Our own Matthew Parsons (left) drew with Todmorden’s Pete Mulleady (right) in the final round of the Calderdale Individual Championship to secure 1st place
The report and games from round 5 of this year’s Calderdale Individual Chess Championship have now been published on the Yorkshire Chess site. Round 4 is also in there and includes the best game of the competition (in my view) which was Pete Leonard’s win against Dave Sugden.
Congratulations to Matthew Parsons on becoming the new Calderdale Champion!
The mark of violent conflict! In the last two seasons Brighouse and Hebden Bridge ‘A’ have settled no fewer than 10 decisive games in the two ties as Brighouse. This image is used under Creative Commons licence and is sourced from Inkysloth’s Flickr photostream
This week we turn our gaze once more to Calderdale League 1 as we report on two crucial rounds of action which took place on the 4th of March and the 25th of March. Last time we reported on League 1 defending champions, Hebden Bridge ‘A’ had found themselves top of the table largely down to the frailty of their title rivals rather than any scintillating form of their own. They were grafting out tight results. That trend has not changed in the last two weeks.
15 months ago I posted an article entitled “Hebden Survive Brighouse Bloodbath” in which I documented how all five games between Brighouse and Hebden Bridge ‘A’ ended decisively and Hebden managed to win the last two games to finish that evening to squeak a 2-3 victory. Well, this last Monday night history pretty much repeated itself albeit with a slightly different sequence of events.
The night started out promisingly for Hebden in that Brighouse’s board 4, Paul Whitehouse, didn’t appear and so Andy Leatherbarrow picked up a full point for Hebden without picking up a piece. A shame for him not to have had a game and a shame for Brighouse as if Paul had turned up any kind of result from him would have given Brighouse some much needed points towards their relegation battle.
Mid-way through the evening the outcome of the tie seemed to have been decided when Hebden’s Captain, Dave Shapland, won a typically rumbustious encounter with Brighouse’s Captain, Bruce Bendall. Out of a Grand Prix Attack variation of the Sicilian Defence Dave equalised quickly and then struck out in the centre in thematic fashion to put Bruce on the back foot. Resourcefully, Bruce found an interesting and dangerous way to sharpen the position and Dave, never one to turn down an interesting and complicated line, picked up the gauntlet by treading a narrow line between delivering check mate or getting checkmated. In the end he got his calculations right and Bruce was forced to resign. The game is given in full with some notes in the viewer at the end of this post. This was an exciting encounter to which both players contributed fully.
That game put Hebden 0-2 up and as Dave Shapland looked at the remaining three boards he had good cause to think his side might even complete a whitewash as Matthew Parsons, Pete Leonard and Nick Sykes had all achieved advantages in their games. But then it all started to go wrong…
Matthew Parsons is one of the most indomitable players in the league. He very rarely loses and blunders material even less frequently. Therefore it was surely a freak event when he overlooked the presence of Dennis Breen’s dark squared bishop on a7 and gave away his queen! Last year Dennis confused Dave Shapland into overlooking a mate in 1 and so Dave was given cause to remark to Bruce that he had some kind of hoodoo over the Hebden team to which Bruce amusingly replied words to the effect that:
“It’s the way Dennis plays, lots, of traps and tricks. It’s not magic. He just looks like a wizard!”
On board 2 Hebden’s Pete Leonard had grabbed a couple of Robert Broadbent’s pawns early in the game and Robert didn’t appear to have enough compensation for the material deficit. Seemingly in desperation, Robert offered Pete a third pawn and he gobbled that up too but this time Robert did get something in exchange. His queen got into Pete’s position and ran amok. The Black position was still defensible but it was challenging and Pete went wrong somewhere allowing Robert to initiate a king hunt that ended in check mate. 2-2!
Poor Nick Sykes carries a heavy burden for Hebden Bridge. Playing on board 5 for a side that is competing for the title requires that you score very heavily indeed, often against players rated below you. Nick has performed this role admirably for the last 18 months but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel the pressure when, as so often is the case, he is the last player to finish his game and needs to get a result to help his side succeed. On this occasion he deployed the Caro-Kann (!) against Ronnie Grandage and he achieved the kind of position where he could not lose and could probe and manoeuvre almost endlessly in order to try and provoke weaknesses in the enemy camp. It took a while but gradually he wore Ronnie down and eventually he put one of his rooks on the wrong square and allowed Nick a combination that won the exchange. Ronnie resigned shortly afterwards and Nick (and Hebden) had escaped again from Brighouse with the narrowest possible margin of victory and five decisive results.
This result leaves Hebden top of the table with three rounds left to play including their re-scheduled match away to title rivals Halifax ‘A’.
On the previous Monday the busy ‘A’ team had taken on Todmorden ‘A’ at home in another match that looked like it should have been very testing on paper but turned out to be straightforward due to their opponents failing to field a full team. On this occasion Pete Mulleady did not appear to play against Hebden’s Pete Leonard on board 2 and that result cost the visitors dearly.
The board 1 encounter was another tepid affair between Matthew Parsons and Martin Hamer. They have played a series of fairly sterile short draws in previous encounters and this one proved to be no different. Obviously these two respect each other greatly but in this instance, with their board 2 man missing, early peace terms did not do a great deal to advance Todmorden’s cause as they now needed to score two and a half points from the bottom three boards to take the match!
