Feb 182014
 
With four rounds to go there are still five teams involved in the dance for this season's league 1 title race! This image is used under Creative Commons terms and sourced from Jim Linwood's Flickr photostream

Swords are drawn! With four rounds to go there are still five teams involved in the dance for this season’s league 1 title race! This image is used under Creative Commons terms and sourced from Jim Linwood’s Flickr photostream

After our last post on the subject (‘Rats in a barrel’) readers will not be surprised to hear that it was all change yet again at the top of Calderdale League 1 when the teams reconvened on the 4th of February. Todmorden ‘A’ were leading the title race by a single point but they went down at Brighouse with a marginally weakened line up. Captain Alistair Wright was without top board Martin Hamer who was over in Gibraltar participating in the chess festival. Tod have struggled in previous years when Hamer has been gone and unfortunately for them they did so again. The damage was done in the middle order where Dennis Breen, Nick Hudson and Paul Whitehouse defeated Andrew Clarkson, Alistair Wright and Rob Tokeley respectively. Wins on the top and bottom boards for Pete Mulleady and David Innes at least ensured that Todmorden kept their board count ticking over. This looks increasingly like it will be a deciding factor when the final reckoning comes.

Of course this defeat opened the door once more for Huddersfield who had fallen at home to Courier in the last round and now faced a potentially tricky challenge away to Todmorden ‘B’ who have caused problems for several of the top teams. Not on this occasion however as Huddersfield cruised to a 1 — 4 victory that took them back to the top. Dave Tooley was the only away team player to go down as his scalp was collected by Rob Collier.

Todmorden ‘A’s demise also provided an opportunity for Halifax ‘A’, Courier ‘A’ and Hebden Bridge ‘A’ to gain ground. Halifax took full advantage by thrashing Hebden ‘B’ 0 — 5. John Kerrane reports briefly on this match:

“Out-graded by more than fourty points on all boards, the home players were under pressure from the start. Despite spirited resistance, they gradually succumbed to their powerful opponents, until, when Josh Blinkhorn resigned on board 1 after a lively but unsuccessful attack against Winston Williams, the predictable 5 — 0 scoreline emerged in favour of the visitors.”

Individual results were:

Hebden Bridge ‘B’ vs. Halifax ‘A’
J.Blinkhorn 0 — 1 W.Williams
M.Syrett 0 — 1 B.Somerset
J.Kerrane 0 — 1 D.Ursal
N.Bamford 0 — 1 S.Scurfield
K.Dickinson 0 — 1 A.Dawson
0 — 5

Halifax appeared to be out of contention in the title race after losing in round 8 at Huddersfield but now they have recovered and lie just 2 points behind the leaders. They still have some tough matches to play but at the moment they have the best board count in the league and in Darwin ‘Draw-Win’ Ursal they have the leagues most destructive weapon. He’s scored an amazing 9½/10, mostly against players rated a lot lower than himself on board 3 but he has also appeared effectively on top board a couple of times.

The last match in round 10 promised to be the tightest as champions Hebden Bridge ‘A’ travelled to Courier ‘A’ for another critical encounter. The visitors knew it would be a very stiff test for they had already been defeated by the Courier outfit at the Trades Club earlier in the season. When they arrived they found that Courier had been forced to change their line-up due to John Morgan’s illness and Kevin Winter’s unavailability. Sadly, that did not lead to the kind of weakening in the home team’s line-up that the visitors might have hoped for as in came Phil Watson on board 1 (Hebden have been unlucky to have to face Phil on the only two occasions Courier have deployed him this season!) and Dave Colledge on board 5.

Admittedly, Dave Colledge is not quite as strong as Kevin Winter on the bottom board and so it was immediately clear that Hebden would have to do serious damage on the lower boards if they were to collect an unlikely victory against a side that out-graded them on every board but the bottom one. It’s become a bit of a trend for Hebden to start the night well and then run out of steam and once again this familiar pattern was played out through the course of the evening.

Captain Nick Sykes has found the going to be challenging recently and so he sensibly decided to demote himself from board 3 to board 5 for this match if only for a bit of respite from the pressure he’s putting on himself to do well further up the order. His choice looked to be a master stroke after a couple of hours of play as he smoothly defeated Dave Colledge with the King’s Indian Defence. Meanwhile the rest of the team also seemed to be doing well. On board 1, Matthew Parsons was also using the King’s Indian against Phil and he had launched a formidable attack on the White king and managed to land a knight on the g3 square. An upset looked quite possible on the top board. On board 2 Pete Leonard was also holding his own against Tony Slinger, Andy Leatherbarrow seemed comfortable on board 3 against Dave Patrick and on board 4 Dave Shapland had pounced on some early positional errors by Robert Clegg to hold a comfortable if marginal advantage.

Unfortunately the good form didn’t quite last, and having jinxed the team on this very website in that aforementioned post by quoting the statistic that the champions hadn’t lost away since March 2012, they inevitably lost the match! It was Phil Watson who turned the tide as he defended calmly in the face of Matthew’s onslaught and, when the dust of battle had settled, Matthew was a piece down in the endgame. There was no coming back from that. The match was level.

