Oct 242014
 
If one lives by the sword one has to be prepared to die by it also. Sadly last Monday Hebden Bridge 'A' were on the wrong side of the violence. This image is used under Creative Commons terms and sourced from One Lucky Guy's Flickr photostream

If one lives by the sword one has to be prepared to die by it also. Sadly last Monday Hebden Bridge ‘A’ were on the wrong side of the violence. This image is used under Creative Commons terms and sourced from One Lucky Guy’s Flickr photostream

The Hebden Bridge ‘A’ team’s League 1 campaign has begun with an unusually bloodthirsty set of encounters. Having lost to Huddersfield 3-2, with three decisive games and one very hotly contested draw, in their first match of the season they faced Courier ‘A’ and Belgrave in back to back Monday night fixtures on the 6th and 13th of October and a veritable cascade of blood was split in both matches.

On the 6th they hosted Courier ‘A’ who last season came within a whisker of winning the title and served up a double helping of misery to Hebden at home and away. Frankly, the team did not expect much from the match as they had a weaker line up (without Matthew Parsons and Dave Shapland) than in the corresponding fixture last season. However, Courier were also a little bit weaker as Phil Watson played on board 1 for them at the Trades Club in 2013 and he was replaced by Tony Slinger (still a very strong player) for this match. Gone too was last season’s board 5, Pete Hughes, replaced by a slightly weaker player on paper this time in the form of Dave Colledge. Hebden were still out graded on every board but the bottom one then.

As it turned out the Trades Club men were in ferocious mood as they over turned the odds on the top two boards and on board 4 and drew on board 5 to secure an splendid victory and gain a measure of revenge for their shortcomings last season. Team Captain Pete Leonard provides us with some of the match details.

I finished first, after a surprisingly easy victory against John Morgan. Quite uncharacteristically, I sacrificed a piece for two pawns; this was Fritz’s preferred move, so it was sound as well! John immediately blundered and it was then just a question of making sure I didn’t throw it away. 1-0 to Hebden Bridge.

Nick Sykes opened 1.d4, as he said, not wishing to face Robert Clegg’s French. Robert opted for a King’s Indian, which it turned out Nick knew much better than he did. By the time I looked, Nick had a very nice position, with an advanced c pawn that eventually the game for him. 2-0 to Hebden Bridge.

On board 4 Andy Leatherbarrow got into a frightful pickle on the king’s side against Dave Patrick. He got into time trouble as well and went down under pressure. 2-1 to Hebden Bridge.

Andy Bak gained a small advantage early on and just kept it. He finished off nicely after Tony Slinger moved his king to the worst possible square in an endgame. 3-1 to Hebden Bridge.

Finally, on board 5 Martin had looked to be in a dreadful mess against Dave Colledge. He won a pawn but omitted to get his king into safety. Dave missed plenty of winning chances, and was still somewhat ahead when they reached the time control. By that point, we were 3-1 up, so Dave generously offered a draw, which Martin accepted with alacrity!

Here’s the final match score card:

Hebden Bridge ‘A’ vs Courier ‘A’
A.Bak 1 — 0 T.Slinger
P.Leonard 1 — 0 J.Morgan
A.Leatherbarrow 0 — 1 D.Patrick
N.Sykes 1 — 0 R.Clegg
M.Syrett ½ — ½ D.Colledge
3½ — 1½

So there were four decisive games out of five in that match. Then last week Hebden went one better at Belgrave as all five games in the match ended with a resignation rather than a peace treaty. Sadly the result of the match was not such a happy one!

On this occasion Hebden looked like the favourites on paper as they out graded their opponents on every board. The night got off to a splendid start for them as Nick Sykes quickly won a piece for just a pawn against Les Johnson on board 4 and Dave Shapland appeared to have Karim Khan completely bamboozled with his obscure opening play on board 3. The other three boards all began in much more measured and closely contested fashion.

Mid-way through the evening it looked like everything would go according to plan as Pete Leonard pounced on Gordon Farrar’s mistake in the endgame to put Hebden one point up and Nick Sykes inevitably compelled his opponent’s resignation soon after to make it two. Surely nothing could go wrong from here.

Sadly it could. On board 1 Andy Bak appeared to overlook a tactical shot for a material advantage and ended up material down against Malcolm Corbett. He struggled on to the very end of the evening trying to hold a rook and pawn against queen and pawn ending but finally Malcolm’s technique privailed and he converted the full point.

Before this Andy Leatherbarrow had lost control in a tense and complicated strategic struggle with Mike Barnett on board 5. Although he only dropped a pawn his position fell apart in the ending.

