2014-15 Season Journal » Hebden Bridge Chess Club

Champions back in the hunt

2014-15 Season Journal 21 Responses »

Nov 292014

Reigning champions Halifax ‘A’ are ‘tooled up’ and back in the hunt for this year’s League 1 title after beating Hebden Bridge on Monday and seeing leaders Huddersfield go down on Wednesday. This image is used under Creative Commons terms and sourced from Neil Moralee’s Flickr photo stream

As the Calderdale League 1 season draws towards the half way mark the title race became a whole lot more interesting this week. The round 6 fixtures began on Monday night with Huddersfield sitting pretty at the top of the pile with a perfect score of ten match points from their first five matches. Todmorden ‘A’ were on two points behind them and reigning champions Halifax ‘A’ were two more points off the pace on just six points along with Hebden Bridge ‘A’.

However, by the end of Wednesday night, as Huddersfield were surprisingly beaten at home by Courier, the table had closed right up. In fact, Todmorden ‘A’ are now at the top of the heap on board score as they trounced Belgrave at home 4 — 1. Huddersfield are now in second and Halifax have put themselves right back into contention as they beat Hebden Bridge ‘A’ at home 4 — 1 and now lie just two points off the pace. Hebden and Courier are on six points each and still have an outside shot at the title as well.

The story of Hebden Bridge’s trip to Halifax on Monday night is full of interest. As expected, Halifax put together a very strong line up on the top three boards where the visitors were entertained by Winston Williams, Darwin Ursal and Bill Somerset. All of these players are rated over 180 whilst their opponents from Hebden Bridge were all in the 150’s. On the bottom two boards however the ratings between the two sides were much closer and so the pressure was on Hebden Bridge to score well here if they were to have any hopes of upsetting the applecart at the Lee Mount Club for a third successive year.

Sadly for Hebden lightning rarely strikes three times and this occasion was to be no different as, after hard fought encounters on all five boards, Halifax ran out comfortable winners. The first game to finish was the board 5 match up between Halifax’s captain, Carlos Velosa and Andy Leatherbarrow of Hebden Bridge.

The game began in fairly obscure fashion as Carlos employed his habitual opening move of 1.f4 but soon the game began to look a bit like a Closed Sicilian and Andy appeared to be doing quite well. Then came a pretty and amusing series of moves where both players offered and declined or were unable to accept pieces sacrifices. Carlos’s king seemed to be vulnerable at one moment but he found counter play by skewering Andy’s queen to a rook. Now it was Andy’s turn to seek compensation for the exchange but, just as he seemed to be building up pressure on Carlos’s king again the Halifax player found a precise series of checks that forced his capitulation. Carlos has very kindly sent us the game with some notes and it’s in the viewer at the end of this post.

Soon after it got even worse for Hebden as Martin Syrett lost to Scott Gornall on board 4. It looked like the kind of messy encounter Martin usually thrives on but on this occasion Scott coped with the complications better and Halifax had a 2 — 0 lead with their big guns still to finish.

The match could well have ended in a humbling whitewash for the visitors but they were rescued from that fate by their captain Pete Leonard who held Winston Williams to a draw fairly comfortably on board 1. In fact, as Pete points out in his notes to the game (which is in the viewer at the end of this post) he missed several good opportunities to play for a win and at the end it looked if anything like his position was for preference in a rook, knight and pawn ending.

Shortly after this game ended so did the game on board 3 where Nick Sykes debated the King’s Indian Defence with Bill Somerset. This was a heavyweight theoretical duel for Bill plays the King’s Indian with both colours and Nick has beaten some strong players with the opening himself. In the end Bill’s experience paid off as, although the honours in the opening phase were even, Bill slowly outplayed Nick in the middle game and managed to negotiate some acute time pressure to secure the win.

This just left the board two game between Darwin Ursal and Dave Shapland. The first surprise of this game was that Dave chose not to play his favourite Budapest Gambit (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5!?) but instead opted for the Semi-Slav which is a more solid, yet still dynamic opening. He’d used this to reasonable effect in a previous game against Darwin but had lost in the end.

On this occasion Dave captalised on the relatively unambitious continuation chosen by Darwin that left him with no real opportunities to put Black under pressure. Darwin then felt compelled to resort to some murky but dubious complications but the gamble could have paid off for he missed one rather difficult opportunity to win an exchange and after that he was under pressure for much of the rest of the game.

Dave too missed a gilt-edged opportunity to hang on to an extra piece that Darwin felt he was going to regain after a tricky series of forcing moves and after that, although he was never in any danger of losing in the resulting rook and minor piece end game, Dave never had quite enough of an advantage to put the game away and had to settle for a draw.

Here is the final match scorecard:

Halifax ‘A’ vs. Hebden Bridge ‘A’
W.Williams ½ — ½ P.Leonard
D.Ursal ½ — ½ D.Shapland
W.Somerset 1 — 0 N.Sykes
S.Gornall 1 — 0 M.Syrett
C.Velosa 1 — 0 A.Leatherbarrow
4 — 1

As well as four of the games from this match, the game viewer below also contains Matthew Parsons draw on board 1 against Tony Slinger of Courier ‘A’. Courier have been something of a bÃªte noir for Huddersfield in the past and so it proved again on Wednesday as Huddersfield were without Messrs Keeley, Eagleton and Burke. Despite that they still had a strong enough side to beat their visitors but the board match ups were far more balanced than they would have been and in the end Courier’s Dave Patrick beat Dave Keddie on board 2 and Robert Clegg beat Dave Tooley on board 4 to give Courier a crucial win.