The last three games went on and on to the very end of the night. On board 4 Dave was never in any real danger of losing and had managed to hold his positional advantage right into a single rook and pawns ending. However, having played a little aimlessly in the opening, Robert now seemed to “wake up” and knuckled down resolutely to his defensive task. Probably Dave missed some opportunities to press for the win and, with the two remaining boards still unclear it was hard to know what result to aim for. Going all out for a win might have been a mistake and so in the end Dave didn’t take too many risks and Robert avoided a couple of traps to secure a draw in the end.

The match hinged on the next game to finish on board three. Dave Patrick had applied pressure persistently and Andy had resisted determinedly but at the expense of time spent cogitating. They got passed the time control and into an endgame were Andy seemed to have the advantage but was being forced into playing more and more quickly. Tragically, as his advantage crystallised into a winning one he ran out of time and forfeited the game, Courier were ahead.

The board 2 struggle had been a fascinating one. Tony Slinger had deployed Anti-Grunfeld system with 3.f3. This might have thrown Pete Leonard off course somewhat had it not been for the fact that he’d faced the same line against Dave Shapland last summer in the Bridestones Holme Brew Chess Challenge. Subsequently he’d gone away and taken a look again at the line and was able to reply with the even more offbeat idea of 4…Nh5. After that the game spiralled off into complications. The queens came off early but the piece-based play remained highly complex and the pawn structures on both sides somewhat chaotic. That said, neither player ever really looked like winning, so ultimately a draw was the just result. This gave Courier a valuable victory and catapults them into joint second on match points just behind Todmorden on board count. They still have to host Todmorden and also visit Halifax before the season ends but their back to back wins over Huddersfield and Hebden have put them right in the hunt.

Individual results from this match were:

Courier ‘A’ vs. Hebden Bridge ‘A’
P.Watson 1 — 0 M.Parsons
T.Slinger ½ — ½ P.Leonard
D.Patrick 1 — 0 A.Leatherbarrow
R.Clegg ½ — ½ D.Shapland
D.Collegde 0 — 1 N.Sykes
3 — 2

Here are some of the games from the fixtures in this report.

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Download games
ChessTempo PGN Viewer

Jul 092013
 
Like the enraged Achilles tearing the Trojans limb from limb, Peter Rawlings (right) cut a bloody swathe through the serried ranks of Arts Festival Goers

Like the enraged Achilles tearing the Trojans limb from limb, Peter Rawlings (right) cut a bloody swathe through the serried ranks of Arts Festival Goers

The Chess Club played its part in the Hebden Bridge Arts Festival last weekend when an elite team of members took part in the ‘Games Day’ at the Town Hall on Saturday the 29th.

Martin Syrett, John Kerrane and Peter Rawlings set up alongside the Halifax War Games Club, the Hebden Bridge Railway Modellers and Hebdenopoly Games Designers for an afternoon of concentration and friendly competition. Two boards were set up for all-comers along with the Calderdale League’s outdoor chess set for those who felt the need to get a dose of vitamin D whilst they played.

Amongst this collection of gaming nerds our members cut a slightly more ‘approachable’ gib by offering stakes games against the public. Pete ‘the Ripper’ Rawlings mercilessly pocketed one 50p after another as the townsfolk fell to his wiles and as a result the club made a small surplus from the exercise.

However, financial gain was not the main aim of the day. Promoting chess and the chess club was and several participants expressed an interest in coming along on Monday nights. Most encouragingly of all, John was able to speak with a governor from Riverside School who suggested that it might be possible to reinstate the chess club there again. Let us hope that this becomes a reality.

Feb 072012
 

Of course there's no hint of mutiny but Martin Syrett's 'C' team are floating dangerously adrift of Belgrave

Another round of league 1 fixtures were played during the course of last week. After the previous round’s excitement leading to Hebden Bridge ‘A’ hitting the front on their own for the first time this season it was always going to be interesting to see how Todmorden ‘A’ responded to their set back. They hosted Hebden Bridge ‘B’ last Monday. John Kerrane provides the report on this match.

Hebden Bridge ‘B’ travelled to Todmorden on Monday evening to take on title challengers Todmorden ‘A’ in the first division of the Calderdale Chess League.

Having held Courier ‘A’ to a draw the previous week, the Hebden side’s hopes were high, especially as Todmorden ‘A’ were weakened by the absence of their regular board 2 player, Martyn Hamer. However, even an under-strength Todmorden ‘A’ proved too strong for Hebden Bridge ‘B’, and the result of the match was a 4-1 win for Todmorden, giving them some revenge for a loss to Hebden Bridge ‘A’ by the same score the previous week.

Andrew Clarkeson was Todmorden’s top board player on Monday’s night and he kindly sent us the moves and some notes from his exciting game with Andy Leatherbarrow which is well worth replaying. Here is his perspective on proceedings.

Todmorden were struggling before we started. No Martyn Hamer, away on international duty, no Peter Mulleady, and nobody to play board 5! Luckily we ‘found’ Bob Pratt in the bar downstairs and drafted him in to avoid a default.