The true tragedy was taking place on board 3 however. Dave Shapland had managed to gain a great measure of control in the position out of the opening against Karim but there was still much work to do. The position was very messy and Dave realised that he needed to take some time out to consolidate his position and complete his development before pressing forwards. Karim appeared to be restricted to fairly passivity but defended himself resolutely until he played an inaccurate move that allowed Dave to grab a pawn and demolish the defences around the White king.

Normally Dave is in his element in this kind of situation and he increased his advantage until it was a winning one… but it took him too long on the clock to do it. With both players in some time trouble and the position still terribly complicated Dave overlooked a defensive resource, mistakenly pressed ahead with his attack when he needed to defend and suddenly found himself getting checkmated. Sometimes when you live by the sword, you also die by it.

The outcome was a stunning reversal and Belgrave continue to be a real bogey side for Hebden ‘A’ when they are playing at home. Here’s the final match scorecard:

Belgrave vs. Hebden Bridge ‘A’
M.Corbett 1 — 0 A.Bak
G.Farrar 0 — 1 P.Leonard
K.Khan 1 — 0 D.Shapland
L.Johnson 0 — 1 N.Sykes
M.Barnett 1 — 0 A.Leatherbarrow
3 — 2

Elsewhere in League 1 the title seems to be becoming a two horse race between Huddersfield and Todmorden ‘A’ already. On the 13th Huddersfield travelled to the champions Halifax ‘A’ and dealt their hopes of retaining the title a huge blow by beating them 2 — 3. The week before Halifax had travelled to Todmorden ‘A’ and lost 3½ — 1½ so they are now 1 and 2 for the season to date. Critical to Huddersfield’s success last week was Matthew Parsons’ win on board 1 against Winston Williams whilst Daves Firth and Tooley also won against Sam Scurfield and Scott Gornall respectively.

Todmorden ‘A’ seem to have found some very handy new players this season. They travelled to Brighouse (a destination they’ve performed poorly at in the past) without top board Martin Hamer but they came away with a convincing victory of 1½ — 3½. The damage was done in the middle order by Messrs Cook, Gil-Fresno and Clarkson.

All this means that Tod and Huddersfield are the only two teams with a perfect record and next Monday that statistic can’t fail to change as the two play each other at Todmorden as Huddersfield begin the season with four away fixtures in succession! It looks like we’ll find out what these two teams are made of.

Courier ‘A’ bounced back from that defeat to Hebden Bridge by seeing off Tod ‘B’ at home last week. This puts them back in touch with the leaders as the only other team with two wins to their name. Behind Courier, Belgrave are the fourth team in the table with a win, a draw and a defeat. Then come Hebden ‘A’ and Halifax ‘A’ with a single win each, Brighouse with a draw and Tod ‘B’ prop up the table with no points thus far. They have however been very competitive in all their matches and won’t be taken lightly by anyone.

Next Monday besides the Todmorden vs. Huddersfield match there is also a match between Halifax ‘A’ and Courier ‘A’ which you’d already have to classify as a ‘must win’ for the title holders. Meanwhile Hebden Bridge travel to Brighouse knowing that they need a result to stay out of the relegation dog fight and Todmorden ‘B’ host Belgrave hoping to get their season off to a start at the fourth attempt.

In the game viewer below you’ll fine a number of games from the last two rounds of Hebden Bridge fixtures as well as the game between Matthew Parsons and Wintson Williams which Matthew kindly sent on to us.

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Oct 032014
 
Rusty brain cogs stuttered back into action over the last few weeks as the Calderdale League begins again. Image used under Creative Commons terms and sourced from  mclcbooks' Flickr photostream

Rusty brain cogs stuttered back into action over the last few weeks as the Calderdale League begins again. Image used under Creative Commons terms and sourced from mclcbooks’ Flickr photostream

Over the last couple of Monday evenings the first round of a new Calderdale Evening Chess League season has begun as players up and down the valley tried to remember how to move the pieces, press the clock and record the moves after their summer holidays.

League 1 Report

Reigning League 1 champions Halifax ‘A’ hosted Brighouse, Courier ‘A’ hosted Belgrave and Todmorden ‘A’ and ‘B’ contested their two derby fixtures. We’ll come back to these matches in a moment. First of all let’s cover Hebden Bridge ‘A’s opening assignment against Huddersfield.

The match was originally due to be played on Wednesday night at Huddersfield but Hebden Bridge’s new captain Pete Leonard requested a swap of the home and away fixtures when it came to light a month or so before the match that, for one reason or other, Hebden were going to struggle to field a team on that Wednesday night. Huddersfield captain Dave Tooley generously granted the switch and so Huddersfield travelled to the Trades Club on the Monday night.

