Jun 102013
 

bridestones 2Bridestones Holme Brew Chess Challenge: Round 3

Last Monday’s third round games featured an outrageous miscarriage of chess justice and another smooth win for the top seed. An earlier version of this post featured an erroneous score for the game between Andy Leatherbarrow and Matthew Parsons which appeared to involve Matthew playing an awful combination and get away with it. As you’ll see from the comments to this post Andy played 27.Rfd1 and not 27.Rfc1 which meant that Matthew captured the rook rather than sacrificed the knight when he played 30… Nxd1+! This confused for your editor because 27… Qe6 still made sense even without the queen being threatened by the rook because it placed the White bishop under attack. Even more confusing was that the subsequent attack still almost worked aside from the fact that Andy ‘appeared’ to have missed a straightforward defence three moves in a row!

With Alastair Wright and Pete Leonard sitting out the action due to Pete’s holiday there were just two games being played, both of which were repeat encounters from this year’s Calderdale Individual Chess Championship. Matthew had beaten Andy Leatherbarrow with Black in round 3 and went on to win the title. Nick Sykes defeated Dave Shapland in round 4 and went on to finish in joint third place. Would the form books lead to repeat performances?

As I thought, just one perpetrator then! This image is used under Creative Commons terms and is sourced from f4niko's Flickr photostream

Were there one or two perpetrators? We must check that our evidence is correct. This image is used under Creative Commons terms and is sourced from f4niko’s Flickr photostream

Nick was playing Black in his game with Dave (in their match from the CIC the colours were reversed) and bravely elected to venture the Sicilian Defence with which had lost to Dave in their only encounter prior to this season. At first it appeared that a sneaky move order trick would enable Dave to get exactly the kind of tactical mess he so enjoys as Nick, caught off guard by 2.Nc3, suddenly found himself playing a Classical Sicilian instead of the Najdorf and Schevenigan systems he prefers. This meant that Dave was able to put the dangerous and monstrously complex Velimirovic Attack into play and the game looked poised for pyrotechnics. However, Nick adjusted well and decided to delay castling in favour of taking immediate counter measures on the queen’s-side. Dave misplayed the resultant position and was then on the back foot as Nick targeted a weak looking White king having already gone a pawn up.

Although he overlooked a couple of chances to bury Dave in the middle game, Nick maintained a pawn’s advantage into a rook and minor piece ending. However, matters were complicated by Dave’s passed a-pawn which advanced rapidly to occupy Nick’s pieces. It still should have been winning for Black but then Nick captured the White f-pawn with his bishop overlooking that it was protected by Dave’s rook and all his hard work was undone at a stroke. All that remained was for Dave to patiently coax home his advantage as Nick fumed in frustration across the board his pocket well and truly picked.

Andy had also played White in his game with Matthew earlier in the year. In that game Andy had chosen a very unorthodox opening and was summarily executed. This time he played ‘normally’ and tackled Matthew’s favorite Sniper system head on. All appeared to be going well for Andy who was holding his own quite comfortably until his error on move 28 allowing Matthew to uncork a winning knight manouevre immediately.

As a result of his larceny Dave significantly improved his standing in the tournament. Matthew increased his lead to a point and a half and now has three points whilst Dave moved into second on one and a half. The two  play each other in round 4 whilst Alastair is due to play Nick an Pete plays Andy. Below are both games with commentary. There is a cross table on the dedicated tournament page.

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  8 Responses to “Burglar makes a profit”

  1. Oh my! Yes you are very incorrect david! I can’t imagine what would make you think i would go for that! Haha. I find it comical that in the end position i still have forced mate.
    You have the moves right up until move 27. Its rfd1 not rfc1! Suprised you couldnt work this out really unless the scoresheet clearly has the wrong move. Thats the reason i play qe6 to move out of rook attack and attack the bishop – whites problem piece.
    It’s also the reason that kf1 is such a blunder because it runs into royal fork problems after nd5.
    So after 31. rd1 ive won an exchange.
    The end position is not mate in 5. There is no rook on b1. Though i suppose its probably mate in 5 anyway!
    Lol. Could you possibly update this report? It makes me look like a bit of an idiot!

  2. Hi Dave, yes there is a mistake in the moves, 27 Rfd1 not c1 therefore the N takes the rook with check,
    the critical moves were at 17, 23 and 24 there after I was worse and failed increasingly in time trouble. Let people find the best options, the opening was interesting and I was happy with position till I headed in the wrong direction!

    • Thanks for the responses gents. The post and games are now duly amended to make Matthew look less like an idiot! As you saw from my initial post I was rather doubtful that such an error could have been made. The problem I think was that the move 27… Qe6 still makes sense after 27.Rfc1 because it attacks the unprotected bishop on e2. Also, the fact that the remaining moves after that still mostly made sense was confusing. Unfortunately I binned the score sheet last week so we’ll never know if Matthew wrote the 27th move down wrong or I committed a mouse slip in translating it… 🙂

  3. Yes pete is right, i had the black pieces! Hey as long as i get the win for grading purposes…

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