Bob played a blinder on board 5 and how we needed it! I got into desperate time trouble by move 25 with a losing position. However with both flags hanging I played instantly to extricate myself and it was Andy’s flag that fell! That secured the match for Todmorden and a draw was agreed on board 2 as well because of that. But in the post mortem as we reconstructed the scramble on board 1 it turned out Black had completed his 36th move! It is no consolation that White just had the advantage at that point and another example of how chess can be so unjust.

The individual results were:

Todmorden ‘A’ — Hebden Bridge ‘B’
A. Clarkeson 1 — 0 A. Leatherbarrow
A. Wright ½ -½ M. Syrett
N. Suttie 1 — 0 D. Sugden
R. Tokeley ½ -½ J. Kerrane
R. Pratt 1 — 0 N. Bamford
4 — 1

This result left the ‘B’ team firmly fixed in the relegation zone. There was more bad news for them later in the evening as it emerged that Brighouse had lost to Belgrave 2 — 3, a result that pulled Belgrave a further 2 points clear of danger. The ‘B’s are now 4 points behind them and Captain Syrett and his crew are in great danger of being left too far adrift to escape the drop this season. They made a miracle last year. Can they do it again?

On Thursday night the new league leaders were in Huddersfield to take on the back markers Huddersfield ‘A’. Despite the absence of Darwin Ursal due to illness, Hebden Bridge ‘A’ still fielded a side that was far too strong for Huddersfield as Matthew Webb played a second fixture for Hebden on board 1 and Matthew Parsons moved to board 2.

Parsons was the first to finish his game against young Peter Hepworth. The game was memorable for the interesting static nature of the ending as Black held all of White’s pieces in a zugswang and simple marched his king into a position where it was possible to trade everything off into a won king and pawn ending.

Shortly after this game had finished ended boards 3 and 1 were also completed. Dave Shapland overcame Brian Corner for the second time this season when Brian overlooked a nasty intermezzo that allowed Dave to damage his king’s position. He then compounded his woes by opening up the b-file for Dave to win a piece and set up a murderous attack.

Matty Webb took things more slowly against Chris Stratford’s London System. He played as aggressively as he could but White’s choice of opening is notoriously tough to breakdown and, in the end, Matty had to settle for an ironclad positional advantage that he brought home ruthlessly.

Boards 4 and 5 were always likely to be the most closely contested and so it proved. Pete Leonard generated a decent advantage against Eddie Mellor but then found that his opponents position wasn’t so easy to break down and, when Eddie steadfastly refused to help him out with a tactical oversight, Pete had to settle for a draw in a position he admitted was slightly better for his adversary.

The last game of the night to finish was Nick Sykes’ remorseless grinding down of Mark Rojinsky. Sykes has played the Schliemann Variaiton of the Spanish against this opponent before and it seemed apparent that Rojinsky and learnt from the last game they contested. Nevertheless, Sykes first equalised comfortably and then gained a nagging advantage that eventually paid off. Once he had managed to exchange the queens the resultant rook ending never looked like anything other than a Black win and Sykes jealously protected his advantage to convert the full point. Nick has made a very positive habit of nursing home small advantages this season and has made an excellent contribution to Hebden’s current elevated status.

Huddersfield ‘B’ — Hebden Bridge ‘A’
C.Stratford 0 — 1 M.Webb
P.Hepworth 0 – 1 M. Parsons
B.Corner 0 — 1 D. Shapland
E.Mellow ½ -½ P.Leonard
M.Rojinsky 0 — 1 N. Sykes
½ — 4½

Here are a selection of the games from both Hebden Bridge fixtures last week. They are also available for download via the Chessbase online viewer. The download version contains several games with commentary. My thanks to Matty Webb, Andrew Clarkeson and Pete Leonard for supplying annotations to their games.

Whilst visiting the Lindley Social Club (Huddersfield’s home venue) the Hebden players were also able to watch the most mouth watering tie of the round as Courier ‘A’ visited the reigning champions, Huddersfield ‘A’. Having dropped a point at home to Hebden Bridge ‘B’ last time out, Courier really needed to win and they brought a very strong line up to the fixture. By comparision, Huddersfield were under strength and it transpired that, with fixtures to play on both Friday night and Saturday afternoon, many players had been forced to select which ties to play in. This depletion took it’s toll in the end. The top three boards were all drawn. Huddersfield’s Mitchell Burke was unable to create a lasting advantage against John Morgan. David Firth seemed to have an advantage when he agreed a draw with Courier’s Dave Patrick, but on closer inspection it seemed like Black had some good counter play. On board three Richard Boylan and Robert Clegg were the first to agree peace terms.

Thus, all the decisive action took place on boards 4 and 5. This was where Huddersfield’s lack of strength in depth eventually told. First their captain, Robert Sutcliffe was beaten by Peter Hughes and then, as the evening drew to a close, Courier’s Kevin Winter finished off Stuart Oliver in a complicated game were he had a queen knight and pawns against two rooks, a knight and pawns.

All this leaves the champions 4 points behind the league leaders and they now look unlikely to defend their title. Courier must be warmly congratulated for completing a double over Huddersfield ‘A’ having also won their home match against them. It must be quite some time since any team has managed that feat. Courier’s reward is that they now occupy third place on their own, three points behind Hebden ‘A’ and they still have to play the top two teams. Todmorden ‘A’ remain in second but they must rely on other teams to help them if they are to catch up.