Last season the two sides swapped away wins but changes to both line ups in the close season meant that Huddersfield appeared to be firm favourites on paper this time. Matthew Parsons decided to switch his allegiances over the summer and represented Huddersfield rather than Hebden in this match. Add the other team members of Greg Eagleton, Mitchell Burke, Dave Keddie and Dave Tooley and that meant Hebden would be heavily out-graded on every board.

However, when Mitchell suddenly became unavailable on the night of the fixture Huddersfield donated a board to their hosts and the complexion of the tie changed. Could Hebden take anything from the match when given a point’s head start? As ever it was a very tight contest between these two sides with the Hebden players sensing the opportunity to upset their more powerful rivals.

Sadly the night did not get off to a very positive start for the hosts as the stand in captain on the night (Pete Leonard was on holiday) Dave Shapland, lost in fairly short order to Matthew Parsons who was promoted up to board 2 in Mitchell’s absence. These two have played each other many times and Dave has never won a game at the standard league time limits. Never the less he gave Matthew a stern test the last time he played with the White pieces and, possibly as a result, Matthew opted for the solid Caro-Kan Defence rather than the more volatile Sniper which has become his trade mark.

Dave eschewed some of the more manic lines he’s been known to play and chose instead the mainline which seemed to give him a solid position with a miniscule edge if anything at all. However, just as the game was poised to get interesting in the middle game Dave blundered a piece and resigned in dismay very shortly afterwards. His recent run of form does not bode well for the season to come.

Huddersfield had already erased their arrears and now the match would be decided over three boards. Next to finish was Andy Leatherbarrow’s game against Dave Keddie on board 3. This was not the most thrilling of encounters as Andy, who was conceding over 20 rating points to his opponent, sensibly charted a solid course through the opening against a very passive Black set up. Pieces were exchanged and the players quickly reached a queen and pawn ending which could have been continued but a draw was agreed almost immediately. Neither of the players was prepared to take a big risk and with the match in the balance that wasn’t an unreasonable decision.

Quite the contrary to this game the board 1 encounter was played in the most gungho, adrenalin-fuelled fashion. Andy Bak took on Greg Eagleton’s Najdorf in the most direct and critical way possible and Greg responded by steering the game into the infamous ‘Poisoned Pawn’ variation where White gives up his b2 pawn in exchange for speedy development and good attacking chances. The variation is known to be mind-bendingly complicated and this game was no exception as both players consumed time on their clocks early in the game trying to fathom what was going on.

The game was fascinating and the onlookers were greatly entertained but as is so often is the case in these types of game the clock ended up deciding the result. With only a minute or so left to make 8 or 9 moves, both players were in desperate straits and could easily have blundered. Andy ran out of time as he made his 36th move but in his haste to make time control himself Greg didn’t notice and also ran out of time. Both flags had fallen and the players weren’t entirely sure whether or not they’d made the requisite number of moves. Had they done so they might well have put the clocks back and continued but when they reconstructed their final moves it became clear that neither of them had made it and so they correctly and sportingly agreed on a draw. The match was level at two all.

This left the game between Nick Sykes and Dave Tooley which was a tight and tense affair for entirely different reasons. Both players were rock solid as Dave played the French Defence and Nick built up a pleasant space advantage which looked like it would place him in at no risk but would also be very difficult to convert. They could logically have agreed on a draw very early on in the evening but both played on each sensing that they might need to win the game to help their team gain a result.

On and on they went with the position simplifying down to rook, knight and pawn endgame. Dave managed to snatch a pawn but with the pieces still on and only a two to one pawn advantage a draw still seemed the most logical outcome. That result would have given Hebden a famous fighting draw but unfortunately Nick couldn’t manage to hang on in difficult circumstances. Fatefully he acquiesced to exchange knights when a rook exchange would have been more conducive to holding the balance. Dave’s king and rook were well placed to shepherd home the last remaining pawn and at the very end of the night Nick tipped his king and Huddersfield edged the tie 3 — 2.

Here is the final match scorecard:

Hebden Bridge ‘A’ vs. Huddersfield
A.Bak ½ — ½ G.Eagleton
D.Shapland 0 — 1 M.Parsons
A.Leatherbarrow ½ — ½ D.Keddie
N.Sykes 0 — 1 D.Tooley
M.Syrett 1 — 0 DEFAULT
2 — 3

The other fixtures in round 1 were similarly close which perhaps suggests some rustiness after the summer break. Halifax ‘A’ will sit atop the first 2014-15 league table of the season as they were the only side to win by more than a single point. They saw off Brighouse 3½ — 1½ but this hides the fact that they were donated two defaults and only tied the top three boards with a win a draw and a loss. Halifax don’t appear to be quite as strong as they were last season as they are missing Winston Williams but Bill Somerset and Darwin Ursal both played in this match contrary to rumours that they too would be absent this year.

