Hebden Bridge Chess Club

First of all I’d like to wish all our members and readers a very Happy New Year! In this first post of the new decade we’ll be catching up on a plethora of recent action from across the Calderdale Evening Chess League as we reach the halfway mark in the 2019-20 season.

Handicap League

On Monday the 16th o November the first round of fixtures in this year’s handicap league were played. Hebden Bridge travelled to Belgrave and Huddersfield went to Halifax.

In the second of these matches, Huddersfield held a rating advantage on all but the top board where Scott Gornall out rated Alec Ward. However, when the handicap calculation was made the overall rating difference was small enough that Halifax only received a half point head start. It turned out that this was the only score they were going to receive as Huddersfield went about their business in brutal fashion putting their opponents to the sword on every board including the top one were Alec was the only player to overturn the handicap.

Across Halifax at the Belgrave Social Club the home team welcomed Hebden Bridge. Here both teams field six players. It seems that everyone involved thought this was the correct number and were in error – a resolution to this will need to be agreed by the league committee as the Calderdale League website only has room to enter the results from five boards.

Hebden fielded a balanced side with regular ‘A’ teamers, Stavros Pantazopoulos and Pete Leonard, on boards 1 and 2, and two juniors, Zora Sandhu and Jamie Heritage on boards 5 and 6. John Kerrane and Paul Gledhill made up the numbers. Belgrave meanwhile largely featured players who appear most regularly in their ‘B’ and ‘C’ teams and this meant that they too received a half point head start.

Despite an outstanding draw for the home side on board 1 where Dave College held Stavros Pantazopoulos, Belgrave lost the match. Two victories for Hebden on board 2, where Pete Leonard overcame Chris Edwards; and board 5, where Jamie Heritage won in just his second competitive over the board encounter; were accompanied by draws on boards 3, 4 and 5 to see Hebden home by a score of 3 – 4 after the handicap had been taken into account.

Here is the final match score card:

Belgrave vs. Hebden Bridge
D.Colledge ½ – ½ S.Pantazopoulos (W)
(W) C.Edwards 0 – 1 P.Leonard
L.Johnson ½ – ½ J.Kerrane (W)
(W) P.Edwards ½ – ½ P.Gledhill
R.Pratt ½ – ½ Z.Sandhu (W)
(W) A.Arthur 0 – 1 J.Heritage
Handicap ½ – 0 Handicap
2½ – 4

POST SCRIPT: Both clubs agreed a way to resolve the issue of having played the match over six boards instead of five. The game between Paul Edwards and Paul Gledhill will not be entered onto the League results website. As the two players were very close in their ratings this means that the overall match result will not be affected the omission of this one board. Handicap League fixtures are not rated and so this will not effect the players ratings either.

This result represents a good start for Hebden in a competition they have a realistic chance of winning.

League 1

As we reported on in our last post, Hebden Bridge ‘A’ faced a challenging trip to Halifax ‘A’ on Monday the 9th of December for the final round of fixtures in League 1 this year. The champions brought a very strong line up with Matthew Parsons, Stavros Pantazopoulos, Dave Shapland, Andy Leatherbarrow and Pete Leonard all turning out to face a slightly below strength Halifax team. The hosts were without Winston Williams and Sam Scurfield meaning that they lined up with Darwin Ursal, Richard Porter, Carlos Velosa, Vivienne Webster and John Nicholson in their side.

On paper it looked like the top board would be very tight but then Hebden out rated Halifax by varying degree from board 2 downwards. In the end the result did reflect the statistics but the match was somewhat tighter than the ratings suggested it would be.

Hebden successfully plucked the low hanging fruit early on in the evening when Pete Leonard saw off John Nicholson on board 5 to give the visitors the lead. After that result though, the rest of the games were rather more closely fought.

As expected, the board 1 encounter between Matthew Parsons and Darwin Ursal was a heavyweight encounter. Initially, Matthew appeared to be doing well but then Darwin turned the tables and even won some material but, as the game got sharper and more complex, the Halifax player overlooked a forced draw and the game came to an abrupt end.

Boards 2 and 3 finished at a similar time quite late in the evening. Stavros Pantazopoulos slowly turned up the heat and built the tension in his game against Richard Porter until finally, the Halifax captain cracked by miscalculating a tactical sequence and losing material. It looked like he was in serious trouble positionally anyway.