They came closest on board 3 where Andrew Clarkson and Dave Shapland slugged out another frantic encounter. Their fourth full-blooded scrap since last summer: two in the league and two in the Summer Team Knockout. That all four have ended in draws was I no way down to any lack of trying by either player. All have been complicated affairs and in every case at least one player has overlooked good winning chances. This time around Andrew missed the best opportunities but Dave salvaged a draw through a combination of resourceful moves and judicious use of Andrew’s time shortage as move 36 loomed into view. The game with commentary by both players is featured in the viewer at the end of this post.
On board 4 Andy Leatherbarrow developed a very pleasant position against Rob Tokeley’s Caro-Kann, Bronstein Variation (3…Nf6 4.Nxf6 exf6). There was never even the remotest chance that Andy might lose the game but likewise he didn’t seem to find any plans that put Rob under the greatest pressure and a draw therefore always seemed likely.
That left Nick Sykes to add the icing to the cake by adding a second full point to the three halved ones for Hebden. Nick ventured his trusty English Opening and Chris met this with a reversed Sicilian set up. Black appeared to be gaining some initiative but Nick had it all under control and when Chris overlooked a tactic that lost him a piece Nick simply had to thwart any chances of counter play and swap the pieces off. He did this with great assurance and converted confidently.
The final scorecard was:
Hebden Bridge ‘A’ vs. Todmorden ‘A’
M.Parsons ½ — ½ M.Hamer
P.Leonard 1 — 0 Default
D.Shapland ½ — ½ A.Clarkson
A.Leatherbarrow ½ — ½ RTokeley
N.Sykes 1 — 0 C.Edwards 3½ — 1½
So far Hebden have a perfect score for the second half of the season and their run has seen them overturn the 3 point advantage that Huddersfield held over them at Christmas. True, they have been beneficiaries of three defaulted boards in that time but you can only beat what’s put in front of you and Hebden have done just that. The rescheduled Halifax ‘A’ match is next up and if they win that they will be 3 points clear themselves with only two matches left. Based on their near-disastrous run in last season they can’t afford to be complacent. What they can be is confident that they are in control of their own destiny from here on in. They’ve earned the right to that much. Can they see it through?
There was a distinctly apostolic theme to the names of the combatants on the top three boards in round 3. One Matthew, one Andrew, one John and no less than three Peters! Then on board 4 we had an Angel. Seriously!
The report and games from round 3 of this year’s Calderdale Individual Chess Championship have now been published on the Yorkshire Chess site. I hope to have the round 4 report posted before round 5 is played on the 11th of March.
Round 10 of a postponement blighted Calderdale Evening Chess League Division 2 took place in venues across the valley during the course of the last two Monday evenings.
Martin Syrett’s ‘B’s have been all over Calderdale League 2 this season. This image is used under Creative Commons licencing and sourced from kokogiak’s Flickr photostream
This season the title race has been dominated by Hebden Bridge ‘B’. They maintained their 5 point lead at the top of the table by beating Halifax ‘B’ 3 — 2 at the Trades Club this time out. Earlier in the season Martin Syrett’s men had crushed the same team 0 — 5 away and, wanting to avoid such a humiliating score line on this occasion, Halifax brought a stronger line up and gave Hebden a real test.
On board 1, Hebden’s Dave Shapland had been ruthless on the handful of occasions when he’d been deployed, as a personal score of 4/4 illustrates. On this occasion however he was unable to capitalise on Scott Gornall’s unorthodox handling of the Scandinavian Defence. Later on in the game it was Scott who had the better chances of winning but a combination of time-shortage and complexity led him to offer a draw and Dave was happy to accept.
Andy Leatherbarrow has been nothing short of scintillating on boards 1 and 2 this season and he once again added a full point to his personal tally for the season with a confident victory over Carlos Velosa. When faced with anything faintly timorous in the opening Andy’s instinct is to take space and slowly establish a total bind on the position. Sometimes this slow build up can lead to sterility but on other occasions he finds a tactical blow to crown his spatial dominance and this was one of those latter occasions. When the attack broke through Carlos’ defences it was soon over.
Board 3 saw Hebden’s Josh Blinkhorn take on Adrian Dawson. The encounter became fairly wild after Adrian deployed his favourite Lowenthal Variation of the Sicilian Defence. This led to some imbalanced play but ultimately the game fizzled out into a draw where Josh had two bishops and pawns against Adrian’s single rook and pawns. It looked like it should favour Josh but once more the clock situation persuaded him that discretion was the better part of valour.
Dave Sugden had been in dominating form as well this year. He advanced his personal tally to 8½ out of 10 for the season, half a point behind Andy and half a point ahead of Martin Syrett. On this occasion he was put on the back foot early in the game when his opponent responded aggressively to his Vienna Opening system. However, White’s position was totally sound and once Dave had fended off the initial attack Black’s momentum soon halted and he took the initiative and then converted his advantage comfortably.
Hebden’s Captain, Martin Syrett was facing a tricky opponent in the form of John Aldridge. On his day John can be an obdurate and resourceful opponent. Martin sacrificed a pawn in the opening but never really managed to get full compensation and John played well to take the win.