Remember that there is a League EGM at the Belgrave Social Club, Claremount Road, Halifax this Monday the 1st of December. This meeting has been held to propose and discuss possible changes to the league structure and so it’s very important that representatives from each club are present.

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Calderdale Individual Championship 2014-15: Round 1

2014-15 Season Journal No Responses »

Nov 142014

Reports of its death are greatly exaggerated!

The 2014-15 edition of the Calderdale Individual Chess Championship began on Monday night at the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge. This competition follows its usual (but unusual) format of being played at the rate of one round per month between November and March…

A full round 1 report and games can be found on the Yorkshire Chess website

Hebden thriving on donations

2014-15 Season Journal 4 Responses »

Nov 072014

Any other teams who wish to donate a point head start to our ‘A’ team this season please apply in advance so that we can advise our own corresponding player not to travel. Thanks! This image is used under Creative Commons terms and sourced from Howard Lake’s Flickr photostream

As I mentioned in last week’s post, Hebden Bridge ‘A’ played the second of their back to back fixtures at the Trades Club on Monday against Todmorden’B’. Their opponents may have been winless and at the foot of the table but victory could not be taken for granted as all the boards saw match ups of similar rated players. This was going to be a tough task for Hebden and so it proved.

Once again Hebden were handed a huge boost at the start of the night when Todmorden’s board 3, Dave Innes, failed to appear meaning that, for the third time this season, Hebden had been donated a point’s start by their opponents. Last week at Brighouse they made it count and they’d almost squeezed something from Huddersfield in the first fixture of the season as well. Could they capitalise this time around?

Nick Sykes was the man left on the sidelines this week although, having played in a bruising British Rapidplay Championship at the weekend, he seemed unperturbed at not getting a game. Instead he got to watch as a tense and enthralling set of encounters unfolded.

Martin Syrett was the first to finish against Rob Collier on board 5. Your correspondent didn’t get to see a great deal of this game but it seemed to end rather abruptly after a pretty lengthy and close-run contest. Hebden were, for the third time in five matches this season, 2 — 0 up.

Todmorden got a point back half an hour or so later when Todmorden’s Mike Huett broke through to Andy Leatherbarrow’s king in a contest where the players had contested a lively looking closed Sicilian.

Now it was down to the top two boards to decide the encounter with Hebden a point up. In truth Todmorden never really looked like they were going to trouble their Hebden counterparts on these top two boards although in the end, and after much struggle they did hold both games. On board 1 Pete Leonard seemed to surprise Neil Suttie with his Bishops Opening and he got a pleasant edge which he converted to a single pawn’s advantage. However, Neil maintained drawing chances by keeping the queens on the board and eventually, in a queen and pawn ending, Pete offered a draw when it no longer seemed he could make progress even though he still held a notional advantage. Hebden now needed a draw on board 2 to secure the tie.

They did eventually get it at the end of a very hard-fought encounter between Dave Shapland and Mike Connor. Dave seemed to get a lot of pressure out of the opening against Mike’s Alekhine’s Defence. However, often in the Alekhine’s Black appears to have a miserable position and is forced to take some risks to get counterplay. This looked like it would be the theme of this game also until Dave underestimated the strength of a thematic pawn advance which enabled Mike to win a piece by force.

But again appearances were deceptive, for Dave was soon able to regain the piece and keep up his pressure. Off came the rooks at which point the players were left with a piece (Dave and bishop and Mike a knight) and four pawns each. Still Dave pressed but the position was levelling out until finally Mike tried to simplify further by exchanging queens. It wasn’t a favourable swap as there were pawns on each side of the board and the bishop became the more valuable of the two pieces.

Finally, deep into the second time control, Dave offered Mike a draw when he realised it would win his team the match. It still looked like he could win but he was taking no chances. Mike was pleased to accept as he surely couldn’t have played for the win his team needed without taking great risks.

The final match scorecard looked like this then:

Hebden Bridge ‘A’ vs Todmorden ‘B’
P.Leonard ½ — ½ N.Suttie
D.Shapland ½ — ½ M.Connor
N.Sykes 1 — 0 DEFAULT
A.Leatherbarrow 0 — 1 M.Huett
M.Syrett 1 — 0 R.Collier
3 — 2

Elsewhere the league leaders showed their true class as both Huddersfield and Todmorden ‘A’ inflicted the first 4 — 1 and 4½ — ½ results in the league this season. On Monday night Todmorden ‘A’ travelled to meet a strong Courier ‘A’ side and utterly routed them. Tod had what looks like their strongest possible line up (which was not the case when the lost to Huddersfield last time around) and Courier were rather under strength. Still, only Martin Hamer ‘dropped’ a half-point to Tony Slinger on board 1. The rest of the Todmorden team won their games.

As if in response to this result the league leaders underlined their supremacy with a 4 — 1 win at home to Brighouse last night. Greg Eagleton slumped to a defeat against Dennis Breen on board 1 but the rest of the Huddersfield team strode to victory. Matthew Parsons has sent us his miniature against Robert Broadbent who was already struggling before overlooking a surprising tactic that ended the game at once.

The fourth match of the week saw the champions Halifax ‘A’ travel across town to visit Belgrave. After a stuttering start, Halifax now have all three of the musketeers who drove them to last year’s title. Messrs Ursal, Williams and Somerset all won their games on the top three boards although a little of the shine was taken off their wins by a draw on board 5 and a defeat for Sam Scurfield inflicted by Angel Gonzalez on board 4.