This result prompted Dave Shapland to offer Carlos Velosa a draw on board 3 in order to try and secure the match. This game too had been a tight and tense affair. Carlos had wrestled the initiative from his opponent in the middle game but didn’t find the right way to press home his advantage and allowed Dave to re-establish control.

Dave’s advantage in the ensuing endgame was quite small, even non-existent, but it seemed that he could carry on playing for a win at very little risk and so that was what he did until a draw was all his team needed. Ironically, in the very position where Carlos shook hands, it appears he may have had a good try for a win himself. However, when you’ve been hanging on with little hope of winning for a while, sometimes you just want the game to be over.

In the end it was probably a good job that Dave stopped playing when he did for, shortly after the board 3 game ended, Andy Leatherbarrow made a critical mistake against Vivienne Webster on board 4 and slumped to Hebden’s only defeat of the night.

Here is the final scorecard for the match:

Halifax ‘A’ vs. Hebden Bridge ‘A’
D.Ursal ½ – ½ M.Parsons (W)
R.Porter 0 – 1 S.Pantazopoulos (W)
C.Velosa ½ – ½ D.Shapland (W)
V.Webster 1 – 0 A.Leatherbarrow (W)
J.Nicholson 0 – 1 P.Leonard (W)
2 – 3

A crucial win then for Hebden Bridge ‘A’ but a highly creditable performance from Halifax ‘A’ who demonstrated why they’ve been up near the top of the table for most of the first half of this season.

Over in Brighouse, Hebden Bridge ‘B’ were busy bidding for a win that would take them above Halifax and restrict the gap with their ‘A’ team to a couple of points. Unfortunately, Hebden lost the services of Richard Bedford on the day of the match as he succumbed to one of the many bugs doing the rounds at this time of year. Happily however, even with four players, Hebden were far too strong for their hosts as they won on all four of the boards that did see action.

Here’s the scorecard:

Brighouse vs. Hebden Bridge ‘B’
R.Broadbent 0 – 1 M.Hamer (W)
C.Lund 0 – 1 P.Cook (W)
T.Pryke 0 – 1 A.Clarkson (W)
D.Gunthrope 0 – 1 N.Suttie (W)
R.Grandage 1 – 0 DEFAULT
1 – 4

In the third match to take place on the 9th, Huddersfield ‘A’ defeated Belgrave ‘B’ at home to increase their margin for error above the drop zone. Had Belgrave managed to beat them, Huddersfield would have dropped down a place into sixth. Instead they drew two points further ahead to within one point of fourth placed Belgrave ‘A’ who had the bye in round 8.

Huddersfield were happy to welcome Greg Eagleton into their side for the first time this season and he duly saw of Gordon Farrar on board 1. Belgrave struck back on board 3 where Karim Khan took down Richard Boylan but Huddersfield sealed the win when Nick Sykes defeated Chris Edwards on board 5. The other two games were drawn.

All this means that, at the halfway mark, there are no teams on the same points total. Hebden Bridge ‘A’ are top with 11 points, Hebden Bridge ‘B’ have 9 and Halifax ‘A’ are third with 8.

League 2

On Monday 2nd of December the League 2 teams played their final round of fixtures in 2019. Run away leaders Huddersfield ‘B’ hosted second placed Belgrave ‘C’ and duly won 4 – 1 to maintain their perfect run of form. They look all but certain to secure promotion back to League 1 next season. The home team dropped just two draws in this match as Belgrave players Dave Colledge on board 2 and Paul Edwards on board 5 managed to hold their opponents.

At the Trades Club, Hebden Bridge ‘C’ were up against the bottom team Halifax ‘B’. This fixture was a very tight one with three draws in the match balanced by a win for either side. Scott Gornall beat John Kerrane on board 1 for Halifax’s win and Chris Marsden won against John Nicholson on board 4 for Hebden Bridge. It’s worth mentioning that a new junior club member, Jamie Heritage, played his first match for the club on board 5 and drew against Andrew Whiteley. You’ll have seen above that he went on to win his next game in the Handicap League against Belgrave. We look forward to seeing how this new young prospect develops.