The final match score card was:
Hebden Bridge ‘B’ vs. Halifax ‘B’
D.Shapland ½ — ½ S.Gornal
A.Leatherbarrow 1 — 0 C.Velosa
J.Blinkhorn ½ — ½ A.Dawson
D.Sugden 1 — 0 N.Hardy
M.Syrett 0 — 1 J. Aldridge 3 — 2
On the same night at the same venue John Kerrane’s Hebden Bridge ‘C’ team were taking on Todmorden ‘C’ who, along with Halifax ‘B’ and Courier ‘B’ were their main rivals for the second promotion spot. Todmorden turned up with a strong side and consequently Hebden struggled below board 1 where John Kerrane continued his own impressive form with a win against Chris Edwards. On boards 2 and 3 the usually reliable Steve Priest and Neil Bamford both had bad nights and lost meaning that only the ever persistant Ray Deravairere (on board 4) was able to salvage a draw from the ruins of a poorly played opening against Tom Webster.
This game ended in a bizarre fashion when Tom ran out of time but Ray either didn’t notice or didn’t claim the win before he too ran out of time. At this point neither player had been recording moves either and so the team captains were called in to confirm that the players’ proposal of a draw was okay with them as well and everything ended amicably.
On the bottom board Hebden’s James Todd was also beaten by Bob Pratt and so the final score did not make happy reading for John’s team:
Then, this Monday, Hebden Bridge ‘D’ travelled to Halifax ‘C’ to play a match they had postponed from the week before due to a high propotion of their players being unavailable during half-term week. Sadly, Danny Crampton was hit with some last minute drop outs for the re-scheduled fixture as well and, although the three remaining team members fought like lions they went down 3 — 2. However, searching for the silver lining it should be noted that both Harry Pogue and Chris Greaves scored their first full points of the season. Well done to them.
Top seed Mitchell Burke was the high profile casualty in round 2 of the Calderdale Individual Chess Championship.
The report and games from round 2 of this year’s Calderdale Individual Chess Championship have now been published on the new-look re-launched Yorkshire Chess site. Round 3 and 4 reports should appear before round 5 is played on the 11th of March. Do feel free to feedback on the coverage here if you prefer to as I am still the author of the content and will happily take on board any comments.
The Calderdale Evening Chess League first division title race took yet another twist as Hebden Bridge ‘A’, last season’s champions, moved into the top spot while their main rivals failed to secure much needed victories.
Brighouse, Belgrave and Todmorden ‘B’ have all been banana skins for the title challengers to slip on over the last few rounds. This image is used under Creative Commons and sourced from purplemattfish’s Flickr photstream
At the start of the round Hebden were one point behind the league leaders Huddersfield and on the same score as Halifax ‘A’. Two points behind them, last year’s runners up, Todmorden ‘A’ were lurking and the ever dangerous Courier ‘A’ were a further point behind. Huddersfield dominated the early stages of this year’s proceedings as they swept to a perfect six wins from their first six matches. Then, just before Christmas, Halifax managed to arrest their momentum by beating them at Halifax. Now the wheels seem to be off the Huddersfield championship band wagon all-together. First they lost to Hebden at home straight after Christmas then they drew at home to Belgrave and on Monday they lost at Todmorden ‘A’ to a team who absolutely had to win to keep their own slim chances of taking the title alive. Todmorden are particularly powerful at home and a win by Martin Hamer against Mitchell Burke on board 1 was enough to secure the match as all other boards were drawn.
Whilst this drama unfolded Halifax were hosting the other Todmorden team at the Lee Mount Club. Todmorden ‘B’ are firmly rooted to the bottom of the table but that fact masks the simple truth that they have been very competitive in many of their matches. Halifax only just pipped them in the reverse fixture earlier in the season and on this occasion they couldn’t muster enough to win the match. If Halifax has a weakness it is on their lower boards and Todmorden exposed this expertly. Alastair Wright took a very creditable draw off Bill Somerset on board 1 (only his second drawn game of the season!) and Mike Huett and Bob Pratt secured victories against Carlos Velosa and Adrian Dawson on boards 4 and 5 to leave the match tied.
Of course all of this was unknown to Hebden Bridge ‘A’ who had their own challenge to overcome as they faced up to Belgrave at the Trades Club. Belgrave had been able to draw the reverse fixture at the end of November and they appeared to have strengthened their line up for this match due to the absence of regular members of the team Malcolm Corbett and Mike Barnett. Karim Khan and Sam Scurfield are both rated above those they replaced and on that basis the tie looked fairly balanced at least on paper.
For once Hebden made light work of a tough challenge by taking two wins and a draw from the first three ties to finish. On board 1 Matthew Parsons was on particularly strong form as he despatched Gordon Farrar. Gordon is nothing if not an obdurate opponent but Matthew breezily ventured a positional exchange sacrifice that enabled him to secure long term advantage thanks to the closed nature of the position. He eliminated the bishops and a pair of knights from the board to leave himself with a knight and rook against two rooks. As Matthew himself points out in the commentary to his game (below) the knight dominated both Gordon’s rooks to the extent that Gordon had to return the exchange whereupon the resultant king and pawn ending was a trivial victory for Matthew. This was a very impressive and confident performance from Hebden’s top player.
On board 4 Andy Leatherbarrow took on Belgrave’s Captain, Angel Gonzalez in what transpired to be a fairly insipid Scotch Game. The queens, a pair of knights and a pair of bishops had all disappeared from the board by move ten and, as a result, although Andy was able to generate a considerable spatial advantage he could not prevent further simplification whereupon a draw was the inevitable outcome.