All of this means that Hebden Bridge have climbed to their highest league place of the year to date. They are third on board count ahead of Halifax. Both have 6 points. Todmorden ‘A’ have 8 and Huddersfield are still perfect on 10. Hebden Bridge fans shouldn’t get too excited about the team’s lofty status however as their next four fixtures pit them against Halifax away, Todmorden ‘A’ at home, Huddersfield away and then Courier ‘A’ away. If they are still in third place after that lot they’ll be over the moon!

Remember that next week sees the start of the Calderdale Individual Championship with the first round taking place at the Trades Club. Mathew Parsons will be back to see if he can make it three in a row. Can anyone stop him? Entries remain open until Sunday. Details can be found on the Calderdale Individual Championship page of this website.

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Yo-yo Hebden on the rise

2014-15 Season Journal 9 Responses »

Oct 312014

Hebden Bridge ‘A’ have twice recovered from tough defeats to win their next match. Can they manage back to back wins on Monday? This image is used under Creative Commons terms and sourced from Konstantin Lazorkin’s Flickr photo stream

Lose, win, lose, win. That’s been the pattern for HebdenBridge ‘A’ so far this season. Last time out they suffered a painful 2 — 3 defeat on the road at Belgrave but on Monday night they redeemed themselves by beating Brighouse away 1½ — 3½. Admittedly they were handed a very useful start when the home team admitted they only had four players. Unfortunately this left poor old Martin Syrett as a spare part for the evening which is never a very satisfactory outcome for the player involved.

All of this left Hebden Bridge a point up and with four relatively tight match ups to contest on the remaining boards. Captain Pete Leonard was on board 1 against Dennis Breen and found himself facing the Russian System of the Grunfeld Defence. It had been a while since Pete had looked at the line but he seemed to be doing perfectly well in the opening and middle game. His problems began as proceedings began to transition into an ending. This is often the place where games are won and lost as one player jumps at the chance of simplification while their opponent has seen further and envisaged an ongoing advantage.

Whether or not that’s what happened in Pete’s game only he will know but he ended up defending a rook an pawn ending where he had an f-pawn and Dennis retained his a and h pawns. To onlookers it seemed like the game could be held and post-game analysis seems to bare that out. However, Pete also had an acute time shortage and in the end that was what did for him as he ran out of time with just the kings, a pair of rooks and Dennis’s h-pawn left in play.

Fortunately, by the time this game was concluded at the end of the evening the match was already decided in Hebden’s favour. First of all Dave Shapland scored his first full point of the season against Robert Broadbent. Dave had won their last two encounters using the Classical Variation of the Ruy Lopez (3… Bc5) but in this game he selected an even earlier diversion by opting to play the Bird’s Variation (3… Nd4) that had given him such a promising position against Karim Khan I the last match. Once again he obtained a very strong positional hold and Robert finally lashed out on the queen’s side to try and get some counterplay. This back-fired on him and with a little care taken to ensure Robert’s connected passed pawns didn’t cause an upset, Dave steered the game to a successful conclusion.

Hebden were 0 — 2 up but they’d been in that situation against Belgrave and still managed to lose the match. This time they made no mistake although both Nick Sykes and Andy Leatherbarrow could perhaps consider themselves fortunate not to have lost. Nick finished first against Bruce Bendall on board 3. The game transposed into a Vienna Game and Bruce spotted a thematic tactic that looked like it netted a pawn. In fact, as Nick’s analysis in the viewer below shows, Brue should have lost his piece although the winning of it would have meant Nick boldly marching his king out to g6. Once the pawn had been won Bruce managed to keep up the pressure and Nick was struggling to equalise. It looked like it might be a lost cause but Bruce was taking too long to find the strongest continuations and he ran out of time with just a few moves to make to reach time control.

Once Pete had succumbed to the same condition on board 1 it just remained for Andy Leatherbarrow and Paul Whitehouse to conclude their business. Andy frequently gets into hot water with his clock and it was no different on this occasion as the players manoeuvred cautiously in a closed position. In his zeitnot Andy made an error and Paul won Andy’s queen in exchange for a bishop and rook. However, with the position being closed Andy was just able to build a fortress that Paul could not find a way of dismantling and, with the match result no longer in doubt, the two agreed peace terms.

Here is the final match scorecard:

Brighouse vs. HebdenBridge ‘A’
D.Breen 1 — 0 P.Leonard
R.Broadbent 0 — 1 D.Shapland
B.Bendall 0 — 1 N.Sykes
P.Whitehouse ½ — ½ A.Leatherbarrow
DEFAULT 0 — 1 M.Syrett
1½ — 3½

Three of the games from this match, complete with notes, are available in the viewer at the end of the post.

Last weekend Real Madrid and Barcelona played their first ‘El Clasico’ match of the season in the Spanish football league. This always seems to garner world-wide media coverage and is met with general excitement by football fanatics. The closest that the Calderdale Chess league can come to such a mouth watering prospect is Todmorden ‘A’ vs. Huddersfield. These two teams have been amongst the very strongest in the league for several years now (much longer in the case of Huddersfield) and this season they were the only two teams to go unbeaten for the first three matches. When they met at Todmorden on Monday night then it felt like something had to give.

What gave was Todmorden. Comparing their line up with the first three matches of the season they seemed a little bit under strength but it still appeared they had more than enough to give Huddersfield a very tough test. Unfortunately a blunder on board 5 in an equal position and an epic grind by Huddersfield’s Mitchell Burke on board 4 finally got the job done for the travellers who have played four away fixtures so far and are the only team with a perfect record. They’ve self combusted after strong starts in recent years but this time they are even stronger. Surely it won’t happen again will it? Todmorden may well have to beat them in the reverse fixture to maintain their hopes of victory.

