Sep 022014
 
Hebden Bridge Chess Club travelled to the Albert Hotel in Keighley for a pre-season friendly

Hebden Bridge Chess Club travelled to the Albert Hotel in Keighley for a pre-season friendly

After a nice long break for the summer I’m starting up the website again as the usual pre-season activity begins. Last week six Hebden Bridge players travelled to Keighley for a friendly match that was a return tie for last year’s equivalent which I think was played over ten boards.

Here’s John Kerrane’s match report:

The new Calderdale league season approaches, and Hebden Bridge Chess Club accepted an invitation from Keighley Chess Club to a warm up match at their home venue, The Albert Hotel, Keighley. A six-strong team from Hebden Bridge set out across the moor on Wednesday evening to take up the challenge.

The Hebden side was a little weakened since the corresponding match last year, and were surprised to find that Keighley had made a very strong addition to their line-up in the form of Greg Eagleton, one of Huddersfield’s leading players.

A couple of blunders on lower boards left the Hebden side struggling, and although the other team members fought back hard, the match slipped away from them. The last game to finish was between Eagleton and Hebden Bridge captain Pete Leonard, who put up a strong fight, but succumbed in the end, leaving the home side with a 4-2 victory.

The individual results were:

Keighley vs. Hebden Bridge
G. Eagleton 1 – 0 P. Leonard
R. Zaidman ½ – ½ N. Sykes
D. Duffton ½- ½ J. Kerrane
M. Cunningham 1 – 0 T. Sullivan
M. Boyd 0 – 1 N. Bamford
J. Nuttall 1 – 0 D. Crampton
4 – 2

Pete Leonard and Nick Sykes have annotated their games and these can be found in the game viewer at the end of this post.

Here are the important dates coming up in the month of September:

  • 8th of September: Matthew Webb Simul 
    Matty will play a 20 board simultaneous match against Hebden Bridge Chess Club players and invited guests. This will be held at the Trades Club and will begin at 7.30pm. The match will be played as a clock simul where the standard Calderdale League time limits apply on all boards (36 moves in 75 minutes + 15 minutes allegro finish). Matty has been playing in occasional matches for Hebden Bridge for the past three seasons and had a very impressive season indeed in 2013-14. He played in the Bradford A side that took the Yorkshire League Division 1 title and he represented White Rose in the 4NCL this season too. Altogether he played 23 games in Yorkshire last season winning 20 and drawing just 3! This saw his Yorkshire rating rocket to 217 and he is currently the 5th player on the YCA rating list. This will be his first ever simultaneous match and there are still a handful of places available for any Calderdale League players that might be interested. If you would like to play please email us as soon as possible to confirm your place. hebdenbridgechessclub@gmail.com
  • 15th of September: Club Lightning Competition
    We’ll be holding our traditional curtain raiser for the league season  at the Trades Club on Monday the 15th. All members are encouraged to coming along for a fun evening of high speed chess. The Lightning format of the game allows each player just 10 seconds per move with each move being played on the sound of a buzzer. There are always plenty of thrills and spills and the playing field is generally levelled with the amount of thinking time reduced.
  • 22nd of September: League 1 fixtures begin. Hebden Bridge ‘A’ are due to play Huddersfield
  • 29th of September: League 2 fixtures begin with Hebden Bridge ‘B’ playing away at Courier ‘B’ and Hebden Bridge ‘C’ playing at Todmorden ‘C’

I’ll be posting reports on both the simul and the lightning competition as well as a review of last season and a preview of the forth coming one. in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

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  3 Responses to “Pre-season activity”

  1. Watching Nick’s game with a quarter of an eye, I thought he should have switched his rooks to the d file, starting with 24.Rd1. I even thought there was scope for Rd7. Fritz, of course, disagrees and suggests 24.Rf2 Qb6 25,Nf1 Rad8 26.Ne3 Rd6 27,Ncd5 Bxd5 28.Nxd5 Qd8 29.Ref1 Ree6 30.h4, rating this as +1.18 for White. With an exposed king and that backward f pawn, you’d think Black ought to lose but it’s not easy.

  2. Just looked quickly at petes game. The theme to me is space and activity. Greg didn’t do anything spectacular, he just grabbed space and put his pieces on better squares. Though game was open to any outcome until black played c6.

  3. In Nicks game,

    I would have played d4 instead of f4 on move 18, eliminated backward pawn, freeing position, may not be better, just a matter of style.

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