Jan 162012
 

Time for the solutions to this year’s Christmas Quiz. The fabulous prize was a chess set courtesy of this year’s competition sponsors: www.chesssets.co.uk.

Before I dive into the solutions I should say a few words about how I selected the positions. First of all I wanted to use positions from actual games played by Hebden Bridge Chess Club members. Although not all the games were played in Calderdale competitions, I succeeded in doing that.

Secondly, I was hoping to provide a game from each month of the year excepting May (when the league season is just over) and December (which had barely started when I posted the competition). I also managed to do this although some months had slim pickings because not much chess is played in June, July and August!

Finally, I was aiming to try and find a range of games from a number of different players and a range of degrees of difficulty across the problems. I managed to scatter the degree of difficulty quite well but it was harder to find a very balanced representation across the club. The reason for this was simple, not every player plays a game each month that involves a pithy combination or checkmate. When I reviewed the season there were plenty of games that involved gradual positional squeezes. Unfortunately these types of games, though very impressive if you play all the way through them, don’t readily lend themselves to having a tactical “sound-bite” taken out of them for consumption in this kind of affair! I also had to select positions that I myself could manage to glean a good measure of truth from so that I could be confident the answers were correct.

In the end I picked this motley crew and I have to apologise that an embarrassing proportion of them (well 3 anyway) are from my own games which at least I can claim to have a reasonable level of understanding of.

Should anyone want to study these positions and their variations further (I did get quite a lot out of looking at some of the complicated ones in depth) then I’ve uploaded them to the Chessbase Viewer so you can download them.

Congratulations go to Pete Leonard who scored a very respectable 8 out of 11 (question 5 had two parts) and wins the chess set! I gather Mr Leonard used the competition to help him digest his Christmas dinner (and quite a number of subsequent seasonal banquets) although I would like to take this opportunity to remind readers that concentrating too hard after a large lunch might be inadvisable if you are actually playing a match.

Jan 132012
 

Pete Leonard (left) now has a 100% record with his new chess set!

On Monday night the competitors taking part in this season’s Calderdale Individual Chess Championship gathered at the Belgrave Social Club in Halifax to do battle in round 3. At the end of an interesting and exciting evening just three players had managed to preserve a 100% record.

Without doubt the story of the round was Pete Leonard’s victory over last year’s winner and top seed, John Morgan. The night started auspisciously for Pete when he arrived at the club to find he had won this website’s Christmas Quiz. His prize was a beautiful wooden chess set donated by www.chesssets.co.uk and the organisers has set up the board and pieces for him to christen that night.

Pete chose to inaugurated his new toy by playing 1.e4 and John responded by deploying the Pirc Defence, varying from his favourite St. George’s opening (1…a6) which he utilised to defeat Josh Blinkhorn with in round 1. It seems that John may not have responded to Pete’s strategic plan in the very best way. Usually when White advances in the centre with e5 Black will respond to the challenge directly by playing c5 rather than the c6 and b5 advance that Morgan selected.

In itself this was not a critical factor as John succeeded in gaining space on the queen’s side to counter Pete’s extra space in the centre. But Pete successfully stabilised the situation there and made the most of the hole John had left for him on c5 by establishing a knight on the square.

Pete managed to maintain the initiative throughout the middle game and when all the pieces except the rooks had been removed from the board both players had passed pawns but, crucially, Pete’s was further from the enemy king and further advanced up the board. A complicated double rook ending ensued but Pete maintained control of the situation admirably and in the end his passed b-pawn decided matters. No doubt John will be disappointed to have lost the game but he didn’t appear to have played the game too badly and Pete had a very good day at the office. Congratulations go to him for taking down one of the hardest players to beat in Calderdale.

Huddersfield’s number one, Mitchell Burke, dealt with Pete Hughes very efficiently. He gained a positional advantage utilising the Grand Prix Attack against Pete’s Sicilian Defence and, although it might appear that Pete resigned the game a bit early, it must be said that being a pawn down and with very few prospects of counter play against a player of Mitchell’s calibre, the future looked fairly miserable.

Probably the most exciting pyrotechnic game of the evening took place on board three where Darwin Ursal played in thematic and classical fashion to comprehensively take apart Robert Clegg. I’m no expert on the King’s Indian Defence and I’m not familiar with all the ideas but it appears that Robert must have gone astray at some stage late in the opening because Darwin’s pawn storm in the king’s side seemed unstoppable. Perhaps a move like 12.f3 would have held up Darwin’s momentum a little.

Another surprising result was unfolding on board 4 where Hebden Bridge’s Dave Shapland was taking on Halifax’s John Aldridge. Despite giving away more than 50 rating points to Dave, John played extremely well and defended resourcefully and tenaciously right until the end of the night to gain a highly creditable draw. At several points in the game Dave appeared to have gained the upper hand but despite winning the exchange for a pawn, there wasn’t enough material left on the board for him to be able to take advantage and in the end it was John who was playing for a win. Finally, Dave gave back the exchange to remove John’s last remaining pawn leaving just bare kings and a minor piece each.