The confidence boost administered by Matthew’s victory seemed to have permeated into other members of the team for, on board 2, Pete Leonard had also ventured a sacrificial attack against Karim Khan. Later analysis (see the game viewer below with commentary by Pete) demonstrated that the sacrifice was not sound but it caused enough practical problems over the board to yield Pete a significant advantage. He established a monster protected passed pawn on f7 that dominated the position and as he forced simplification it became apparent to Karim that further resistance was futile.
That result gave Hebden the draw in hand. Now they needed one more draw to secure the tie. On board 3 their Captain, Dave Shapland, was once more embroiled in a head-spinningly complicated affair with Sam Scurfield. The opening became very unusual when Sam had a momentary mind blank on move four. He thought for twenty minutes and then played a most unorthodox continuation. Dave should probably have been more direct in his attempts to refute this and some resourceful play from Sam brought him right back into the game. The position became dangerously open from Dave’s point of view but he calculated almost everything very accurately and maintained the balance.
I say almost because, at the critical moment in the game, when he had a choice between two queen moves he chose the wrong one and over looked a clever intermezzo that allowed Sam to take the initiative once more. It appeared that Dave would lose a piece but he’d seen he could get it back. Sam’s remaining knight was trapped. Unfortunately, in a final twist, Sam engineered a means of winning two pawns for the knight and in a simple end game that was enough to force Dave’s resignation.
That left perennial late finisher Nick Sykes to complete the victory for Hebden on board 5. Unusually for Nick he had made an elementary mistake in the opening and lost a pawn and two tempi in the early stages. However, he kept his head and slowly reduced his arrears against Belgrave’s Les Johnson. By the end of the evening Nick had won back his pawn and even gained a further pawn’s advantage. However, with the heavy pieces still on the board this might not have been enough to win the game and he sensibly offered Les the draw his team needed to take the match.
The final score then was 3 — 2 to Hebden. Here are the individual results:
Hebden Bridge ‘A’ vs. Belgrave
M.Parsons 1 — 0 G.Farrar
P.Leonard 1 — 0 K.Khan
D.Shapland 0 — 1 S.Scurfield
A.Leatherbarrow ½ — ½ A.Gonzalez
N.Sykes ½ — ½ L.Johnson 3 — 2
January fixtures in both Calderdale leagues have been affected by recent bad weather conditions meaning that some matches have been postponed and this has given the early rounds a disjointed feel. In today’s post I’ll do my best to round up the current situation and recent events in both divisions.
The first round of the second half of the Calderdale Evening Chess League season got under way in both divisions with some mouth watering encounters for Hebden Bridge teams.
In League 1 pre-Christmas leaders Huddersfield have come back to the chasing pack. Image used under Creative Commons and sourced from pinpricks Flickr photostream
League 1
In League 1 the reigning Champions, Hebden Bridge ‘A’, travelled to the league leaders, Huddersfield, on Wednesday the 16th of January. Hebden and Huddersfield have been passing the title between each other for a number of years now but in the last two seasons the competition has become much stiffer as first Courier and Todmorden ‘A’ and then Halifax ‘A’ have succeeded in putting together teams capable of defeating the dominant pair.
Last season Hebden only just scraped to the title on board count over Todmorden having been four points clear after round 8. This year Huddersfield had managed to amass a similar buffer as early as round 6 (!) beating Hebden Bridge, Courier and Todmorden on the way before Halifax managed to stop them in the last round before Christmas to halt their momentum.
The question was whether Hebden could avenge their painful opening round defeat at home to Huddersfield and close the gap to join their rivals at the top of the table. Did I say “rivals”? I should have said “nemesis” because Huddersfield have not been defeated by Hebden Bridge ‘A’ for a number of years now (I’ve been in the league for 6 seasons and I don’t recall an instance in that time) although there have been a goodly number of draws (two just last season) between them.
Arriving at the venue on a bitingly cold Wednesday evening Hebden were given an early boost when it emerged that Huddersfield only had four players! They would never get a better chance to take both points off their opponents. All they needed to do was equalise the other four boards and the job would be done.
Easy? No way. Huddersfield are damnably hard to beat and their line up of Mitchell Burke, David Firth, Dave Tooley and Richard Boylan did not look like the kind of team that would give up without a hard fight and, without their fifth board playing, the team fought like lions to reduce the arrears. All the games were full blooded encounters with plenty of content.
First to finish was board 4 where Richard adopted a surprising gambit line against Andy Leatherbarrow’s Scandinavian Defence. This involved an early advance of the b4 pawn followed by the deployment of the queen’s rook to b1 to gain a tempo on the Black queen. Andy said afterwards that he’d looked at this unusual line a while ago but, as it was hardly ever played in practice he couldn’t remember all the details although he did have some of the key ideas fixed in his mind.
As the game went Black looked a bit passive and it became clear that hanging onto the gambit pawn would involve a long slow haul towards consolidation if any benefit was to be derived. Richard got an active position and a few inaccuracies was all it took for Andy to get into hot water and he resigned in the middle game when it became clear he’d be facing a serious material deficit.