It appears that Todmorden ‘B’s match with Belgrave was postponed which just leaves me with the task of mentioning the match between Halifax ‘A’ and Courier ‘A’ at Halifax. In the last round of last season these two duked it out for the title and Halifax prevailed. They did so once again on Monday by fielding their strongest line up of the season. They’ll need to be able to get Messrs Ursal, Somerset and Williams out like this more regularly if they are going to defend their crown but at least they, like HebdenBridge have recovered to a 50% score. Courier’s defeat means they too are 2 and 2. These three already appear to be a long way behind the leaders who have two point lead over Todmorden ‘A’ and a four point lead on this group.

Next week the league 1 teams will be in action again and Hebden Bridge ‘A’ will host the back markers Todmorden ‘B’. They may be bottom but they’ll be no push over in a league season that has not yet seen a winning margin greater than 3½ — 1½. If Hebden win then they can face the final two difficult tests before Christmas (Halifax ‘A’ and Todmorden ‘A’) knowing that even two defeats would not put them into the relegation zone. However, if they do lose they’ll head for the festive season looking over their shoulders.

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Live by the sword…

2014-15 Season Journal, Uncategorized 4 Responses »

Oct 242014

If one lives by the sword one has to be prepared to die by it also. Sadly last Monday Hebden Bridge ‘A’ were on the wrong side of the violence. This image is used under Creative Commons terms and sourced from One Lucky Guy’s Flickr photostream

The Hebden Bridge ‘A’ team’s League 1 campaign has begun with an unusually bloodthirsty set of encounters. Having lost to Huddersfield 3-2, with three decisive games and one very hotly contested draw, in their first match of the season they faced Courier ‘A’ and Belgrave in back to back Monday night fixtures on the 6th and 13th of October and a veritable cascade of blood was split in both matches.

On the 6th they hosted Courier ‘A’ who last season came within a whisker of winning the title and served up a double helping of misery to Hebden at home and away. Frankly, the team did not expect much from the match as they had a weaker line up (without Matthew Parsons and Dave Shapland) than in the corresponding fixture last season. However, Courier were also a little bit weaker as Phil Watson played on board 1 for them at the Trades Club in 2013 and he was replaced by Tony Slinger (still a very strong player) for this match. Gone too was last season’s board 5, Pete Hughes, replaced by a slightly weaker player on paper this time in the form of Dave Colledge. Hebden were still out graded on every board but the bottom one then.

As it turned out the Trades Club men were in ferocious mood as they over turned the odds on the top two boards and on board 4 and drew on board 5 to secure an splendid victory and gain a measure of revenge for their shortcomings last season. Team Captain Pete Leonard provides us with some of the match details.

I finished first, after a surprisingly easy victory against John Morgan. Quite uncharacteristically, I sacrificed a piece for two pawns; this was Fritz’s preferred move, so it was sound as well! John immediately blundered and it was then just a question of making sure I didn’t throw it away. 1-0 to Hebden Bridge.
Nick Sykes opened 1.d4, as he said, not wishing to face Robert Clegg’s French. Robert opted for a King’s Indian, which it turned out Nick knew much better than he did. By the time I looked, Nick had a very nice position, with an advanced c pawn that eventually the game for him. 2-0 to Hebden Bridge.
On board 4 Andy Leatherbarrow got into a frightful pickle on the king’s side against Dave Patrick. He got into time trouble as well and went down under pressure. 2-1 to Hebden Bridge.
Andy Bak gained a small advantage early on and just kept it. He finished off nicely after Tony Slinger moved his king to the worst possible square in an endgame. 3-1 to Hebden Bridge.
Finally, on board 5 Martin had looked to be in a dreadful mess against Dave Colledge. He won a pawn but omitted to get his king into safety. Dave missed plenty of winning chances, and was still somewhat ahead when they reached the time control. By that point, we were 3-1 up, so Dave generously offered a draw, which Martin accepted with alacrity!

Here’s the final match score card:

Hebden Bridge ‘A’ vs Courier ‘A’
A.Bak 1 — 0 T.Slinger
P.Leonard 1 — 0 J.Morgan
A.Leatherbarrow 0 — 1 D.Patrick
N.Sykes 1 — 0 R.Clegg
M.Syrett ½ — ½ D.Colledge
3½ — 1½

So there were four decisive games out of five in that match. Then last week Hebden went one better at Belgrave as all five games in the match ended with a resignation rather than a peace treaty. Sadly the result of the match was not such a happy one!

On this occasion Hebden looked like the favourites on paper as they out graded their opponents on every board. The night got off to a splendid start for them as Nick Sykes quickly won a piece for just a pawn against Les Johnson on board 4 and Dave Shapland appeared to have Karim Khan completely bamboozled with his obscure opening play on board 3. The other three boards all began in much more measured and closely contested fashion.

Mid-way through the evening it looked like everything would go according to plan as Pete Leonard pounced on Gordon Farrar’s mistake in the endgame to put Hebden one point up and Nick Sykes inevitably compelled his opponent’s resignation soon after to make it two. Surely nothing could go wrong from here.

Sadly it could. On board 1 Andy Bak appeared to overlook a tactical shot for a material advantage and ended up material down against Malcolm Corbett. He struggled on to the very end of the evening trying to hold a rook and pawn against queen and pawn ending but finally Malcolm’s technique privailed and he converted the full point.