It was a night for Sicilian Defences it would seem. Pete Hughes and John Aldridge both deployed it and so too did Robert Sutcliffe, Adrian Dawson and Tom Webster. Whilst the first two players did not succeed in winning their games the last three did and Adrian over came a higher rated opponent in the form of Martin Syrett.

Here is the full list of results:

Round 3 Results
P.Leonard 1 — 0 J.Morgan
M.Burke 1 — 0 P.Hughes
R.Clegg 0 — 1 D.Ursal
D.Shapland ½ — ½ J.Aldridge
A.Leatherbarrow ½ — ½ M.Barnett
C.Edwards 0 — 1 R.Sutcliffe
M.Syrett 0 — 1 A.Dawson
N.Bamford 0 — 1 D.Sugden
J.Blinkhorn 1 — 0 M.Levy
D.Milton ½ — ½ C.Velosa
N.Sykes 1 — 0 B.Joyce
A.Gonzalez 1 — 0 J. Nicholson
S.Priest 0 — 1 T.Webster

All the games from the night’s play are available to play through in the viewer below and also to download here.

Round 4 takes place on the 13th of February and the competition is wonderfully poised with Darwin and Pete flying the flag for Hebden Bridge and Mitchell, now the leading highest seed with a perfect score. These three will be joined on the top two boards by Dave Shapland who, despite his draw is still very much in touch and is the only player on 2½.  A large group of players are on 2 points and, should the top two boards both end in draws (not that unlikely a scenario) then the final round could be tremendously competitive.

Leading Scores
3 points: M.Burke, D.Ursal, P.Leonard
2½ points: D.Shapland
2 points: J.Morgan, R.Clegg, P.Hughes, A.Leatherbarrow, R.Sutcliffe, J.Blinkhorn, D.Sugden, A.Dawson, J.Aldridge

Dec 112011
 

Snow stopped play from ukslim's Flickr stream

“Sac’d a piece, but it’s bulls#*t.
Will he see, no he’s missed it.
A beautiful sight,
I’m happy tonight,
Playing in a winter blunderland”
– To the tune of “Winter Wonderland”

As we get closer to Christmas so the posts on this blog will become progressively, cheesily and unapologetically more festive! Last week I launched our Christmas quiz which has been kindly sponsored by www.chesssets.co.uk/. If you haven’t seen it yet, go take a look. I have extended the deadline for entries to New Year’s eve in order to give you the chance to mull the positions over after your turkey and sprouts!

It felt about time to take a break from all the match reports that have been flowing thick and fast so, today’s entry is all about blunders! This chess playing season has been a strange experience for me so far. At least half a dozen games that I’ve played against opposition that has been at least as strong as me have ended with the kind of terminal errors that you would expect to see on the lower boards of a juniors match and not the upper boards of a club match.

I can’t fathom why this might be the case. For my part I’ve been very busy and pretty stressed at work and my captaincy of the Hebden Bridge ‘A’ team has also been an unhelpful distraction from my own playing form at times. However, even taking these things into account I’ve made some pretty crass oversights.

What is even more surprising however, is the number of howlers that have been committed by my opponents. Many more than I’d have expected to be the grateful recipient of in recent years playing at my current level. One consequence of all this generosity is that I have, very often, been the first game to finish in my matches. Years ago, when I used to play fast and loose, this was not an unusual occurrence, but in recent times it has been a much less frequent event.

Here, for your entertainment, and my embarrassment, is a rogues gallery from the last 3 months.

To give you a rough idea of how unusual this selection is, I’d normally expect maybe one or two games to end in this kind of way in a whole season. Yet, here are half a dozen before the halfway mark!

All this talk of blunders sent me scurrying off to my new resource for chess related anecdotes and miscellanea, Christian Hesse’s book “The Joys of Chess: Heroes, Battles and Brilliancies”. The chapter entitled “The Worst of the Worst” seemed a good place to look for terrible mistakes! Below are the two examples he gives which should provide all those blunder prone readers of this website with some source of encouragement in that:

“The best of men have their faults, and the wisest suffer from occasion from a passing blindness”
— Christoph Martin Wieland (1733-1813)

In other words, if the Grandmasters can make blunders, anyone can!

Nov 232011
 

"Mr. Jones and me, we're gonna be big stars..." - Counting Crows

The 25th edition of the British Rapidplay Championships was held at Leeds Metropolitan University’s Beckett Park Campus last weekend. The format consisted of 11 games over the two days and each play received 30 minutes on their clock with which to complete the entire game.

Last year’s champion, Grandmaster David Howell, did not defend his title this time around and so an opportunity was opened for some of the other Grandmasters in the event to try and snatch the crown. Top seed, Gawain Jones (GM), on the right in the picture, did just that scoring a magnificent 10½ out of 11 and winning by a colossal margin from second placed Matthew Turner (GM) who scored 9.

Jones represents the Yorkshire White Rose team in the 4 Nations Chess League so we can lay some claim to him as being one of our own. In addition to this Pudsey Chess Club’s Andrew Bak, a true local player, won the Major Section with a score of 9/11. Congratulations to him.