Here is the full match scorecard:

Hebden Bridge ‘C’ vs. Halifax ‘B’
J.Kerrane 0 – 1 S.Gornall (W)
P.Gledhill ½ – ½ H.Wood (W)
T.Sullivan ½ – ½ D.Rowley (W)
C.Marsden 1 – 0 N.Nicholson (W)
J.Heritage ½ – ½ A.Whiteley (W)
2½ – 2½

You’ll find a couple of the games from the matches reported on in this post in the game viewer below.

Take it from someone who’s played for title winning sides and relegated ones – sometimes playing chess in the Calderdale can feel a little bit like your bullying or being bullied by the opposition! Chess is a hard game. Last week it was Belgrave ‘B’s turn to take a pummeling. Next week, who knows? Photo: Thomas Ricker’s Flickr photostream

In today’s post we’ll catch up on Calderdale Evening League action from last week and this week and get ourselves back up to date with our reporting.

League 1

On Monday 11th of November, League 1 teams convened for their fifth round of fixtures this season. The leaders after round 4 were Halifax ‘A’ who’d taken advantage of Hebden Bridge ‘A’ drawing their home match against Huddersfield ‘A’ last time out to sneak ahead. Halifax were at home to the bottom team in the division Brighouse.

In a top versus bottom clash you’d expect the leaders to win fairly comfortably. However, Halifax defaulted their board 3 and thus found themselves playing catch up right from the off. The teams traded wins on the top two boards with Brighouse’s Robert Broadbent beating Richard Porter and Halifax’s Winston Williams (playing on board 2 for some strange reason) beating Nick Hudson. Sam Scurfield won for the hosts on board 5 and so the outcome of the match hinged on the game between Carlos Velosa and Tim Pryke. Despite there being nearly a 70-point rating advantage in Velosa’s favour, Pryke managed to hold a draw and so Halifax were only able to tie the match.

All of this was unknown across town at the Belgrave Club where Hebden Bridge ‘A’ and ‘B’ were visiting Belgrave ‘A’ and ‘B’ respectively. Wins for the visitors would see the ‘A’ team catch Halifax again and the ‘B’ team close the gap between themselves and top spot to one point.

Let’s start with the ‘B’ team’s match up. Hebden ‘B’ have been utterly consistent with the line up of their top four boards this season. Hamer, Cook, Clarkson and Swain have so far done them proud in being matched in only one fixture – the one against their ‘A’ team – so far this season. Duties on board 5 have rotated around somewhat with Richard Bedford, Pete Leonard, Paul Gledhill and for this match, John Kerrane, all taking turns.

Belgrave ‘B’ were out-rated by almost 30-points on every board but the bottom one where John Kerrane out-pointed Les Johnson by 7-points. The match turned out to be as one-sided as the ratings would have led speculators to predict. The ‘B’ team bullied their way to a 4½ – ½ victory with only Andrew Clarkson conceding a draw to Dave College. Here is the full match scorecard:

Belgrave ‘B’ vs. Hebden Bridge ‘B’
G.Farrar 0 – 1 M.Hamer (W)
M.Barnett 0 – 1 P.Cook (W)
D.Colledge ½ – ½ A.Clarkson (W)
C.Edwards 0 – 1 S.Swain (W)
L.Johnson 0 – 1 J.Kerrane (W)
½ – 4½

Bizarrely, Sam Swain played Chris Edwards for the second time in two matches as the two also faced each other on the same board when Belgrave ‘A’ visited Todmorden for their round 4 match. At least they played with opposite colours this time around! This was the ‘B’ team’s second win by such a convincing margin and they have the highest board count (14) of all the teams in the division after five rounds of play.

On the other side of the room at the Belgrave Social Club, Hebden Bridge ‘A’ were engaged in a mortal struggle with their hosts, Belgrave ‘A’. Both teams were back to full strength having fielded slightly weakened line ups in their last matches. Belgrave welcomed Tony Slinger back on board 3 and Malcolm Corbett on board 4. Hebden meanwhile saw Matthew Parsons, Stavros Pantazopoulos and Dave Shapland return to the fray having missed their last match. The two sides looked pretty evenly matched on the lower boards and so it looked like the outcome of the top two boards, where Hebden had larger rating advantages, would be critical.