Before this Andy Leatherbarrow had lost control in a tense and complicated strategic struggle with Mike Barnett on board 5. Although he only dropped a pawn his position fell apart in the ending.

The true tragedy was taking place on board 3 however. Dave Shapland had managed to gain a great measure of control in the position out of the opening against Karim but there was still much work to do. The position was very messy and Dave realised that he needed to take some time out to consolidate his position and complete his development before pressing forwards. Karim appeared to be restricted to fairly passivity but defended himself resolutely until he played an inaccurate move that allowed Dave to grab a pawn and demolish the defences around the White king.

Normally Dave is in his element in this kind of situation and he increased his advantage until it was a winning one… but it took him too long on the clock to do it. With both players in some time trouble and the position still terribly complicated Dave overlooked a defensive resource, mistakenly pressed ahead with his attack when he needed to defend and suddenly found himself getting checkmated. Sometimes when you live by the sword, you also die by it.

The outcome was a stunning reversal and Belgrave continue to be a real bogey side for Hebden ‘A’ when they are playing at home. Here’s the final match scorecard:

Belgrave vs. Hebden Bridge ‘A’
M.Corbett 1 — 0 A.Bak
G.Farrar 0 — 1 P.Leonard
K.Khan 1 — 0 D.Shapland
L.Johnson 0 — 1 N.Sykes
M.Barnett 1 — 0 A.Leatherbarrow
3 — 2

Elsewhere in League 1 the title seems to be becoming a two horse race between Huddersfield and Todmorden ‘A’ already. On the 13th Huddersfield travelled to the champions Halifax ‘A’ and dealt their hopes of retaining the title a huge blow by beating them 2 — 3. The week before Halifax had travelled to Todmorden ‘A’ and lost 3½ — 1½ so they are now 1 and 2 for the season to date. Critical to Huddersfield’s success last week was Matthew Parsons’ win on board 1 against Winston Williams whilst Daves Firth and Tooley also won against Sam Scurfield and Scott Gornall respectively.

Todmorden ‘A’ seem to have found some very handy new players this season. They travelled to Brighouse (a destination they’ve performed poorly at in the past) without top board Martin Hamer but they came away with a convincing victory of 1½ — 3½. The damage was done in the middle order by Messrs Cook, Gil-Fresno and Clarkson.

All this means that Tod and Huddersfield are the only two teams with a perfect record and next Monday that statistic can’t fail to change as the two play each other at Todmorden as Huddersfield begin the season with four away fixtures in succession! It looks like we’ll find out what these two teams are made of.

Courier ‘A’ bounced back from that defeat to Hebden Bridge by seeing off Tod ‘B’ at home last week. This puts them back in touch with the leaders as the only other team with two wins to their name. Behind Courier, Belgrave are the fourth team in the table with a win, a draw and a defeat. Then come Hebden ‘A’ and Halifax ‘A’ with a single win each, Brighouse with a draw and Tod ‘B’ prop up the table with no points thus far. They have however been very competitive in all their matches and won’t be taken lightly by anyone.

Next Monday besides the Todmorden vs. Huddersfield match there is also a match between Halifax ‘A’ and Courier ‘A’ which you’d already have to classify as a ‘must win’ for the title holders. Meanwhile Hebden Bridge travel to Brighouse knowing that they need a result to stay out of the relegation dog fight and Todmorden ‘B’ host Belgrave hoping to get their season off to a start at the fourth attempt.

In the game viewer below you’ll fine a number of games from the last two rounds of Hebden Bridge fixtures as well as the game between Matthew Parsons and Wintson Williams which Matthew kindly sent on to us.

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Rusty minds grind back into action

2014-15 Season Journal No Responses »

Oct 032014

Rusty brain cogs stuttered back into action over the last few weeks as the Calderdale League begins again. Image used under Creative Commons terms and sourced from mclcbooks’ Flickr photostream

Over the last couple of Monday evenings the first round of a new Calderdale Evening Chess League season has begun as players up and down the valley tried to remember how to move the pieces, press the clock and record the moves after their summer holidays.

League 1 Report

Reigning League 1 champions Halifax ‘A’ hosted Brighouse, Courier ‘A’ hosted Belgrave and Todmorden ‘A’ and ‘B’ contested their two derby fixtures. We’ll come back to these matches in a moment. First of all let’s cover Hebden Bridge ‘A’s opening assignment against Huddersfield.

The match was originally due to be played on Wednesday night at Huddersfield but Hebden Bridge’s new captain Pete Leonard requested a swap of the home and away fixtures when it came to light a month or so before the match that, for one reason or other, Hebden were going to struggle to field a team on that Wednesday night. Huddersfield captain Dave Tooley generously granted the switch and so Huddersfield travelled to the Trades Club on the Monday night.

Last season the two sides swapped away wins but changes to both line ups in the close season meant that Huddersfield appeared to be firm favourites on paper this time. Matthew Parsons decided to switch his allegiances over the summer and represented Huddersfield rather than Hebden in this match. Add the other team members of Greg Eagleton, Mitchell Burke, Dave Keddie and Dave Tooley and that meant Hebden would be heavily out-graded on every board.

However, when Mitchell suddenly became unavailable on the night of the fixture Huddersfield donated a board to their hosts and the complexion of the tie changed. Could Hebden take anything from the match when given a point’s head start? As ever it was a very tight contest between these two sides with the Hebden players sensing the opportunity to upset their more powerful rivals.