Hebden Captain Dave Shapland has a good track record in his games played at Huddersfield with several notable wins and draws to his credit. He chose to meet Dave Tooley’s Queen’s Pawn opening system with Chigorin’s Defence (1…d5, 2…Nc6) which is considered off beat but not as bad as its reputation suggests. Tooley opted to transpose to a Queens’ Gambit structure but then advanced his c-pawn to c5 giving Shapland the chance to counter with a break in the centre which he took immediately. The position became very messy for a while as Black appeared to have White tied in knots. Possibly Shapland missed a chance for a quick kill in the early stages but the complexities of the calculations dictated a practical approach based on creating a backward White d-pawn for Black to pick at and the exchange of two knights for White’s two bishops. Slowly, Tooley recovered the situation and eventually it became clear that Black didn’t have enough to play for the win so the two Dave’s agreed a draw and the match remained tied.
Shortly afterwards Hebden re-took the lead as Pete Leonard checkmated David Firth on board 2. In a previous meeting between the two Firth had won a nice game against Leonard’s Grunfeld. This time the tables were turned as Pete blockaded the centre and then advance on the king’s side to devastating effect. Hebden were in front with one game to finish.
On board 1 Mitchell Burke took on Matthew Parsons. Previous encounters between the two had been somewhat insipid but on this occasion the Huddersfield Captain, being a point behind before the match had started, realised that he had to go all out for a victory. To his credit, Mitchell did everything he possibly could to secure an advantage and did manage to win a pawn although Matthew had some compensation for it. In his efforts to secure a full point Mitchell got into time trouble before the 36 move control and then again in the allegro finish and Matthew could possibly have secured a victory in a rook and pawn ending before generously offering his opponent a draw as he realised Mitchell had taken risks to try and secure the win his team needed.
The final result was a signal victory on the road for Hebden and a second successive defeat for the league leaders. The match scorecard was:
Huddersfield ‘A’ vs. Hebden Bridge ‘A’
M.Burke ½ — ½ M.Parsons
D.Firth 0 — 1 P.Leonard
D.Tooley ½ — ½ D.Shapland
R.Boylan 1 — 0 A.Leatherbarrow
Default 0 — 1 N.Sykes 2 — 3
This result allowed Hebden Bridge and Halifax ‘A’ to catch Huddersfield on points although they retained the league lead on board points scored so far.
The following Monday Hebden were due to travel to Halifax for their second encounter of the season but bad weather forced the postponement of the match and this tie could now become crucial for Huddersfield went on only to draw with Belgrave at home on the Wednesday night whilst Todmorden ‘A’ suffered a serious setback as they lost 4 — 1 away to Brighouse. Huddersfield, Hebden and Halifax now look like the main contenders for the crown although Todmorden and Courier may well still have some bearing on where the title ends up residing at the end of the season.
League 2
Meanwhile, in division 2 the run away leaders were Hebden Bridge ‘B’ who had accumulated a significant advantage of 5 points over their nearest rivals by the mid point in the season. They kicked off part two by facing their ‘C’ team colleagues on the 14th of January at the Trades Club. The outcome was another resounding victory for Martin Syrett’s team by a margin of 4½ — ½. Only Neil Bamford was able to put up resistance as he secured an excellent draw against the league’s top scoring individual Dave Sugden.
The match scorecard looked like this:
Hebden Bridge ‘C’ vs. Hebden Bridge ‘B’
J.Kerrane 0 — 1 A.Leatherbarrow
S.Priest 0 — 1 N.Sykes
N.Bamford ½ — ½ D.Sugden
R.Deravairere 0 — M.Syrett
Default 0 — 1 H.Leatherbarrow ½ — 4½
Hebden Bridge ‘D’s match against Courier ‘B’ was postponed and the following week another derby fixture (re-scheduled to be played a week early due to the unavailability of the Trades Club on the 28th of January) between the ‘C’ and ‘D’ teams was also adversely effected by the weather when the snow made travelling to the Trades Club difficult for all and impossible for some.
As a result the match was played on 3 instead of 5 boards. The ‘C’ team ran out comfortable winners but there was a surprise result on board 1 where the two team Captains faced one another. Ordinarily John Kerrane would be expected to beat his ‘D’ team counterpart Danny Crampton convincingly but, on this occasion, having secured a big advantage, John blundered his queen and had to hang on resourcefully to secure a draw. The individual results in the match were:
Hebden Bridge ‘D’ vs. Hebden Bridge ‘C’
D.Crampton ½ — ½ J.Kerrane
C.Greaves 0 — 1 S.Priest
D.Leggett 0 — 1 P.Heppleston ½ — 2½
This left Hebden Bridge ‘B’s journey to Todmorden ‘C’ on Monday as the last scheduled match of a postponement blighted month. In the reverse fixture earlier in the season Hebden had humiliated their title rivals by imposing a whitewash upon them. Would Todmorden be able to fair any better at home?
The first game to finish was on board 2 where Hebden’s Andy Leatherbarrow equalised quickly against Graham Bowker and then went on the offensive to launch a pleasing sacrificial mating attack. This game is featured with a range of this month’s games at the end of this post.
Board 4 finished next and, somewhat surprisingly, Dave Sugden suffered a second successive set back to his ‘top individual performer’ hopes as Tom Webster beat him confidently with a swift and deadly attack on the Black king’s position. Sugden was forced to give up the exchange and was then unable to find enough compensation with an attack of his own. The match was level.