All five games were very keenly contested. The first to finish was the board 4 encounter between Andy Leatherbarrow and Malcolm Corbett. Andy had chosen to meet Malcolm’s Alekhine’s Defence with the relatively modest but tense and strategically complex Voronezh System of the Exchange Variation. Often in this line, White gets a pleasant space advantage but, with thematic and well-rehearsed preparation, Black can find ways to fight for equality. That was pretty much what happened in this game. Malcolm broke out in the centre with 10…e5, Andy took the opportunity to gain space when he responded with 11.d5 but Malcolm countered by manouevring his knight with 11…Ne7 and 12….Nf5.

A few moves later Andy was able to secure a small but stable advantage when he exchanged knights on c5 and created a passed d-pawn. However, he didn’t find the right method to try and maintain his edge, allowed Malcom to create a passed pawn of his own on d4 and then, when both pairs of rooks came off it seemed clear that the position was pretty sterile, even with queens and a bishop pair each still on the board. In fact, my chess engine seems to think that White was slightly better when the draw was agreed but Andy was somewhat low on time and, with no other results certain in the match, made the right decision to maintain the balance of the score line.

The visitors took the lead in the next game to finish when Dave Shapland beat Tony Slinger on board 3. This game transposed from a Sicilian Defence into a pseudo Spanish or Italian Game due to a move order trick. Again, both players developed their strategies in thematic fashion. Dave transferred his knights to the king’s side and his queen to f3 in order to and try and occupy the f5 square and build a direct assault on the Black king while Tony looked to counter on the queen’s side by expanding with b5-a5-a4.

Dave was ready for Tony’s plan though and threw his bishop into h6. At this moment Tony selected the wrong defensive option and Dave was able to secure a winning positional advantage and an iron grip on the game with an unchallengeable knight on the f5 outpost. The Belgrave man wriggled on the hook for a few moves before giving up when the queens were exchanged at which point Dave was three pawns up.

Despite taking the lead in the match the overall situation was far from clear at this moment in proceedings. On board 5 Neil Suttie had lost a piece very early on against Karim Kahn, who essayed the rare and highly tactical Elephant Gambit! Neil had some compensation for the piece and the game was hugely unclear and complex but objectively, he was probably losing.

On board 2 Stavros Pantazopoulos took on Dave Patrick’s Slav Defence but seemed to be able to make no significant impact in the opening and Dave appeared to have at least neutralised the situation by the time the board 3 game was over. He might even have been slightly better.

Finally, on board 1, Matthew Parsons and John Morgan were locked into one of Matthew’s London Systems which John had met in enterprising fashion by playing 2…b5. At first it looked like Matthew would perform his usual trick of slowly outplaying his opponent using his superior knowledge and understanding of the resultant middle game position but on this occasion John fought back. First of all, he landed a blow that Matthew had completely overlooked and then he won an exchange when Matthew blundered in what was otherwise still an equal position.

From Suttie vs. Khan in the Belgrave ‘A’ vs Hebden Bridge ‘A’ match. White to play. What would you do here? Solution in the game viewer at the end of this post

At this point in the evening two defeats and a draw looked like the likely outcome on the last three board for Hebden and that would see them lose the match. Thankfully, two of their three players were able to improve their situations. First, Neil fought back against Karim. He managed to win back his piece although it was at the expense of going two pawns down. It was a very hard game to both assess and play and both combatants got into pretty desperate time trouble as they approached time control. In the last few moves of the game Neil, in his haste, missed both a tough checkmate and then another clear winning line. Karim meanwhile rustled up enough activity to salvage a draw by perpetual check. It was probably a just result.

Sadly, no such justice was on offer for the stout resistance out up by Dave Patrick on board 2. He and Stavros reached an endgame in which they both had four pawns, a knight and a queen. Dave had a distant passed pawn on the b-file. In these types of position’s however, the initiative is crucial as a knight and a queen can be very dangerous indeed when working together. Stavros found a way to offer Dave a pawn in order to take the initiative. Dave misjudged the resultant position as both players time began to run out and Stavros forced a decisive attack home.

These two results meant that Hebden had already sealed match victory by the time John had, to his great credit, seen out a hard-earned victory over Matthew in the last game of the night to finish.

