Hebden Bridge Chess Club

In part two of my review of 2014 we’ll cover summer and Autumn period. With the Calderdale and Yorkshire league seasons completed in May you might have been forgiven for thinking that nothing much would have been going on in the summer but you’d be quite wrong.

ECF County Championship

July: Syrett vs. Shapland – Hebden Bridge Summer Rapidplay. Black to play. With both players in dreadful time trouble White has understandably just offered simplifications with 28.Qd2. How should Black respond? Solution in the game viewer at the end of this post.

Pete Leonard, Andy Leatherbarrow and Dave Shapland all took part in the Yorkshire under 160 team’s superb run to the final of the county championships. In May Dave and Pete travelled to Penrith to play their part in the demolition of Cumbria in the qualifiers. Andy joined them for the quarter final match against Essex which saw the Yorkshiremen avenge their defeat to the same side in the 2013 final. Dave missed the semi-final win against Cambridgeshire and, unfortunately, Pete was unavailable for the final which was played, along with all the other finals, in Warwick in July.

Both Andy and Dave won their games in the final against Middlesex as Yorkshire struggled on the top eight boards but swept their opponents aside on the lower boards where they scored 7/8!

Yorkshire also won the ‘Open’ section of the County Championships when they thrashed another Middlesex team 11½ – 4½. This included a fine win by HebdenBridge’s occasional guest star Matty Webb. This was just one step on the road to a fabulously successful season for Matty. 2014 saw his rating shoot up and he currently occupies the number 3 spot on the Yorkshire Chess Association rating list.

Summer competitions

September: Bak vs. Eagleton – Calderdale League. White to play. White is the exchange down but he has the initiative. Can you see a way to take advantage?

During the summer the club held two rapidplay competitions in which particpants played each other twice with 30 minutes each on the clock. The ‘A’ group was won by Matthew Parsons who was dominant through out and only lost one game to Dave Shapland. There were a good number of highly entertaining games played in the top section.

As preparations for the new league season began some warm up activity was organised to get players back into the swing of things. First of all six of our members travelled to Keighley chess club to play in a return friendly match to the one played at the Trades Club in 2013. Keighley took revenage for their away defeat the previous year by winning this match 4 — 2. Neil Bamford was the only Hebden player to win but both John Kerrane and Nick Sykes took creditable draws.

The following week Matty Webb agreed to play a simultaneous match against all-comers at the Trades Club. Ten players took up the challenge in which Matty generously (or foolishly perhaps!) agreed to play all the games sat standard Calderdale League time limits. He still scored 9 out of 10 conceding draws to Matthew Parsons and Martin Syrett and losing just one to Danny Crampton who sneakily played at high speed and survived long enough to win the game on time when Matty didn’t notice what he was up to.

Then came the Club Lightning competition which was won in fine style by John Allan with a score of 5½/6. Pete Leonard and Dave Shapland trailled on a point and a half behind him on 4 and John Kerrane and Nick Sykes were next on 3½.

October: Leonard vs. Morgan – Calderdale League. White to play. With such a lead in development it’s no surprise to find White can proceed in sacrificial style. What’s his best continuation?

Calderdale League 2014-15

After the warm ups came the serious business of the new league season. The club decided to field three teams across the two leagues this year as our pool of willing league participants continued to dwindle. Most significantly Matthew Parsons made the decision to return to representing Huddersfield after a four year stint playing in the HebdenBridge ‘A’ team. That loss was keenly felt but the ‘A’ team began the season pretty solidly as they almost took advantage of Huddersfield arriving at the Trades Club with only four players in the first round and then beat Courier ‘A’ in fine style in round 2. Andy Bak on board 1, Pete Leonard on 2 and Nick Sykes on 4 all played brilliantly to beat strong opponents.

Subsequently it’s been a bit of a mixed bag for the ‘A’s as they followed their surprise win over Courier with a surprise defeat to Belgrave but then beat both Brighouse and Todmorden ‘B’ before succumbing to a very strong Halifax ‘A’ team despite drawing on the top two boards.

October: Sykes vs. Clegg – Calderdale League. White to play. How did Nick cap a really fine thematic game from this position?

League 1 is warming up to be another fascinating contest this season as the reigning champions Halifax ‘A’ have recovered from a slow start to get themselves back in contention whilst Huddersfield started tremendously but have subsequently slipped up to allow their rivals to close up on them. Todmorden ‘A’ and Halifax look like the main contenders although Courier aren’t out of the race just yet.