The remaining three games continued a while longer but Hebden scored two wins and a draw from them to clinch the match. First of all Josh Blinkhorn took full advantage of a huge development advantage that he had accumulated during the opening phase of a Two Knights Defence against Paul Logan. Paul seemed to have discovered a nice tactic to win a pawn but he was dangerously under-developed, Josh had the bishop pair in an open position and the White king was slightly exposed on the king’s side. Paul fought hard but Josh’s bishop pair and rook pair were deadly against White’s undeveloped queen’s side.
Next to finish was Captain Syrett who tried his best to create mischief against Bob Pratt on board 5 but was ultimately forced to settle for a draw that would secure his team at least one point from the match. That meant that everything hinged on the last game to finish between Todmorden’s Chris Edwards and Hebden’s Dave Shapland.
These two have played out several games in the Sicilian Sveshnikov system in recent years with Dave having the edge in recent encounters (the most recent being round 1 of this year’s Calderdale Individual Championship). On this occasion Dave chose to go for an old favourite of his, the Dragon Variation of the Sicilian Defence. Chris spurned the most complex lines and opted for the solid yet strategically complex Classical Variation with 6.Be2. It seemed that White then missed his best opportunities to secure a lasting advantage as Dave was able to manoeuvre his pieces forward and initiated some complex tactical play.
Despite this, Chris defended resourcefully and limited his losses to a single pawn as the pieces came off the board for a rook ending. The transition from middle game to endgame appeared to be the moment of salvation for White but Dave had seen that the White king would be trapped on the back rank and that his connected passed pair of pawns on the queen’s side would be faster to advance than Chris’ pawn majority of one on the king’s side. It took a while to prove the advantage but eventually Dave did secure the full point required for his team to win the match.
Readers must forgive their editor for his tardiness in posting this report from the last round of League 2 fixtures before the Christmas break. A combination of moving house (and therefore having no broadband at home for quite some time) and the need for a prolonged break from drafting website content enforced a full-length festive vacation. Despite the lateness of the post will shall not refrain from including some suitably festive vignettes for you to envisage.
It’s traditional for families to play games together at Christmas. But how many settle down for a round-robin blitz competition after their turkey dinners?
At Christmas time it’s traditional for families to get together, eat, drink, give gifts and often, play games. That said it would be quite unusual to see a family all sitting down to play chess against one another after Christmas dinner. However, that unlikely scenario might just have occured at the homes of two of our club’s members this Christmas. The Leatherbarrow’s and the Sharpe’s have each sported three players in league fixtures this season and so perhaps a family round-robin blitz tournament was not out of the question in either family home over the festive season. On the 17th of December the Sharpe’s practiced for their ‘post-Turkey Chess Olympiad’ (geddit?) by lining up together for Hebden Bridge ‘D’.
Fielding 15 players on the Monday before Christmas is no easy task and so it was not surprising to see team Captains seeking out every possible resource to field their side’s on this night. In fact player availability issues led to some interesting and unusual line ups.
Danny Crampton’s ‘D’ team were without their Captain for the home tie against Halifax ‘B’. Not only that, their regular board 1 (Robert Murray) and board 5 (Dylan Leggett) were also unavailable which led to the second family trio appearance of the season. Earlier this year the Leatherbarrow dynasty (Andy, Spike and Hephzi) all appeared in the same Hebden Bridge ‘B’ team. This time round (as mentioned above) it was the Sharpe’s (Craig, Kyle and Leona) who made an appearance. Together with Tim Wilton-Davis they did their best against a strong Halifax ‘B’ team.
The result was something of a mismatch but Hebden did manage to score a point on board 2 where young Kyle served further notice that his game is improving all the time as he beat seasoned a Halifax seasoned veteran in the form of Adrian Dawson. Kyle likes to play dynamically and aggressively but in this game he showed his flexibility by keeping it simple, winning a pawn and converting the endgame confidently. The game is given in the viewer at the end of this post.
Martin Syrett doesn’t go for half measures when it comes to dealing with his festive bag of nuts
One imagines that there were no family chess tournaments scheduled in the Syrett household over Christmas. The corresponding ‘B’ team fixture hinted that their Captain has a penchant for an altogether more destructive post-dinner time activity. I ask you to imagine Captain Syrett departing the dinning room after his Christmas pudding, paper crown slightly askew, and adjourning to his living room to enjoy Her Majesty’s speech and nice bag of mixed-nuts. Who doesn’t enjoy a few walnuts and brazils whilst watching some Christmas telly? And what implement does Martin use to break into his Christmas nibbles? I’d like to suggest that he may select a sledge hammer…
The ‘B’ team have been flying high this season and look very much like they will be returning to the top flight next year. Like Danny Crampton, their Captain also had difficulties getting together his regular squad. However in this case he was able to draw on some colleagues from the ‘A’ team to plug the holes. The result was total carnage as the ‘B’s travelled to bottom side Todmorden ‘D’ for the mismatch of the season.
In for the absent Josh Blinkhorn came Nick Sykes who played below ‘B’ team regular Andy Leatherbarrow on board 3 on this occasion. Also in on board 1 was Dave Shapland who had only played in two matches for the ‘B’ team this season, home against Todmorden ‘C’ and away to Halifax ‘B’. Both those two matches ended with 5 — 0 score lines in Hebden’s favour so the omens did mot look good for Todmorden’s development squad.