A number of Calderdale players also took part in the competition.HebdenBridge’s current board 1 player, Darwin Ursal scored 4 in the Open section; Courier’s Dave Patrick scored 5 in the Major; Robert Clegg (also Courier) scored 6 and Halifax’s Carlos Velosa scored 5 in the Intermediate and Terry Sullivan (Hebden Bridge) scored 6 in the Minor.

Normally I’d want to be able to provide a game from one of our local contenders and a game from the winner of the Open. In this case I can achieve both objectives together because our very own Matthew Parsons (facing the eponymous Mr.Jones in the picture above)also took part in the Open and was drawn to face Gawain Jones in round 2. In round 5 he was drawn to face Nigel Davies (GM). He gave a good account of himself in both games which are published in the viewer below. Unfortunately Matthew was not able to compete on the second day of competition but he scored 3/6 on Saturday which is a considerable achievement.

 

Now back to business as usual. There was Calderdale League 2 action taking place across the valley on Monday night. ‘C’ team Captain, John Kerrane, brings us the news from these ties.

On Monday evening, Hebden Bridge Chess Club’s two second division teams were both in action, with contrasting results.

The ‘C’ team, featuring their regular line-up, were playing away against Todmorden ‘C’. Despite an early win by Neil Bamford on board 5, they made hard work of defeating their opponents by a score of 3½-1½. The match hinged on the game on board 3, between Graham Bowker and Hebden Captain John Kerrane, which looked to be heading for a draw, when Bowker made an error leading to an unassailable position for his opponent. His resignation sealed the result.

The individual results were:

Todmorden ’C’ — Hebden Bridge ’C’
T. Webster 1 — 0 T. Sullivan
D. Milton ½ – ½ J. Blinkhorn
G. Bowker 0 — 1 J. Kerrane
R. Pratt 0 — 1 S. Priest
W. Joyce 0 — 1  N. Bamford
1½ — 3½

 The ‘D’ team minnows faced a much tougher task in the form of the second division sharks,HalifaxA, at home. Despite a promising opening by Chris Greaves on board 1 against Carlos Velosa, graded more than 50 points higher, and good defensive play on all boards, the greater experience of the visitors was too much for the Hebden training team, and they went down 5-0 in the end.

The individual results were:

Hebden Bridge ‘D’— Halifax ‘A’
C.Greaves 0 — 1 C.Velosa
T.Wilton-Davies 0 – 1 P.Moss
T.Whelan 0 — 1 R.Cully
D.Crampton 0 — 1 A.Dawson
S.Leatherbarrow 0 — 1  H.Wood
0 — 5
 
Next Monday another round of League 1 fixtures take place and, with the top four sides all playing one another, it’s a round that could go a long way towards deciding the destiny of the title. Stay tuned for the results…
Oct 302011
 

Martin Syrett and his team donned their best war paint for Monday's match with Hebden Bridge 'A'

On Monday night the Trades Club hosted the first derby clash of the season as Hebden Bridge ‘A’ played against Hebden Bridge ‘B’ in Calderdale League 1. In the past these ties have been the first to take place in the fixture list in order to avoid any suggestion of collusion later in the season. This season the sides met in round 3. If there had been any sceptics invigilating this fixture they can rest assured that the ‘B’ team gave their comrades no quarter and were rewarded for their trouble as they ended up stealing a hard earned point.

Both sides fielded changed lines ups from their previous fixtures. The ‘A’ team have been handed a blow to their title hopes by the withdrawal from league competition of their top board, Matthew Parsons. The side still have a strong line up but it looks very different from the team that finished runners-up last season. Dave Wedge, Matthew Wedge-Roberts, Alastair Wright and now Matthew Parsons have all gone. As a result of this new set-back ‘A’ team Captain has drafted in Dave Sugden from the ‘B’ team to play on board 5 and everyone else has moved up the board order.

Martin Syrett’s ‘B’ team thus had to deal with the loss of Dave Sugden and, furthermore, the unavailability of several regular selections due to the fixture being played in half-term week. In the end Martin recruited three ‘C’ team stalwarts in the form of Josh Blinkhorn, Steve Priest and Neil Bamford. They repaid his faith in them by performing admirably on the night.

An early warning shot was fired across the bows of the ‘A’ team has Dave Sugden perished at the hands of Neil Bamford after barely half an hour’s play. Playing a Vienna Gambit, Dave made an uncharacteristic tactical oversight and was dispatched instantaneously by Neil, who is having a wonderful start to this season.

This surprise result left the ‘A’s needing to win 3 out of the last 4 boards to take the match. They weren’t able to do this. First of all in the battle of the team Captains on board 2 Dave Shapland and Martin Syrett agreed to a draw in a lifeless pawn ending. Dave and acceded to the exchange of all the heavy pieces on the basis that he felt the resultant ending was winning for him. He was wrong and Martin held the draw easily.