In league 2 both the ‘B’ and ‘C’ teams have found life difficult. League 2 has just six teams in it this year and our teams occupy the 4^th and 5^th places at present with one win and one draw a piece. Danny Crampton has taken up the captaincy of the ‘B’ team and after beating Courier ‘B’ in the first round his side have managed only a draw against Halifax ‘C’ in the subsequent three matches.

Meanwhile John Kerrane’s ‘C’ team have performed identically to pick up the same number of match points and they trial their ‘B’ team colleagues only on game points at the moment.

Halifax ‘B’ are the dominant force in League 2 thus far and they already have a decent lead over Todmorden ‘C’ and Halifax ‘C’. The two Hebden sides are still close enough to challenge for second place here.

Yorkshire League

Calderdale ‘A’ are maintaining the same position they finished in last year by occupying the middle of the Division 1 table after 5 rounds. In League 2, Calderdale ‘B’ have started in rather lacklustre fashion with one win, one draw and three defeats so far. They’ll need to up their game to be sure of avoiding relegation this season. Hebden regulars Andy Leatherbarrow, John Allan and Martin Syrett look poised to assist in this task with John continuing his excellent form of last season in this competition.

December: Webb vs. Guramishvili, London Chess Classic FIDE Open. It’s White to play. He’s sacrificed a piece on d5 to open the e-file. How should he proceed to capitalise on that. This is straight out of the opening book so anyone wanting to play the Najdorf needs to know this idea!

London Chess Classic

In December I was fortunate to have the opportunity to visit the London Chess Classic and see the opening round of the main competition. Whilst I was there I was surprised but very pleased to get the opportunity to meet one of my chess heroes, Garry Kasparov! The former world champion was there for a book signing and I wasn’t going to miss out on that opportunity. Of course I spent the whole time in the queue trying to think of something meaningful to say to him and then pretty much stuffed it up when I got to the front of the queue. Never mind, I now own a signed copy of the second part of his chess biography ‘Kasparov on Kasparov’ which I can certainly recommend to anyone who’s interested in some literature on his career.

In the end I only spent a little bit of time inside the chess classic itself because I predominantly wanted to follow Matty Webb’s game in the FIDE Open that was taking place alongside. To my great delight he played a game in a theoretical line of the French that I play myself against a Grandmaster in the form of Neil McDonald. It was an interesting game that ended in a draw.

Matty played extremely well in the tournament and I’ve included a game he won against WGM Sopiko Guramishvili in round 2. Anyone who watched the recent World Chess Championship match will know that Sopiko was co-commentator with Peter Svidler so this was a high-profile scalp for Matty to take.

The full games, some with commentary, are featured in the game viewer below so that you can find the solutions to the positions given in the article as well.

Today I’ll be drawing our end of season review to a close by posting individual player statistics for last season. I’ll begin in this post by looking at the ‘A’ and ‘B’ teams’ most utilised players and will publish a post covering the ‘C’ and ‘D’ teams next week.

First of all, a few notes on the player statistics below. I have only examined league games played by the individuals in question. Yorkshire League matches, matches in other leagues, congresses and the Calderdale Individual Championships have not been included because the aim of the exercise is to show how a player has performed for the club over the last 12 months. An indication as to the player’s year round performance can be gleaned from the change in their end of season rating from last year to this which I have included. I’ve also included a file of ‘best games’ for each of the players below and some of these do include stand out examples from the Calderdale Individual Championships.

Matthew’s performance for his team this season was absolutely outstanding. In nine games he was unbeaten and he won two thirds of those contests. He spent the entire season battling it out with the toughest opposition in the league and he performed superbly. As always his opening repertoire was the foundation for his success because he is so difficult to catch off guard in this phase of the game. His favoured opening systems (the London System with White and the Sniper with Black) are also pretty much impossible to avoid and so his preparation always finds an expression over the board. What all this means is that he is virtually never playing at a disadvantage in the middle game and that is where his he usually finds a way to out play his opponents.

For his best game I’ve selected his critical last round win with Black against Courier’s Dave Patrick. It’s a typical example of how he utilises the flexibility of the Sniper System to great effect. Matt has a wonderful feel for this opening and he scored very heavily with it last year (four wins and one draw). Matthew will be a critical factor in Hebden Bridge ‘A’s attempt to hang on to the league title in the forth coming season.

It’s hard to come up with anything new to say about “Draw Win” because it feels like it’s all been said before. Last season he was simply unstoppable. He was unbeaten in both the League and in the Individual Competitions (hence the nickname) and his percentages outstripped even Matthews. As well as bagging the League title with Hebden he also won the Calderdale Individual Championship and the Individual Knockout competition.