Here is the match scorecard:

Belgrave ‘A’ vs. Hebden Bridge ‘A’
J.Morgan 1 – 0 M.Parsons (W)
D.Patrick 0 – 1 S.Pantazopoulos (W)
T.Slinger 0 – 1 D.Shapland (W)
M.Corbett ½ – ½ A.Leatherbarrow (W)
K.Khan ½ – ½ N.Suttie (W)
2 – 3

Your editor can’t remember the last time Hebden Bridge lost on top board for two matches in a row. Surely the run won’t continue and fortunately the results have not cost them too dearly as they rejoin Halifax at the top of the table on 7 points behind the leaders only by a single drawn board. However, Hebden Bridge’ B’ are now breathing down the necks of the leaders as they have 6 points and a better board count. Hebden Bridge ‘B’ play Halifax at home in their next match on Monday while Hebden Bridge ‘A’ host Belgrave ’B’. The title race is shaping up nicely.

League 2

This Monday night the four League 2 teams faced each other again with Hebden Bridge ‘C’ hosting the run-away leaders Huddersfield ‘B’ and Halifax ‘B’ hosting Belgrave C’.

Unfortunately, Hebden were unable to stop Huddersfield’s momentum and continue their recent run of good form as they went down heavily 1 – 4. Paul Gledhill and Chris Marsden were able to hold draws against players of similar ratings to their own, but John Alllan, John Kerrane and Terry Sullivan went down to David Gray, Granville Boot and Bryn Charlesworth respectively. Here is the final match scorecard:

Hebden Bridge ‘C’ vs. Huddersfield ‘B’
J.Alllan 0 – 1 D.Gray (W)
J.Kerrane 0 – 1 G.Boot (W)
P.Gledhill ½ – ½ J.Hill (W)
T.Sullivan 0 – 1 B.Charlesworth (W)
C.Marsden ½ – ½ C.Haigh (W)
1 – 4

In the other match to take place this week, Belgrave ‘C’ re-took sole possession of second place with a closely fought victory over Halifax ‘B’ at Halifax. Pete Moss managed to win for the hosts on board 2 but wins by Les Johnson over John Nicholson on board 3 and Paul Edwards over Barry Wadsworth on board 4 were enough to see the visitors to victory.

There are a few games from the Belgrave ‘A’ vs Hebden Bridge ‘A’ match in the game viewer below.

Hebden Bridge ‘C’ got off the mark at the third time of asking last Monday night when they beat Halifax ‘B’ away. Photo credit: The U.S. Army’s Flickr photo stream

Just a short report this week folks as your Editor is away on his holidays.

Last Monday night saw the third round of Calderdale League 2 take place with the top two teams facing each other for the right to lead the League and the bottom two facing off to see who would get out of the basement.

Sadly Hebden Bridge ‘C’ were in the second of these contest having lost against Belgrave ‘C’ and Huddersfield ‘B’ by the narrowest possible margin. Now they faced Halifax ‘B’ in a match that would decided who would be the back markers after the first of four rounds of fixtures.

Hebden fielded their strongest line up yet with Andy Leatherbarrow on board 1 and Pete Leonard on board 2. Neil Bamford played on 3 with Paul Gledhill on 4 and Chris Marsden on 5.

Hebden’s captain on the night was Andy Leatherbarrow and he reports that it was a very noisy night at the Lee Mount venue as the players had to play in room next to bar rather than the usual room due to the venue having other conflicting commitments. There were some very loud drunken people around which made concentrating on the games rather hard but it seemed to disturb the home side more than the visitors.

Horward Wood played Andy on board 1 was so perturbed that he decided to resign on the loss of a pawn early on as he was fed up with background noise. Shortly afterwards Pete Leonard won on board 2 when his opponent blundered horribly and this was followed by Neil Bamford winning on board 3. Chris Marsden also won what was just his second ever competitive over the board game. He must think  this chess lark is all rather easy! Last to finish was board 4 where Paul Gledhill struggled on a pawn down but lost to Barry Wadsworth in an endgame.