The remaining three fixtures went right to wire at the end of the evening and could have gone either way. At one point it even seemed that the ‘B’ team would clinch an astounding victory. On board one Darwin Ursal was held to a draw by Andy Leatherbarrow who defended himself stoutly and took advantage of Darwin’s exposed king by giving him perpetual check. Shortly afterwards Pete Leonard and Josh Blinkhorn also agreed to share their point in fascinating, fluctuating battle. The endgame of this encounter is worthy of study as it contains lots of interesting points. Both players had to play very accurately in order to maintain their chances and a draw was a fair result.

This meant that the ‘A’ team had to win the final game of the tie in order to draw level. On board 4 Nick Sykes kept hold of a strong initiative throughout his game against Steve Priest. He developed a raging attack in the middle game and, although he missed a couple of quicker kills, the result was never really in doubt and he duly collected the point at the end of the evening.

The final match score card looked like this then:

Hebden Bridge ‘A’ — Hebden Bridge ‘B’
D.Ursal ½-½ A.Leatherbarrow
D.Shapland ½-½ M.Syrett
P.Leonard ½-½ J.Blinkhorn
N.Sykes 1-0 S.Priest
D.Sugden 0-1 N.Bamford
2½-2½

Congratulations to the ‘B’ team for this excellent result. All their players were all out-graded by 20 points or more so this really is a tremendous achievement.

At the end of the evening the next question to ask was “how much has this draw hurt the ‘A’ team’s title challenge?” The answer was, “not as much as it might have”!

Champions Huddersfield ‘A’ have had a terrible start to the year with consecutive loses to Brighouse and Courier ‘A’. They needed to win to have any chance of fighting their way back into contention and they did just that in a heavy-weight encounter away to Todmorden ‘A’. Both sides fielded phenomenally strong line-ups but it was the visitors who took the spoils. Wins for Chris Booth against Andrew Clarkson, Mitchell Burke against Alastair Wright and Richard Boylan against Chris Edwards were enough for Huddersfield to win 3½-1½.

The season’s early leaders, Courier ‘A’ and Brighouse, both pinched their third successive wins to maintain their 100% records. Courier beat Belgrave 3½-1½ at home and Brighouse, also at home, beat Huddersfield ‘B’ 3-2. Courier and Brighouse now share a 2 point lead at the top of the table although both sides are still to play Hebden Bridge ‘A’ and Todmorden ‘A’. The two race leaders play each other next Monday for the rights to sole leadership.

Hebden Bridge ‘A’ climb over Todmorden ‘A’ into third place in the league. The ‘A’ team must next face Huddersfield ‘A’ away and could therefore soon be caught again. Already this next match is set to be crucial to Hebden’s title challenge. Win, or even draw, and they will be right in the battle. Lose and the champions will draw level with them. If Huddersfield turn up with the same side that won this week it will be an uphill struggle.

Hebden Bridge ‘B’ occupy the lower reaches of the table but should take heart from the fact that they have now played Courier, Todmorden and Hebden Bridge ‘A’ and can look forward to an easier run of fixtures before Christmas. The fact that they have taken a point from these first matches should be a source of some consolation to Captain Syrett. Their next match is away to Huddersfield ‘B’ and they should be optimistic about getting a result against one of their fellow strugglers.

Tune in again next week for further updates as both leagues are in action next week. Our division 2 teams play on Monday and our division 1 teams are in action on Thursday.

Jul 222011
 

In today’s post our club’s top rated player, Matthew Parsons, shows us how he beat his first Grandmaster recently on the Playchess website.

“Blitz Chess is certainly not classical chess, but beating a GM is no less hard. First off you better make sure you have a decent mouse, as you don’t want a mouse slip spoiling it all just about when you are to deliver checkmate! Blitz players are not understanding and will not give take-backs.

I was really pleased recently when I was able to beat a GM for the first time on playchess. In round 1 of a Wednesday night blitz tournament, I beat GM Jakob Meister, FIDE 2494, whose playchess rating at the start of the game was 2568, mine being 1889. 1889 is a bit low for me, I’m normally in the mid-1900‘s, with my highest grade being around 2042.

Now I’ve beaten plenty of FM’s on the server, drawing with and beating a few IM’s, but I have never gotten anything off a GM. Intriguingly enough I had been drawn against this same opponent a few times in recent tournaments in the 1st round, and we had had some close games, but he had won them all.

There’s no secret to beating players of this level. Good chess is good chess, and whilst I knew I couldn’t match him on classical play, I thought I could really narrow the difference in ability by doing my best to unbalance the position and force him to think rather than just playing on a GM’s pattern recognition and experience. After all, we only had 3mins each on the clock, if I could just get an advantage…”

Thanks to Matthew for taking the time to send us this interesting game and annotations.

Jul 152011
 
Let’s have de bait!

Lets start this post with a quote from the man who created chess ratings.

“The process of rating players can be compared to the measurement of the position of a cork bobbing up and down on the surface of agitated water with a yard stick tied to a rope and which is swaying in the wind.”
Arpad Elo, Chess Life, 1962

Yorkshire chess players might want to add a response to the quote above:

“Yes, but having three different ways of measuring the cork’s position isn’t going to make the task any easier is it?”

I recently posted on the new YCA grading list for 2011 and made some observations about them. In particular I said that I felt that, in light of the availability of these new grades alongside the YCA live rating and the proposed new monthly ratings, the Calderdale League needed to clarify it’s position on which of these statistics team captains should be using to help them decide on board order. I asked readers for feedback.