Perhaps the most important aspect of his game from the perspective of the team was his ability to conjure up results when positions seemed sterile and/or when our backs were against the wall.  Despite getting into difficulties out of the opening on several occasions he always managed to wriggle out of trouble in the middle game and often upgraded level positions to victories simply by putting his opponents under acute pressure.

There were many candidates for best game but the one that left the most indelible mark for me was his win with Black against Robert Broadbent of Brighouse. Darwin was the last board to finish, the match was tied, he was short of time and the position was complex. Never the less he always seemed to be in total control of the situation and got the result the team needed. This contribution was repeated again and again over the course of the season. Darwin’s return to Halifax for next season is their gain and Hebden’s loss.

Not a vintage year from a personal perspective. A percentage score of less than 50% was the lowest in the team but Dave was an ever present in the side and took his satisfaction from selecting and organising the Championship winning side as Captain. In the previous season Dave was unbeaten with the Black pieces despite playing some very challenging opponents on board 1 and 2 with the ‘B’ team. This season his Black score was much less impressive and although his repertoire held up well in the opening he made too many errors in the middle game. Perhaps this was a lack of concentration on his own games as he kept an eye on his team mates or perhaps it was a desire to push too hard for the full point when a draw would have been satisfactory. Whatever the reason, Dave will hope to make a better contribution over the board next season and with Darwin moving on, he’ll need to!

I’ve selected a game from the Calderdale Individual Championship for his game of the season which perhaps says all it needs to about his league form.

It’s never easy to return to competitive chess after a prolonged lay off but last year Pete did just that as he began playing for Hebden Bridge ‘C’ and scored heavily. This season was always going to be a much tougher challenge and he generally acquitted himself very well and demonstrated that he is now operating at the right level for his abilities. For any returning player the opening phase of the game is usually the hardest to reinvigorate as assessments of favourite opening systems may have changed during one’s absence. It appeared to me that this was sometimes the case for Pete as usually when he got into difficulties it was as a result of an opening inaccuracy of a technical nature rather than a dreadful tactical blunder.

Pete would be the first to admit that he is a ‘grinder’ and likes to stay in control of his games of chess. His best efforts then are generally positional in nature. I’ve therefore selected a game that I would imagine would be his own favourite which was his round three victory in the Calderdale Individual Championship against the incumbent champion John Morgan. Pete went on to score an excellent 4 out of 5 in the competition and finished second behind Darwin.

All in all a good year for Pete that he’ll look to build on further next season.

Playing the lower boards in a side that is challenging for the title can be a thankless task. Often you will find yourself playing lower rated players than yourself and will be expected to extract the full point more often than not. This duty requires will power, determination and the ability to forget quickly about any occasional mishaps and bounce back immediately. Nick ‘Syko’ Sykes demonstrated all these worthy attributes in spades this season. With only two defeats from thirteen and an undefeated record at home he was critical to the team’s success. His games are often long slogs and I was particularly impressed with his record of closing out games with wins or draws when he was the last to finish and we needed a result

I’ve picked one such example of his determination for his best game in the viewer below. He had been disappointed to only draw when in time trouble in our previous match and when his game with Paul Whitehouse looked to all the kibitzers like it was headed for a draw he simply didn’t agree with the assessment and saw victory home in a highly technical end game. It may not be the most interesting game he played this year but it perfectly sums up his contribution. We’ll need more of the same next season.

When it appeared that Matthew Parsons might have to miss much or all of the season due to work commitments our search for an interim board one took us to Matty’s door. Although in the end he only turned out twice he did exactly what was required of him and his win over Peter Mulleady in our home match against Todmorden ‘A’ was a critical to securing a signal victory. This game features in the viewer below and I was hugely impressed with the way he controlled the game out of the opening and into the middle game as he maintained a modest advantage which he converted by never letting his opponent off the hook. We hope he’ll be available more frequently next season.

Now lets take a look at the ‘B’ team.

Poor old Andy was in the hot seat this season. Top board for a ‘B’ team playing in Division 1 is the toughest assignment of them all. He was out graded in pretty much every match he played in. I know from personal experience that you can play your best chess every week and still end up losing a lot. Andy seemed to revel in the challenge and was at his obstinate best all year round. A 46% return for a player graded 140 at the start of last season was a great achievement and he actually managed 50% with the Black pieces. I should mention that he represented the ‘A’ team on board five once last year and won that game which is included in the stats given here.