Last season Todmorden ‘A’ only lost a single game when they had the home advantage. So, when they sported two new players who were strong enough to demote Andrew Clarkson to board 5 (!) it appeared that they would completely dominate their ‘B’ team. That didn’t happen though as Pete Mulleady could only manage a draw against Mike Connor and the new boys on boards 3 and 4 only mustered a half point between them. It was left to ‘A’ team stalwarts Hamer and Clarkson to secure victory by the narrowest possible margin and Tod ‘A’ have now already lost their first game at home this season.

Last but certainly not least Courier ‘A’ beat Belgrave 3 — 2 at home with Messrs Slinger (board 1) and Cawston (board 3) scoring victories in a new look line up for Courier as Robert Clegg and John Morgan were both absent. Belgrave meanwhile were without Malcolm Corbett but still managed to win on board 2 as Karim Khan beat Dave Patrick. Boards 4 and 5 were drawn.

All of this means that the top four teams from last season once again asserted their authority as Halifax are followed by Huddersfield, Todmorden ‘A’ and Courier ‘A’ whilst Hebden ‘A’, Brighouse, Belgrave and Todmorden ‘B’ appear to be in the fight to stay up. The next round of fixtures is on the 6th of October and the choice tie of the round appears to be Halifax’s visit to Todmorden ‘A’.

League 2 Newsflash

On Monday evening the League 2 teams got underway with Hebden Bridge ‘B’ and ‘C’ both in action. John Kerrane provides a brief report and results:

Hebden Bridge B opened their season with an away match against Courier B in Halifax, and came away 3½-1½ winners, aided largely by a double default by their opponents. The individual results were:

Courier ‘B’ vs. Hebden Bridge ‘B’
J. Smith ½ — ½ A. Leatherbarrow
P.Jacobs 0 — 1 M. Syrett
R. Bottomley 1 — 0 D. Crampton
DEFAULT 0 — 1 R. Deravairere
DEFAULT 0 — 1 A.Brown
1½ — 3½

Meanwhile, Hebden Bridge C travelled to Todmorden WMC to take on Todmorden C, and were thrashed 4½-½. Only captain John Kerrane managed to salvage half a point and avoid a whitewash. The individual results were:

Todmorden ‘C’ vs. Hebden Bridge ‘C’
D. Milton ½ — ½ J. Kerrane
P. Logan 1 — 0 T. Sullivan
T. Webster 1 — 0 C. Greaves
R. Pratt 1 — 0 D. Leggett
B. Joyce 1 — 0 A. Connors
4½ — ½

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Sep 302014
 

Once again apologies to all readers for the recent lack of timely updates on these pages. I promise it has nothing to do with my own recent string of embarrassing defeats (although I admit that doesn’t do a lot for my motivation!) Here is a brief report from John Kerrane on this year’s club lightning tournament which was played a couple of weeks ago. There will be a report on the first round of Calderdale league matches in the next day or two.

On Monday the 15th twelve players met at  the Trades Club to contest the club’s annual Lightning Competition, the traditional pre-season event on the week before the start of the Calderdale league season.

With a move every ten seconds on a buzzer, you need steady nerves and a bit of luck, as well as the usual chess-playing skills. At the beginning of the game, ten seconds seems quite manageable, but as the game wears on and the position becomes more complicated, blunders and oversights soon start appearing.

In the event, the competition produced a clear winner in John Allan, who led from the early rounds, with a final score of 5½/6. He was well ahead of the two runners-up on 4/6, Dave Shapland and Pete Leonard. Again, Dan Crampton produced the unexpected result of the evening, taking half a point from Allan in the first round.

The individual scores were:

J. Allan = 5½
P. Leonard and D. Shapland = 4
J. Kerrane and N. Sykes = 3½
D. Crampton, A. Leatherbarrow and C. Greaves = 3
T. Sullivan and M. Syrett = 2½
R. Deravairere = 1
A. Connors = 0

One of the most entertaining games of the evening was the following king hunt by Nick Sykes against… (oh look!) me. For some reason I decided to test Nick’s nerve and memory by inviting him to play the deadly dangerous Traxler Variation of the Two Knights Defense which I never play with White and he has great experience of with Black. I threw further petrol on the fire by opting for the 5.Nxf7!? line which demands complete accuracy from both players in order to avoid immediate disaster. Sadly I simply wasn’t up to the task (9.d6 was correct I believe and only then 10.c3) and Nick played in thematic fashion to draw my king out into the open and then mate him on a6!. An enjoyable romp I hope at least other readers will agree, even if I must avert my eyes.

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