Sadly the night did not get off to a very positive start for the hosts as the stand in captain on the night (Pete Leonard was on holiday) Dave Shapland, lost in fairly short order to Matthew Parsons who was promoted up to board 2 in Mitchell’s absence. These two have played each other many times and Dave has never won a game at the standard league time limits. Never the less he gave Matthew a stern test the last time he played with the White pieces and, possibly as a result, Matthew opted for the solid Caro-Kan Defence rather than the more volatile Sniper which has become his trade mark.

Dave eschewed some of the more manic lines he’s been known to play and chose instead the mainline which seemed to give him a solid position with a miniscule edge if anything at all. However, just as the game was poised to get interesting in the middle game Dave blundered a piece and resigned in dismay very shortly afterwards. His recent run of form does not bode well for the season to come.

Huddersfield had already erased their arrears and now the match would be decided over three boards. Next to finish was Andy Leatherbarrow’s game against Dave Keddie on board 3. This was not the most thrilling of encounters as Andy, who was conceding over 20 rating points to his opponent, sensibly charted a solid course through the opening against a very passive Black set up. Pieces were exchanged and the players quickly reached a queen and pawn ending which could have been continued but a draw was agreed almost immediately. Neither of the players was prepared to take a big risk and with the match in the balance that wasn’t an unreasonable decision.

Quite the contrary to this game the board 1 encounter was played in the most gungho, adrenalin-fuelled fashion. Andy Bak took on Greg Eagleton’s Najdorf in the most direct and critical way possible and Greg responded by steering the game into the infamous ‘Poisoned Pawn’ variation where White gives up his b2 pawn in exchange for speedy development and good attacking chances. The variation is known to be mind-bendingly complicated and this game was no exception as both players consumed time on their clocks early in the game trying to fathom what was going on.

The game was fascinating and the onlookers were greatly entertained but as is so often is the case in these types of game the clock ended up deciding the result. With only a minute or so left to make 8 or 9 moves, both players were in desperate straits and could easily have blundered. Andy ran out of time as he made his 36th move but in his haste to make time control himself Greg didn’t notice and also ran out of time. Both flags had fallen and the players weren’t entirely sure whether or not they’d made the requisite number of moves. Had they done so they might well have put the clocks back and continued but when they reconstructed their final moves it became clear that neither of them had made it and so they correctly and sportingly agreed on a draw. The match was level at two all.

This left the game between Nick Sykes and Dave Tooley which was a tight and tense affair for entirely different reasons. Both players were rock solid as Dave played the French Defence and Nick built up a pleasant space advantage which looked like it would place him in at no risk but would also be very difficult to convert. They could logically have agreed on a draw very early on in the evening but both played on each sensing that they might need to win the game to help their team gain a result.

On and on they went with the position simplifying down to rook, knight and pawn endgame. Dave managed to snatch a pawn but with the pieces still on and only a two to one pawn advantage a draw still seemed the most logical outcome. That result would have given Hebden a famous fighting draw but unfortunately Nick couldn’t manage to hang on in difficult circumstances. Fatefully he acquiesced to exchange knights when a rook exchange would have been more conducive to holding the balance. Dave’s king and rook were well placed to shepherd home the last remaining pawn and at the very end of the night Nick tipped his king and Huddersfield edged the tie 3 — 2.

Here is the final match scorecard:

Hebden Bridge ‘A’ vs. Huddersfield
A.Bak ½ — ½ G.Eagleton
D.Shapland 0 — 1 M.Parsons
A.Leatherbarrow ½ — ½ D.Keddie
N.Sykes 0 — 1 D.Tooley
M.Syrett 1 — 0 DEFAULT
2 — 3

The other fixtures in round 1 were similarly close which perhaps suggests some rustiness after the summer break. Halifax ‘A’ will sit atop the first 2014-15 league table of the season as they were the only side to win by more than a single point. They saw off Brighouse 3½ — 1½ but this hides the fact that they were donated two defaults and only tied the top three boards with a win a draw and a loss. Halifax don’t appear to be quite as strong as they were last season as they are missing Winston Williams but Bill Somerset and Darwin Ursal both played in this match contrary to rumours that they too would be absent this year.

Last season Todmorden ‘A’ only lost a single game when they had the home advantage. So, when they sported two new players who were strong enough to demote Andrew Clarkson to board 5 (!) it appeared that they would completely dominate their ‘B’ team. That didn’t happen though as Pete Mulleady could only manage a draw against Mike Connor and the new boys on boards 3 and 4 only mustered a half point between them. It was left to ‘A’ team stalwarts Hamer and Clarkson to secure victory by the narrowest possible margin and Tod ‘A’ have now already lost their first game at home this season.

Last but certainly not least Courier ‘A’ beat Belgrave 3 — 2 at home with Messrs Slinger (board 1) and Cawston (board 3) scoring victories in a new look line up for Courier as Robert Clegg and John Morgan were both absent. Belgrave meanwhile were without Malcolm Corbett but still managed to win on board 2 as Karim Khan beat Dave Patrick. Boards 4 and 5 were drawn.

All of this means that the top four teams from last season once again asserted their authority as Halifax are followed by Huddersfield, Todmorden ‘A’ and Courier ‘A’ whilst Hebden ‘A’, Brighouse, Belgrave and Todmorden ‘B’ appear to be in the fight to stay up. The next round of fixtures is on the 6th of October and the choice tie of the round appears to be Halifax’s visit to Todmorden ‘A’.