Out-gunned though they were Todmorden showed the right attitude as the mustered plenty of fighting spirit and determination. Each member of the team was eager to discuss their games with their more experienced adversaries afterwards which is definitely a big step forwards down the ‘chess improvement’ road. It’s good to see that chess clubs in the area are still finding new members to bring into league fixtures. Hopefully this Todmorden team will be able to show the same kind of potential that Hebden ‘D’ have demonstrated this season as they grow in experience.
This week you lucky readers get a double dose of league 1 action as the last two weeks have been a hive of activity in this division and mark the half-way point in the season. It’s been a topsy-turvy couple of weeks for our title holders, Hebden Bridge ‘A’.
Matthew Parsons has been on sparkling form of late and contributed two crucial wins in the last two matches.
On Monday the 26th Dave Shapland’s team suffered a minor set back in their bid to retain the title as they slipped to a draw at Belgrave having led the match 0 — 2 at an early stage in the evening. On board 2 Matthew Parsons swept Malcolm Corbett aside in very short order and on board 4 the Captain worked hard to secure an endgame advantage against Angel Gonzalez and then saw his adversary blunder a piece almost immediately after the queens came off the board.
At this point in the evening it looked like a straight forward victory was within sight but then it all went wrong. Matthew Webb had also secured a very advantageous position against Gordon Farrar on board 1. Unfortunately in this game it was the Hebden player who blundered. There still seemed to be some counterplay for Matty but then he uncharacteristically made another error and this time there was no way to fight on. Gordon had started the rot.
Last season Belgrave were the only team to beat the champions in the corresponding fixture. Surely it couldn’t happen again? It didn’t because soon after board 1 had finished Nick Sykes agreed a draw with Les Johnson to ensure the visitors would at least draw the match. That result left Pete Leonard struggling with a disadvantage against Mike Barnett. If Pete held the draw then Hebden would win the match. If he lost then it would be drawn. Pete fought hard but Mike drove home his edge remorselessly and the match was tied.
This result was not good news for Hebden because on Wednesday night the league leaders Huddersfield took full advantage of the slip up by crushing an under strength Todmorden ‘A’ to extend their league lead to 4 points over Hebden and Halifax ‘A’ who squeezed past Todmorden ‘B’ away.
So it was that last Monday night (the 3rd) Hebden Bridge hosted Courier ‘A’ at the Trades Club knowing that it was utterly imperative that they win if they were to retain even the slimmest chance of catching Huddersfield. Things took a turn for the worst on Monday morning when Matty Webb was diverted to London with work. There was no way he could play and so the rest of the team all moved up a board to accommodate Andy Leatherbarrow on board 5. Courier are not the sort of team you’d ideally want to lose your top board against but Hebden had already lost Matty’s services once this season and that was for the equally tricky away match at Todmorden ‘A’ who, though at full strength were beaten 2 — 3. Hebden would once again need strong performances on the lower boards if they were to clinch victory.
In fact the first result of the night was at the top end of the tie where Matthew Parsons played a very powerful game against John Morgan. Matthew left his king in the centre of the board for a very long time and advanced his pawns on the king’s side and in the centre. He got a huge space advantage and lots of pressure but John played resourcefully to maintain material parity. As they entered the end game it appeared initially that John was doing ok but Matthew’s rook, bishop and knight were far more active than John’s two rooks and, with his pieces perfectly coordinated, Matthew drove home his advantage to win a fine game.
Sadly the match was soon level for Dave Shapland was beaten pretty much out of the opening by Robert Clegg on board 3. Playing a line of the French Defence that had been discussed by these two twice before, Robert had prepared a surprise deviation that Dave could not have foreseen or prepared for and although he managed to figure out the key ideas Robert was proposing he couldn’t find the best continuation. The queens came off early and Robert won a pawn. Then Dave over looked a tricky tactic and lost a knight as well. After that Robert smoothly avoided all the traps Dave set up and gradually swatted the counter play to finish Dave off. A very interesting game despite the result for Hebden and well played by Robert.
Next to finsh was board 4 where Nick Sykes drew with Pete Hughes. Nick selected a solid opening line against Pete’s Accellerated Dragon set up and was comfortably able to hold a draw even if he didn’t create any real winning chances either.
Shortly after this Andy Leatherbarrow beat Guy Thompson in a queen and pawn ending to give Hebden control of the tie. Andy maintained a small initiative throug out the game and then played the ending very well despite some time pressure to put his team over the top. Andy has scored 3 out of 3 for the ‘A’ team on board 5 this season.
This just left Pete Leonard and Dave Patrick on board 2. Pete was in the same position as the previous week. Draw to win the match for Hebden. Like the previous week he was in a spot of bother. This time he had a bishop and single pawn against Dave’s knight and two pawns. It looked like White should be able to hold the draw but of course both players were running out of time and anything could happen. In the end Pete did manage to hold and Hebden had sealed another excellent result with a slightly under strength side.
The match card looked like this:
Hebden Bridge ‘A’ vs. Courier ‘A’
M.Parsons 1 — 0 J.Morgan
P.Leonard ½ — ½ D.Patrick
D.Shapland 0 — 1 R.Clegg
N.Sykes ½ — ½ P.Hughes
A.Leatherbarrow 1 — 0 G.Thompson 3 — 2
Later that evening even more good news flitered through when it emerged that Huddersfield (ironically fielding probably their strongest line up of the season so far) had been beaten at Halifax and lost on the top 3 boards to go down 3 — 2.