It seems that I have inadvertently opened a can of worms because I got lots of feedback! Thanks to all who took part in the discussion which was the most active we’ve ever had on the blog. Having allowed the comments to roll on for a little while I feel like now would be an appropriate time to try and summarise some of the opinions that have been expressed and maybe to make some recommendations to the league in advance of the AGM which takes place on Monday the 18th of July at the Lee Mount Working Men’s Club in Halifax.

What’s the problem?

The main challenge in my view is how best to ensure that team captains can continue to construct their teams in strength order in a consistent fashion. If some use the live ratings and some use the annual ratings then there may end up being disputes about board sequence.

Why is this important?

You may well ask. Some people are saying that I’m creating an issue that doesn’t exist. To a certain extent they are right. The issue doesn’t exist right now but I think when the new season begins it could start to cause problems and I’m keen to avoid disputes between team captains who may end up using different standards to sequence their board order.

The issue is important because it creates a consistent framework for us to carry out match play. Nearly everyone I know who plays league chess wants to feel that their team is deployed using the same standards as their opponents.There is a perfectly justifiable element of status involved too. If you are a board 1 player you want to be pitted against the other team’s strongest player. Many of the best players in the league are participating in matches because they want to test themselves against the best players at other clubs and if they didn’t feel that was happening then they might decide to stop playing in the league. In the same way, board 5 players want to know that they are playing their opponents weakest player and would feel picked on if they weren’t.

This is why the various new ratings (annual/monthly/live) cause us a potential problem. Which rating should captains be using to help them decide who is their strongest and weakest player and will the opposing team captain (and players) feel compelled to agree when they present their team sheet?

What are the rules?

The current League regulations state that…

“All players must be listed in order of known playing strength. Yorkshire grades used for reference.”

Generally, there is nothing wrong with this regulation. Captains should be (and are) using the YCA ratings to help them determine a player’s strength and justify their board order. If they believe that a player is actually slightly stronger or weaker than his grade (which can be the case when a player’s grade has been calculated from a small number of games played in the previous year) then he can use his judgement and present his team in way to reflect this.

All of this is fine but it is based on captains using the current annual grades as their guide and also assumes that the captain is best placed to understand his players’ current form and strength. The live grades have fundamentally changed this situation because now anyone can get a very accurate idea of any players current form and strength simply by referring to the YCA website and I believe this gives captains less room for latitude in their team selections than previously.

Next season I’ll be captaining Hebden Bridge’s ‘A’ team and will be wanting to ensure that our strongest player is playing on board 1 against our opponents strongest and our weakest player is playing on board 5 and confronting the other team’s weakest. I’ll use the live grades to help me judge the form of my players and if I need to change the board order during the season to reflect the form then I will do so. Likewise I’ll also be studying the opposing team’s form and will want to make sure that this is reflected in their board order. If I don’t think that is being done then I’ll speak to the other team captain before the start of the match and discuss it. The live grades enable me to do this when previously the annual grades did not. Naturally, other team captains may adopt the same approach.

Of course we mustn’t be too pedantic. If there is a very small difference in the live grades of two players then I think it doesn’t matter too much what order they play in. In the same way if a newish player is in the line up then it wouldn’t be right to insist they play in a position merited only by their live grade because it won’t be robust enough to be totally reliable and in this instance the opposing team captain’s judgment should be respected.

What should we change?

I don’t think we need to change very much. In fact I think the current wording in the league regulations is fine (besides that it will be real torture to amend the league’s consititution). However, I do think the league should offer some guidelines to team captains at the start of the season which should include:

  • Clarification that where the current regulations say “Yorkshire grades” they mean the most up to date grades available i.e. the live grades.
  • Guidance on how to raise concerns about board order. This should be done between the captains before the match starts. In this way if one captain isn’t aware of the current live grades then he can be informed by his counterpart and the two can then have a sensible discussion before play begins. If neither captain is aware of the current lives grades then there won’t be an issue!
  • Confirmation that once play has begun it will be assumed both captains are happy with their opponent’s board order. Subsequent protests to the league can be viewed as bad form unless voiced before play began.
  • An indication that some latitude be allowed for a player who is being played out of strict rating order when that player’s grade has been calculated from a small number (less than 10?) of games or when two players with a marginal difference in grade (3 points or less?) are played out of sequence.

This will ensure that some consistency and common sense prevails throughout the season and will enable players to play their matches knowing that they’ve been pitted against the right member of the opposing team.

Of course there is a whole separate issue around which grades to use for the Calderdale Individual Championship. This competition is unusual in that it adopts the same format as a weekend congress but takes place over 5 months and not 3 days. This gives rise to some interesting challenges where live grades are concerned. However, in this case I can’t see how live grades can be used because a Swiss System tournament has to have a static list of players in rating order before the first round draw and that list cannot be re-drafted based on the players’ new lives grades after each round has taken place. Let’s not go there!

I hope that this proposal sounds sensible, rational and fairly straightforward to implement and I also hope that it will enable the league to make the best use of the new rating system. What do you think? Please post a comment below to make your views known.