League 2 Newsflash

On Monday evening the League 2 teams got underway with Hebden Bridge ‘B’ and ‘C’ both in action. John Kerrane provides a brief report and results:

Hebden Bridge B opened their season with an away match against Courier B in Halifax, and came away 3½-1½ winners, aided largely by a double default by their opponents. The individual results were:

Courier ‘B’ vs. Hebden Bridge ‘B’
J. Smith ½ — ½ A. Leatherbarrow
P.Jacobs 0 — 1 M. Syrett
R. Bottomley 1 — 0 D. Crampton
DEFAULT 0 — 1 R. Deravairere
DEFAULT 0 — 1 A.Brown
1½ — 3½

Meanwhile, Hebden Bridge C travelled to Todmorden WMC to take on Todmorden C, and were thrashed 4½-½. Only captain John Kerrane managed to salvage half a point and avoid a whitewash. The individual results were:

Todmorden ‘C’ vs. Hebden Bridge ‘C’
D. Milton ½ — ½ J. Kerrane
P. Logan 1 — 0 T. Sullivan
T. Webster 1 — 0 C. Greaves
R. Pratt 1 — 0 D. Leggett
B. Joyce 1 — 0 A. Connors
4½ — ½

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Allan illuminates the club lightning

2014-15 Season Journal 3 Responses »

Sep 302014

Once again apologies to all readers for the recent lack of timely updates on these pages. I promise it has nothing to do with my own recent string of embarrassing defeats (although I admit that doesn’t do a lot for my motivation!) Here is a brief report from John Kerrane on this year’s club lightning tournament which was played a couple of weeks ago. There will be a report on the first round of Calderdale league matches in the next day or two.

On Monday the 15th twelve players met at the Trades Club to contest the club’s annual Lightning Competition, the traditional pre-season event on the week before the start of the Calderdale league season.

With a move every ten seconds on a buzzer, you need steady nerves and a bit of luck, as well as the usual chess-playing skills. At the beginning of the game, ten seconds seems quite manageable, but as the game wears on and the position becomes more complicated, blunders and oversights soon start appearing.

In the event, the competition produced a clear winner in John Allan, who led from the early rounds, with a final score of 5½/6. He was well ahead of the two runners-up on 4/6, Dave Shapland and Pete Leonard. Again, Dan Crampton produced the unexpected result of the evening, taking half a point from Allan in the first round.

The individual scores were:

J. Allan = 5½
P. Leonard and D. Shapland = 4
J. Kerrane and N. Sykes = 3½
D. Crampton, A. Leatherbarrow and C. Greaves = 3
T. Sullivan and M. Syrett = 2½
R. Deravairere = 1
A. Connors = 0

One of the most entertaining games of the evening was the following king hunt by Nick Sykes against… (oh look!) me. For some reason I decided to test Nick’s nerve and memory by inviting him to play the deadly dangerous Traxler Variation of the Two Knights Defense which I never play with White and he has great experience of with Black. I threw further petrol on the fire by opting for the 5.Nxf7!? line which demands complete accuracy from both players in order to avoid immediate disaster. Sadly I simply wasn’t up to the task (9.d6 was correct I believe and only then 10.c3) and Nick played in thematic fashion to draw my king out into the open and then mate him on a6!. An enjoyable romp I hope at least other readers will agree, even if I must avert my eyes.

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Hebden Bridge 2 — Matthew Webb 8

2014-15 Season Journal 1 Response »

Sep 092014

Matthew Webb (standing) took on 10 players at once (including Andy Leatherbarrow – seated) at the Trades Club on Monday night.

On Monday night Hebden Bridge Chess Club continued their preparations for the new league season with a simultaneous match against the club’s highest rated member, Matthew Webb.

Matty enjoyed a truly golden season last year sweeping all before him in the local leagues, Yorkshire League, 4NCL and congresses. As a result he gained a huge number of rating points and is currently the 5th highest rated player in Yorkshire according to the YCA rating website. This match was also preparation for Matty as he is due to fly out to Bilbao on Sunday to take part in the European Club Championship for Yorkshire’s ‘White Rose’ outfit.

With such a huge rating difference on paper between Matty and the rest of the participants, one might have expected a clean sweep of wins for him. However, he had generously accepted a number of conditions that would place significant restrictions on his ability to bring his very best game to every one of the ten boards.

First of all the match was played on the clock. This meant that all ten players had 75 minutes to complete their own games whilst Matty had the same time to complete all of his!
Secondly, Matty agreed to allow players to chose which colour pieces they wanted to operate and seven out of ten chose White.
Finally, this was Matty’s first simultaneous match so he really didn’t know what to expect or know how well he’d be able to cope with the unique situation of playing ten games at once. It transpired that the answer was — really rather well!

Of course playing ten games at once requires excellent powers of concentration as well as the ability to spot tactical hazards and opportunities very quickly. A number of the games were effectively decided by tactical shots, some of which were harder to spot than others.

The night began very well for Mr Webb as he was donated an early victory by your correspondent. I believe I’ve only blundered into a knight fork of my king and queen once before in a game played at a classical time limit. Now it’s twice! I was hugely overoptimistic with my opening play. White advancing the g-pawn in the early stages of Philidor’s Defence is not particularly unusual but my follow up play was recklessly aggressive and I subsequently ‘forgot’ that my g-pawn was no longer protecting f3 as Matty simply played Nf3 to fork my king on e1 and my queen on e4. Game over in embarrassing fashion!