Here’s the match scorecard:

Halifax ‘B’ vs. Hebden Bridge ‘C’
H.Wood 0 – 1 A.Leatherbarrow (W)
D.Rowley 0 – 1 P.Leonard (W)
A.Whiteley 0 – 1 N.Bamford (W)
B.Wadsworth 1 – o P.Gledhill (W)
E.Fynn 0 – 1 C.Marsden (W)
1 – 4

In the other League 2 match, Huddersfield ‘B’ seized sole ownership of the top spot after they beat Belgrave ‘C’ 2 – 3 away. The home side succeeded in beating higher rated opponents on board 2 and 3 where Chris Edwards and Les Johnson took down David Gray and Granville Boot respectively. However, the visitors won all three of the other boards to take the match.

This week the League 1 teams return to action and we hope to bring you a brief report and some games from the Hebden Bridge teams later this week.

Calderdale Evening Chess League 2 got off the ground on Monday night. Photo Credit: liftmeupletmefall’s Flickr photo stream

The four teams in the Calderdale Evening Chess League played their first fixtures of the season on Monday night. They are going to become very familiar with each other this season as, with such a small number of teams in the league they will play each other four times – twice home and away. It could be quite a tight league although, on the basis of the first round of fixtures, one would imagine that Huddersfield ‘B’ are the favorites to win the title and take the sole promotion spot this year.

Indeed, Huddersfield made pretty light work of what looked like a reasonable Halifax ‘B’ team on Monday as they cruised to a 1 – 4 victory at the Lee Mount Club. Leo Keely set the tone for the visitors with a win over Richard Porter on board 1 but the David Gray, Alec Ward and John Hill also won their games against Pete Moss, David Rowley and Barry Wadsworth respective. Only the home sides fourth board, Andrew White, managed to salvage something for them with a win over Simon Anscombe.

Across the otherside of Halifax, Belgrave ‘C’ were hosting Hebden Bridge ‘C’ in what turned out to be a much tighter match which was edged by the hosts by 3 – 2. The visitors appeared to out grade their opponents on all boards but board 5 based on their ECF ratings, but, as not everyone in League 2 has an ECF rating yet (remember last season that League 2 matches were not rated) the line ups on paper are not always going to be what they seem in League 2 this season.

On board 1 Pete Leonard looked likely to win his game when a grabbed the gambit pawn in a Scandinavian Defence and seemed to be able to hold on to it for quite some time. However, his opponent, Dave Colledge, always had good piece activity for his sacrificed material and saved himself with a perpetual check.

The board 2 game saw Neil Bamford miss a draw  and stumble to defeat in the endgame against Les Johnson in a game where Neil’s early advantage slipped away whilst on board 3, John Kerrane blundered in a promising position and left himself a pawn down with no compensation against Angel Gonzalez. Angel went on to grind out the win.

Paul Gledhill won the only game of the night for the visitors playing a very unbalanced attacking game on board 4 against Paul Edwards. He finished with a spectacular ‘White to play and win’ type position.

Finally, on board 5, young Zora Sandhu held Paul Jacobs to a draw.

Here’s the final match scorecard:

Belgrave ‘C’ vs Hebden Bridge ‘C’
D.Colledge ½ – ½ P.Leonard (W)
L.Johnson 1 – 0 N.Bamford (W)
A.Gonzalez 1 – 0 J.Kerrane (W)
P.Edwards 0 – 1 P.Gledhill (W)
P.Jacobs ½ – ½ Z.Sandhu (W)
3 – 2 

We continue our catch up of League reports today with an overview of the eleventh round of Calderdale League fixtures which were played on the 25th of February.

The big clash of this round was between league leaders, Belgrave ‘A’ and the second placed team, Hebden Bridge ‘B’, who were just one point behind their rivals. The match took place at the Belgrave Social Club and with no other teams in realistic contention for the title it seemed very much like a title decider. Certainly, it was due or die for Hebden Bridge as a defeat would leave them three points adrift with just three matches remaining.

On the night Hebden arrived at their hosts with their ‘regular’ line up of Matthew Parsons, Dave Shapland, Pete Leonard, Sam Swain and Neil Suttie. Belgrave’s line up by contrast was slightly altered from their recent matches but no less strong for that. They had experience and stability on the top three boards in the form of John Morgan, Dave Patrick and Tony Slinger but then introduced John Cawston to replace the absent Richard Bowman on board 4. Karim Khan, another regular player was on board 5. On paper Hebden Bridge had the edge, but the ratings on all the boards were close enough to suggest that this was going to be a tough battle.

