.  However it turned out that was wishful thinking on my part as the side that arrived outgraded us on every board bar eight.

The match itself was (as usual) closer than the scoreline suggested – but we’ve had too many ‘might have beens’ this season, and not enough points have been earned.  Things started slowly – with Gary and Nat agreeing a draw in a game I had marked down as drawish in my notes after about 15 minutes.  Bill and Paul also looked headed for a draw…but in the endgame Paul’s rooks seemed to sweep all before them and level material became two extra pawns.  Bill kept plugging away though, and once again a rook and pawn endgame proved too challenging as he was able to work a drawn position when he had earlier looked totally lost.

Meanwhile, on four Kev had managed to get himself into his usual pickle – a rook on h7 (behind a pawn on h6) was the least of his troubles as an exchange sacrifice from Nick blew a gaping hole in his defences.  Not for the first time this season, two pawns advancing on an uncastled king proved to be Kev’s undoing and we were 2-1 down.  Two more draws followed a while later; on two Mike had lined up his bishops and queen against Mark’s kingside but was unable to find a knockout blow; queens exchanged, draw agreed.  And on three, Dave fought hard against Peter to stop his pawns becoming too big a threat; exchanging down into an endgame with a rook and three pawns each, I’m still not convinced that Dave didn’t have all the chances with connected passed pawns, but Peter Sammut Briffa’s central passer proved of sufficient concern for a draw to be settled on.

Unfortunately, that was to be the end of the Sheffield scoring for the day.  Daniel found himself under increasing pressure in the centre as Peter Rooney’s rook worked well with his knight pair to drive Daniel’s king back further and further until eventually defeat was inevitable.  Stuart’s Scotch had a few tricks in it, but John was able to work his way through them and emerge into a favourable endgame, a pawn to the good.  That left Barry to fend off Abraham’s massive passed pawn on the 7^th.  He couldn’t quite manage it – Qxa1 an excellent sacrifice that couldn’t be taken without checkmate and gave Abraham a whole extra rook to play with which unsurprisingly he used to good effect.  4 wins and 4 draws for our visitors keeps them in the hunt for promotion.  We remain in the bottom three, and will need to win at least two of our remaining three matches if we are going to guarantee safety.
Daniel Sullivan  0 – 1  Peter Rooney
Mike Newett  ½ – ½  Mark Crowther
Dave Glossop  ½ – ½  Peter Sammut Briffa
Stuart Crosthwaite  0 – 1  John Milnes
Kevin Marshall  0 – 1   Nick Edwards
Bill Ward  ½ – ½   Paul Day
Nat Holroyd-Doveton  ½ – ½  Gary Coulsen
Barry Williams  0 – 1  Abraham Chundusu

Teams are reminded that the players in the finals must be those who have already played in previous rounds
Venues to be decided

We had two cars going, one from Sheffield and one from Chesterfield – I’m speaking here for the Sheffield contingent. Getting to the venue proved fine, even if it was slightly alarming to see the fast lane of the M1 whitened out. And so – having arrived at the Latvian Club and established ourselves at the bar – it seemed natural to decline Ihor Lewyk’s kind offer to shorten the match, given the oncoming snow. Soon we’d all settled into the afternoon chess, made more comfortable by the tea and coffee and biscuits, I suspect thinking little of what was gathering outside.

But as we left the premises around 6.50, the chess finished, it was very different: the thick snow was falling so fast we could hardly clear my car’s windscreen before it was filling up again. One road at a time: having made it to the end of Clifton Villas and onto Manningham Lane, we slid along with the rest of the traffic, trying to join the ring road – a bit hairy but we were all moving. But then a mistake: in spite of mistress Satnav telling us different, we took the turning to the city centre rather than follow the motorway signs. No cars following us: bad sign! Anyway, don’t know how we got through that phase, but we did. We got back on track onto key roads (though these were very far from great), passing at least one bad-looking accident along the way.

So eventually we’d made it onto the M606. 30mph maximum here and loads of concentration, trying to cope not just with the snow / ice but also with crazy overtaking drivers. If the M62 was a little easier and faster, it was also more dangerous as huge juggernauts seemed intent on terrorising car drivers with their crazy speeds and random behaviour. The M1 was saner, even though I was still having to concentrate hard. By now, assuming we didn’t run out of petrol (couldn’t afford to pull into a service station, in case we couldn’t get out again) I realised we probably would actually make it back to Sheffield! And so we did, 2½ hours after we set off.
In spite of everything, I’m glad we took the decision we did: such hassle involved in re-arranging matches. But I don’t know if I’d feel the same if we had got stuck. Maybe, in life as with chess, you just have to live with a certain level of risk…

Bradford A Sheffield A
1. Winston Williams 0-1 Andrew Ledger
2. Mike Walker ½-½ Jon Nelson
3. Ihor Lewyk 0-1 Kieran O’Driscoll
4. Chris Wright 0-1 Dave Latham
5. Ian Hunter 0-1 Paul Cumbers
6. Mike Ashdown ½-½ Martin Howard
7. Geoff Smith 0-1 Michael Johnson
8. Chris Trepka 0-1 Jeremy Hamm
1-7

PS For what was happening with the chess (of which I didn’t see a great deal), see http://yorkshirechess.org/yorkshire-league-reports-round-8/ for Ihor’s entertaining account.

Jeremy Hamm
Sheffield A

Sheffield Woodseats is about to start an Internet e-mail match against a Greek Chess Club on the Island of Rhodes.  Reason?  We just wanted to prove how international Sheffield Chess is!  If you remember in the recent Chess Olympiad, the Greek team beat England rather soundly.  Nigel Short in particular had a rather painful time.  So we are, maybe, out to prove a point.  However, more importantly, we are out to make new friends through Chess.  The Greek club has about eighty members.  The picture shows a rapid-play tournament taking place on Rhodes this summer.  Our match is taking place over eleven boards and there are going to be two rounds.  Play will be conducted using e-mail and the time limit will be brisk; a move every two days.  You can follow our (not quite) live broadcast of the moves on our website: Woodseats Chess  .  We could probably fit in a few players from other clubs, so if you want to play let us  know.  It is due to start on Saturday.

Peter Hulse

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

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