Andy has developed a winning habit against Courier’s top board, John Morgan. He beat him last season and he beat him with the Black pieces this season in the game given at the end of this article

The ‘B’ team Captain can always be relied upon to maintain a cheerful continence regardless of his side’s situation. For the last few years he has been leading a team struggling against relegation but he never complains and always does his best to help his team perform. This season, sadly, he lost the service of too many players to be able to mount the kind of challenge he would have liked. The ‘B’s lost quite a few matches by the odd point and drew a few more they could have won. Such is the way of things when your luck is out.

From a personal perspective Martin was forced to occupy a higher board than he would usually operate as a result of the absences and his percentage score reflects his struggles. By nature he tends to play aggressively and sharply and that tends to lead to a positive result one way or another and against higher rated opposition that uncompromising approach can lead to danger. However, Martin did pick up some highly creditable draws with much stronger players than himself. The game I’ve chosen for Martin is a typically combative effort dealt out to Huddersfield’s Stuart Oliver when the ‘B’ team hosted Huddersfield ‘B’.

Dave Sugden

Dave stepped up from representing the ‘C’ team on board one in the second division last season and, although he was clearly capable of operating confidently in division one, he seemed to find it challenging at times this season. Certainly he wasn’t helped by being drafted in to the high pressure environment of the ‘A’ team for four games early in the season and had to recover from a tricky run of form at about this time. In the end he did recover and re-find his confidence later in the season and his results for the ‘B’ team, 3 out of 6, was a very creditable return.

Dave’s opening repertoire his highly combustible and, although I’ve selected a drawn game for these pages don’t let that trick you into thinking that the game is uninteresting. This was a very exciting and complicated draw with a player rated considerably higher than himself.

I sometimes marvel that John is able to find time to play league chess because he organises the junior club, Captain’s the ‘C’ team and pretty much looks after all the administrative functions of the club. This season he was called upon to play rather more games than I suspect he would have liked. This was purely down to the dwindling numbers of ‘B’ team players which forced Martin Syrett to draft in John and Neil Bamford on a frequent basis.

The statistics above therefore represent John’s performance for both the ‘B’ and ‘C’ teams. His 50% score does him credit and he almost managed to Captain the ‘C’ team to promotion, pipped as they were at the post by a Halifax team that had reinforced itself drastically in the second half of the season.

In my view John’s best game of the season was his nice win against Dave Milton in a battle between the team Captains from when Hebden ‘C’ hosted Todmorden ‘B’.

Neil had an outstanding year this season emphasising his continued improvement as a player. He was a valuable asset on board 5 for the ‘B’ team and also played a big role in the ‘C’ team’s promotion challenge as he played 23 games in the season — more than any other Hebden Bridge player in the Calderdale league. He gained 9½ rating points from his league matches and the only reason that isn’t reflected in his end of season increase (of 5 points) was because he struggled to replicate his league from in the Calderdale Individual Championships.

I’ve picked out his excellent victory over club colleague Nick Sykes from the derby clash between Hebden Bridge’s ‘A’ and ‘B’ teams. Neil actually scored 2 points for the ‘B’s across these derby fixtures as he also beat Dave Sugden in the return clash. The game below lurches from favouring one side to the other and Nick’s opening choice contributed to a hugely entertaining game full of interest and excitement. In the end Neil won because he managed to ensure he made the next to last mistake of the game!

It was great to be able to deploy Matthew twice this season despite his departure to Cambridge University in September. He made his appearances for the ‘B’ team on top board and drew with Robert Broadbent and John Morgan, two very solid players. I given his game with John in the viewer below. Hopefully we’ll be able to make similar use of Matthew next year.

Josh is another player who struggled a little for consistency this year. On his best days he is capable of bamboozling the best players in the league but he is also prone to occasionally over extending himself against players of a lower grade than himself.  That is generally because his style his hugely ambitious. He loves complications and he takes risks to initiate them. That means his games are always interesting to watch.

This season he finished on 50% after playing games for both the ‘B’ and ‘C’ team. It may seem harsh for me to pick a game that he has lost in the viewer below but I genuinely think this game was an excellent achievement played as it was against a player graded 180 whom he very nearly beat through his wonderful feel for the initiative. Such a shame that he missed a couple of winning chances in time pressure at the end but a really nice snap shot of Josh’s capabilities. He’ll improve further next season I predict.

I’m sure that there will be plenty of club members who will want to share their own views on my reviews, opinions and game choices. Don’t hold back if you feel I’ve dealt with someone unjustly or feel that I’ve overlooked a critical factor. Leave a comment. We love debate and opinion on this website!