Monday 28 October 2013

24 Oct Wigston 5 v Kirby Muxloe 2
2½ - 2½
1 B 120 Eastlake, Charles 1 - 0 McEachran, Ewan 124
2 W 115 French, Barry 0 - 1 Walker, John 125
3 B 114 Goldsmith, Rory ½ - ½ Cowley, Jim 116
4 W 110 McKiernan, John 0 - 1 Skelley, John 115
5 B 107 Cooper, Barrie 1 - 0 Lund, Malcolm 90

 
In a quite crazy match, Barry French lost early, which I think it's fair to say gutted him a little. After a good opening, Barry made a mistake, which then led to a blunder and it all went wrong I'm afraid, Barry did the noble thing and resigned after allowing a rook to be pinned to his King by a Bishop.
Rory then marked his debut with a draw against the dangerous Jim Cowley. Jim is a very experienced player and in a tight opening, Rory's opponent mounted a strong Kingside attack with a Queen and rook battering ram on the h file. Rory worked out in analysis with his opponent that he didn't quite defend the position in the best way, (the analysis line had better chances for him!) and a draw was agreed in what was a tight game that could have gone either way.
John and Barrie finished closely together, Barrie's game looked very closed and tight with Barrie slowly improving his position. His opponent eventually blundered a Knight with check, which allowed Barrie to gradually steamroller his opponent into resigning.
John lost to a very capable opponent. In mounting an attack consisting of a passed pawn, John overlooked the fact that advancing this passed pawn blundered his Bishop and it all kind of went wrong from there. Fair play to John for trying to play on but a rook and 3 pawns vs King and 2 pawns and short on time John, you were right to resign!
This left Charles on board 1. Having asked the match score, he knew we were 2.5 - 1.5 down with just his game to play. He said to me afterwards that he'd considered offering a draw (which in the position was totally feasible), but alot of credit must go to Charles for at least trying to force a win. 3 pawns each, rook each, Charles had a knight and opponent had bishop, the important thing is, his opponent's bishop covered the h pawn's queening square. To cut a long story short, Charles maouvered his Knight to block the Bishop's sight of the queening square in a quite magnificently played endgame allowing said pawn to queen, win the game
and draw the match.
Well done team!

Saturday 19 October 2013

LEAGUE RESULTS - WEEK 1 & 2

DIV 1 – 1st Team LOSE heavily to 2nd Team!
 
10-Oct-13 v. Wigston 2 (H)
1. M. Burrows 0 A. Morley 1
2. A. Byron 0.5 P. Horspool 0.5
3. I. Dodds 0.5 S. Wylie 0.5
4. P. Harlow 0 R. Vaja 1
5. A. Reeves 0 S. Dawkins 1
1 4
 
DIV 2 – 3rd team Lose to strong Heathcote 1
 
3-Oct-13 v. Heathcote 1(H)
1. A. Reeves 0 G. Sharpe 1
2. P. Harlow 0.5 D. Bray 0.5
3. I. Dodds 0.5 G. Booley 0.5
4. S. Wylie 0 P. Harrison 1
5. R. Vaja 0 M. Cowley 1
1 4.0
 
 
DIV 3 – 4th Team start season with a good win over Kirby 1
 
10-Oct-13 v. Kirby Muxloe 1(H)
1. A. Pike 0.5 P. Gray 0.5
2. R. Van Stee 0 R. Townsend 1
3. S. Smith 1 E. McEachran 0
4. G. Sim 1 J. Walker 0
2.5 1.5
 
 
Neil

Friday 4 October 2013

Braunstone 6 v Wigston 6
Barry Read 0.5 0.5 Paul Winterton
Qiyuan Chen 1 0 Grant Hammond
Paul Martin 0.5 0.5 Paul Martin
Ian Barker 1 0 Darren Poulacheris
 
A disappointing 3-1 loss to Braunstone. Being involved in my own game, I can't really comment on the other's games unfortunately. I could see Grant's board and could see that it was a French Defence game, as was mine, but Grant made a mistake in the middle game he said. That was a loss to a promising young Junior there Grant, unlucky. A good draw on board 1 from Paul and a loss by Darren on board 4. I had a slight advantage out of the opening in my game, but Paul did really well to defend and in the end managed to turn it round so that I was defending. I envisaged a slow and painful steamrollering queenside attack, then at the 30 move time control, I was offered a draw. We were both cautious in our first game of the season and agreed the draw. I think I may have broken Paul Martin's hand when I shook it!
 
Wigston 5 v Syston 3
Nik Chalashkanov 0.5 0.5 Robert Stone
Charles Eastlake 1 0 **default**
Barry French 1 0 Peter Cresswell
Barrie Cooper 1 0 Stuart Hollingworth
Frank Hulford 0 1 Mo Martin
 
An excellent 3.5 to 1.5 win. Well done team! Before I disappeared for friendlies, I was able to cast a beady eye over the lot of you. I guess that Charles was first to finish when his opponent failed to show. Syston had a contact number that was a number too short so they couldn't even get hold of their absentee! Nik was second to finish, again fairly quickly when almost all of the pieces were off the board and there was a race to pawns Queening! They Queened at consecutive moves and they agreed a draw. During my friendlies I had regular reports of positions and results. We congratulate Barry French on his first league game and indeed his first win for the club, although post match analysis says that Peter missed an interesting (ahem, winning) Knight move. Well done Barry! Good on club president Barrie Cooper aswell, marking his first game of the season with an excellent win over the Syston 3rd team Captain, well played. Unfortunately we did lose a game on board 5, I didn't see much of the game but Frank was a little unlucky after having a decent position. Never mind Frank, the team won which is the most important thing.