It wasn’t too long after this that Dylan Leggett was checkmated having started to haemorrhage material straight after the opening. Terry Sullivan was next to succumb after he’d been able to essay an opening variation that I would readily have given my right arm to have contested with Matty — a Closed French Tarrasch. Terry got a reasonable position from the opening without causing Matty any real problems but then he overlooked a line of tactics that first lost him a piece and then ultimately a rook. Matty made short work of him after that.

The rest of the games looked like they’d last rather longer. In particular, the highest rated player participating after Matty, Matthew Parsons, was holding his own and Martin Syrett, Pete Leonard and John Kerrane all seemed to be fairing well. Pete’s game looked particular stressful for his opponent as neither king was castled, the centre was open and there were pieces and tactics everywhere.

“I hope you know what’s going on here,” said Matty to Pete at one point “because I don’t!”

Matthew Parsons (front left) and Martin Syrett (back left) both managed to take draws off Matty. Martin could even have won his game at the end of the evening.

Andy Leatherbarrow became another mark on Matty’s tally-stick as his position caved in mid-way through the evening’s play. Sitting next to Terry, Andy had played the French Defence against Matty with colours reversed and he got another Tarrasch Variation. He chose a slightly offbeat but reputable line and seemed to be managing ok in the opening stages before he too overlooked a tactic that lost him a pawn and then seemed to play a couple of moves that lacked real purpose. Matty took the c-file, infiltrated his queen and Andy’s game simply fell apart.

Then came the great surprise of the evening as one of the lowest rated players in the room outwitted our guest in most unorthodox style. Danny Crampton lulled Matty into a false sense of security by blundering a piece as early as move 6. However, he then hung on tenaciously and sneakily made his moves almost as soon as Matty left his board. Matty didn’t notice that he was being blitzed and was crest-fallen when Danny pointed out that he’d lost on time in a winning position! Kudos to Danny for successfully deploying such a crafty approach as he might well have been completely crushed before he managed to run down Matty’s clock.

After this mishap Matty started to pay much more attention to his clock situation on all boards and no-one else was given the opportunity to do what Danny had done. The next game to finish was his contest with Mathew Parsons. Matty found a way to grab a pawn but soon was compelled to give it back and as the pieces came off he offered Matthew a draw. It seemed that White had no winning chances to speak of and so he accepted the offer without too much hesitation or regret. A post-mortem with some of the spectators left everyone in no-doubt that a draw was the right outcome.

Ian Gowers was participating as a guest from Halifax Chess club and he opted for a rock solid approach with the White pieces. Although this assured him a reasonably long game it didn’t afford him any real chances to take the advantage and Matty slowly ground him down until he was two many pawns up in a king and pawn ending.

Now there were just three more game in play and at this point Matty’s karma equalised itself as John Kerrane realised too late that his opponent’s clock had not been running for a significant portion of the evening. It probably wouldn’t have made any difference for here too Matty had slowly increased his advantage until finally he had two extra pawns in a rook and bishop endgame. It was already resignable before John over looked an intermezzo that forced his king to abandon its protection of his attacked bishop.

By this stage Pete Leonard had also lost his game. The game was held in a dramatic tension for quite some time but in the end Matty’s initiative proved to be a little bit faster than Pete’s as he showed admirable powers of calculation to judge his mating attack to perfection just as it appeared Pete might have him on the ropes.

All of this left Martin Syrett, that most resourceful and obdurate of opponents. He scored some very good results last season including managing to hold Huddersfield’s top board Greg Eagleton to a draw and being the only player who managed to draw with Matthew Parsons in the Calderdale Individual Championship.

Syrett vs. Webb. It’s White’s 58th move. How could Martin have stopped the advancing Black pawns to claim a famous victory? Answer in the game viewer below

Martin curbed his wilder side and played the opening carefully and sensibly. He obtained a position that didn’t appear to offer him any real prospects of gaining an advantage but which also looked extremely resilient. Matty sought positional advantages and when Martin’s light squared bishop became entombed behind a network of his own pawns it appeared that the mission had been accomplished. However, after the queens were exchanged, Matty then decided on a highly ambitious and possibly dubious sacrifice of a piece for three pawns.

The game boiled down to Martins knight and three pawns against Matty’s six pawns. It felt like the knight was better but Matty had set up dangerous threats that seemed to have Martins’ knight and king tied to the defence (see right). The whispering kibitzers all had their own opinions but eventually Matty realised that he’d pushed as hard as he could and was possibly going to lose and so he offered a draw which Martin, unable to find the solution that would allow him to win the game, gratefully accepted.

Here then are the final results from the ten board simultaneous match:

D.Crampton 1 — 0 M.Webb
I.Gowers 0 — 1 M.Webb
D.Leggett 0 — 1 M.Webb
M.Parsons ½ — ½ M.Webb
D.Shapland 0 — 1 M.Webb
T.Sullivan 0 — 1 M.Webb
M.Syrett ½ — ½ M.Webb
M.Webb 1 — 0 J.Kerrane
M.Webb 1 — 0 A.Leatherbarrow
M.Webb 1 — 0 P.Leonard

With a final score of won 7, drew 2, lost 1 this represents a really splendid result for Matty in his first ever simultaneous, especially when you consider the nature of his defeat. Congratulations to Danny, Martin and Matthew for their results too. I’ve added all of the games (with light notes to the position above in Syrett vs. Webb) in the viewer below.

Here’s hoping we can entice Matty back for another one of these next year. We wish him the very best for Bilbao.

Next week the club will be holding our annual individual lightning competition were players are given just 10 seconds each to make their moves. This format always produces some unexpected results and exciting play.

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