All five games were hard fought affairs and played on well into the evening. The first game to be concluded was on board 4 where Sam Swain seemed to be in trouble at one point against John Cawston but he knuckled down, found some accurate moves and held a draw.

Next, on board 1, Matthew Parsons overcame John Morgan in another tight game. Matthew had played the opening phase very quickly and this put a good deal of pressure onto John as he had used up much more time on the clock. When John then missed a tactic shortly before time control it appeared that the game would soon be all over but then Matthew made a mistake himself and suddenly the game appeared to be level again. It was Matthew’s rook, knight and three pawns against John’s rook, bishop and three pawns. There appeared to be very little on, but Matthew declined his opponent’s draw offer and managed to outplay John to secure the first whole point of the match for Hebden.

Neil Suttie then made sure of at least a draw in the match for the visitors when he bet Karim on board 5. This was another game where Hebden took full advantage of having the White pieces to apply great pressure to their opponents. Karim never really seemed to get any counter play going and Neil eventually broke through.

Belgrave now needed to win both the remaining games to tie the match and retain their slender lead in the title race. However, their hopes were dashed when Dave Shapland agreed a draw with Dave Patrick from a modestly advantageous position to give Hebden 3 game points. The Hebden Bridge captain had held a decisive advantage earlier in the endgame but had frittered it away somehow. However, with very little material on the board and realizing that his opponent had no realistic chances of winning at all, Shapland made an offer his counterpart could hardly refuse.

The last game of the knight to finish saw Belgrave score a consolation victory as Tony Slinger finally ground down Pete Leonard’s resistance in a rook and pawn ending. Both players afterwards agreed that the end game was theorectically drawn, but it required accurate defence from White to hold and that is always difficult in an evening league match with relatively little time available on the clock.

Here is the final match scorecard:

Belgrave ‘A’ – Hebden Bridge ‘B’
J.Morgan 0 – 1 M.Parsons (W)
D.Patrick ½ – ½ D.Shapland (W)
T.Slinger 1 – 0 P.Leonard (W)
J.Cawston ½ – ½ S.Swain (W)
K.Khan 0 – 1 N.Suttie (W)
2 – 3

And so, with this crucial victory the advantage in the title race swung back to Hebden Bridge. They now have to face Belgrave ‘B’, Huddersfield ‘B’ and Halifax ‘A’ to finish off the season. All matches in which they will be the favourites, but Halifax ‘A’ did beat them in the final match before Christmas.

Belgrave meanwhile have a tougher run in with Hebden Bridge ‘A’, Huddersfield ‘A’ and finally Hebden Bridge ‘C’ still to face.

Elsewhere, Hebden Bridge ‘A’s fantastic run of 5 straight match wins came to an end as they were forced to forfeit their match against Huddersfield ‘A’. This was unfortunate because Huddersfield has lost their regular venue in Lindley and were forced to find alternate accommodation in Holmfirth. Hebden, already missing a couple of key players who were not available to play on a Wednesday night then lost another last minute due to work commitments and decided to default the match rather than turn up with three players.

Similarly, Hebden Bridge ‘C’ also defaulted their match to Huddersfield ‘B’ when they could not raise a team either. It’s always a shame to see matches defaulted.

So, the second and only other match played in the round was between Belgrave ‘B’ and Halifax ‘A’. Belgrave were desperately seeking to bail themselves out of the relegation zone (and so news of Hebden ‘C’s default to Huddersfield ‘B’ will not have been greeted well in Claremont!) and so brought a very strong line up to the party for Halifax’s visit. In fact, Halifax without their regular board 1, Bill Somerset, were weaker throughout the side and the home team snatched a vital victory with wins by Malcolm Corbett over Carlos Velosa and Les Johnson over Howard Wood. Vivienne Webster scored a fine consolation point over the higher rated Gordon Farrar on board 3 and the other two games were drawn.

In our next post we’ll cover the final round of the Calderdale Individual Championship and also the final rounds of League 2 as well as the twelfth round of League 1.

Three annotated games from the Belgrave vs. Hebden Bridge ‘B’ match can be found in the viewer below.