Halifax have, temporarily at least, broken the spell and now suddenly the title race is right back on. Huddersfield are top with Halifax and Hebden two points behind. Todmorden ‘A’ are a further two points back in fourth and Courier are five points behind on 7.
The first fixture of 2013 sees Hebden Bridge travelling to Huddersfield for a match they really need to win if they are to continue to challenge for the title. They’ve risen to the challenge on several occasions already this season. Can they do it again?
Last Monday’s League 2 matches saw a series of of “damned good thrashings” the like of which has not been seen since Basil Fawlty administered just such a beating to his miscreant Austin 1100
Last week’s League 2 fixtures were signal in that all three matches involving Hebden Bridge teams ended in resounding scorelines.
Let us begin with the home ties from the Trades Club. Hebden Bridge ‘B’ have been flying high all season. Aside from one outlying drawn result away to their ‘D’ team when their squad was significantly depleted they have dealt with their opponents almost scornfully. Their lead at the top was 3 points before the start of the evenings play and, after they abruptly dismantled Halifax ‘C’ it stayed at 3 points. Sure enough the points from the top two boards were ground out rather than succinctly executed but the performances were no less powerful for that. On board 1 Andy Leatherbarrow bravely sacrificed a pawn for endgame activity against John Aldridge and he was duly rewarded as his rampaging rook first recovered the deficit and then gobbled up a second pawn to comfortable secure victory.
On board 2 Josh Blinkhorn played in his usual uncompromising and aggressive style against Ray Cully. Whilst this didn’t lead to a mating attack it did put Ray on the back foot for the whole game and Josh cashed in by winning first one and then two pawns whilst retaining all of the active play in the position. Ray was washed away in a rook and bishop ending.
Dave Sugden is the only player in League 2 with a 100% record and he maintained it by beating Barry Wadsworth on board 3. Dave seems to score a lot of easy points with his Vienna. On this occasion Barry (a King’s Gambit man himself with the White pieces) decided to avoid the gambit lines and he seemed to get himself a decent position but, when active play seemed to be required to hold the line he didn’t quite manage to put Dave under pressure and was slowly beaten back. Then, in the endgame Dave gradually hovered up Barry’s pawns until his advantage was overwhelming. Dave is now standing 6 points from 6 games and looks well set to continue his excellent run of form.
Team Captain, Martin Syrett, endured a typically see-saw evening against Andrew Whiteley. He played a Kings Gambit and, in his inimitable style, got a wonderful position and a very nice attack on the Black king. Then he miscalculated a combination and lost a whole rook before rallying, recovering the material and securing a draw.
This was to be the only concession the ‘B’s would grant because much earlier in the evening Steve Priest had terminated Glen Roper’s hopes in very short order indeed. Glen dropped a piece on move 8 and resigned on the spot.
The final score card was:
Hebden Bridge ‘B’ vs. Halifax ‘C’
A.Leatherbarrow 1 — 0 J. Aldridge
J.Blinkhorn 1 — 0 R.Cully
D.Sugden 1 — 0 B.Wadsworth
M.Syrett ½ — ½ A.Whiteley
S.Priest 1 — 0 G.Roper 4½ — ½
Also at the Trades Club, Hebden Bridge ‘C’ did even better in beating Todmorden ‘D’ 5 — 0. They were certainly assisted in their endeavours by the visitors default on board 5 but the rest of the games brought no respite for Todmorden whatsoever.
On board 1 captain John Kerrane led by example with a straightforward victory over J.P. Ellis. J.P elected to meet the English Opening with a symmetrical system but he took the whole idea rather too far and John secured a comfortable advantage which he converted without drama. John has moved on to a score of 4 out of 5 for the season which is an excellent return on board 1.
Neil Bamford had an even briefer evening’s work on board 3 as his opponent somehow managed to entomb his own king in the centre of the board allowing Neil an immediate and amusing check mate. With this result Hebden were already out of sight.
The remaining two games in the match took a little longer to complete but the outcome was just the same. On board 2 Terry Sullivan outlasted Bill Joyce in a rook and pawn ending that demonstrated Terry’s greater experience. The longest game of the match was on board 4 where Ray Deravairere also played a more accurate ending than his opponent to notch up his third point of the season.
The match score card makes grim reading for Todmorden:
It just remains for me to report on the ‘D’ team’s away fixture against Todmorden ‘C’. They were also involved in a whitewashing but unfortunately they were the victims. This outcome must have come as something of a surprise for Captain Danny Crampton who took his strongest line-up down the valley and must have expected a closer score line. The ‘D’ team have had some great results this season but they haven’t yet managed to add consistency to their growing list of attributes.
In the other League 2 fixture played on Monday Halifax ‘B’ suffered a surprisingly dramatic 1 — 4 reverse at home to Courier ‘B’.
All of this leaves Hebden ‘B’ with a 3 point cushion at the top. They look unstoppable at the moment. Todmorden ‘C’ and Hebden Bridge ‘C’ are both on 8 points in second and third places and Courier ‘B’ and Halifax ‘B’ are also locked together a further two points behind. The race for the second promotion place still appears to be wide open.
All of the games from the ‘B’ and ‘C’ team matches are in the game viewer below.
