Hebden Bridge Chess Club

Take it from someone who’s played for title winning sides and relegated ones – sometimes playing chess in the Calderdale can feel a little bit like your bullying or being bullied by the opposition! Chess is a hard game. Last week it was Belgrave ‘B’s turn to take a pummeling. Next week, who knows? Photo: Thomas Ricker’s Flickr photostream

In today’s post we’ll catch up on Calderdale Evening League action from last week and this week and get ourselves back up to date with our reporting.

League 1

On Monday 11th of November, League 1 teams convened for their fifth round of fixtures this season. The leaders after round 4 were Halifax ‘A’ who’d taken advantage of Hebden Bridge ‘A’ drawing their home match against Huddersfield ‘A’ last time out to sneak ahead. Halifax were at home to the bottom team in the division Brighouse.

In a top versus bottom clash you’d expect the leaders to win fairly comfortably. However, Halifax defaulted their board 3 and thus found themselves playing catch up right from the off. The teams traded wins on the top two boards with Brighouse’s Robert Broadbent beating Richard Porter and Halifax’s Winston Williams (playing on board 2 for some strange reason) beating Nick Hudson. Sam Scurfield won for the hosts on board 5 and so the outcome of the match hinged on the game between Carlos Velosa and Tim Pryke. Despite there being nearly a 70-point rating advantage in Velosa’s favour, Pryke managed to hold a draw and so Halifax were only able to tie the match.

All of this was unknown across town at the Belgrave Club where Hebden Bridge ‘A’ and ‘B’ were visiting Belgrave ‘A’ and ‘B’ respectively. Wins for the visitors would see the ‘A’ team catch Halifax again and the ‘B’ team close the gap between themselves and top spot to one point.

Let’s start with the ‘B’ team’s match up. Hebden ‘B’ have been utterly consistent with the line up of their top four boards this season. Hamer, Cook, Clarkson and Swain have so far done them proud in being matched in only one fixture – the one against their ‘A’ team – so far this season. Duties on board 5 have rotated around somewhat with Richard Bedford, Pete Leonard, Paul Gledhill and for this match, John Kerrane, all taking turns.

Belgrave ‘B’ were out-rated by almost 30-points on every board but the bottom one where John Kerrane out-pointed Les Johnson by 7-points. The match turned out to be as one-sided as the ratings would have led speculators to predict. The ‘B’ team bullied their way to a 4½ – ½ victory with only Andrew Clarkson conceding a draw to Dave College. Here is the full match scorecard:

Belgrave ‘B’ vs. Hebden Bridge ‘B’
G.Farrar 0 – 1 M.Hamer (W)
M.Barnett 0 – 1 P.Cook (W)
D.Colledge ½ – ½ A.Clarkson (W)
C.Edwards 0 – 1 S.Swain (W)
L.Johnson 0 – 1 J.Kerrane (W)
½ – 4½

Bizarrely, Sam Swain played Chris Edwards for the second time in two matches as the two also faced each other on the same board when Belgrave ‘A’ visited Todmorden for their round 4 match. At least they played with opposite colours this time around! This was the ‘B’ team’s second win by such a convincing margin and they have the highest board count (14) of all the teams in the division after five rounds of play.

On the other side of the room at the Belgrave Social Club, Hebden Bridge ‘A’ were engaged in a mortal struggle with their hosts, Belgrave ‘A’. Both teams were back to full strength having fielded slightly weakened line ups in their last matches. Belgrave welcomed Tony Slinger back on board 3 and Malcolm Corbett on board 4. Hebden meanwhile saw Matthew Parsons, Stavros Pantazopoulos and Dave Shapland return to the fray having missed their last match. The two sides looked pretty evenly matched on the lower boards and so it looked like the outcome of the top two boards, where Hebden had larger rating advantages, would be critical.

All five games were very keenly contested. The first to finish was the board 4 encounter between Andy Leatherbarrow and Malcolm Corbett. Andy had chosen to meet Malcolm’s Alekhine’s Defence with the relatively modest but tense and strategically complex Voronezh System of the Exchange Variation. Often in this line, White gets a pleasant space advantage but, with thematic and well-rehearsed preparation, Black can find ways to fight for equality. That was pretty much what happened in this game. Malcolm broke out in the centre with 10…e5, Andy took the opportunity to gain space when he responded with 11.d5 but Malcolm countered by manouevring his knight with 11…Ne7 and 12….Nf5.

A few moves later Andy was able to secure a small but stable advantage when he exchanged knights on c5 and created a passed d-pawn. However, he didn’t find the right method to try and maintain his edge, allowed Malcom to create a passed pawn of his own on d4 and then, when both pairs of rooks came off it seemed clear that the position was pretty sterile, even with queens and a bishop pair each still on the board. In fact, my chess engine seems to think that White was slightly better when the draw was agreed but Andy was somewhat low on time and, with no other results certain in the match, made the right decision to maintain the balance of the score line.

The visitors took the lead in the next game to finish when Dave Shapland beat Tony Slinger on board 3. This game transposed from a Sicilian Defence into a pseudo Spanish or Italian Game due to a move order trick. Again, both players developed their strategies in thematic fashion. Dave transferred his knights to the king’s side and his queen to f3 in order to and try and occupy the f5 square and build a direct assault on the Black king while Tony looked to counter on the queen’s side by expanding with b5-a5-a4.

Dave was ready for Tony’s plan though and threw his bishop into h6. At this moment Tony selected the wrong defensive option and Dave was able to secure a winning positional advantage and an iron grip on the game with an unchallengeable knight on the f5 outpost. The Belgrave man wriggled on the hook for a few moves before giving up when the queens were exchanged at which point Dave was three pawns up.

Despite taking the lead in the match the overall situation was far from clear at this moment in proceedings. On board 5 Neil Suttie had lost a piece very early on against Karim Kahn, who essayed the rare and highly tactical Elephant Gambit! Neil had some compensation for the piece and the game was hugely unclear and complex but objectively, he was probably losing.

On board 2 Stavros Pantazopoulos took on Dave Patrick’s Slav Defence but seemed to be able to make no significant impact in the opening and Dave appeared to have at least neutralised the situation by the time the board 3 game was over. He might even have been slightly better.

Finally, on board 1, Matthew Parsons and John Morgan were locked into one of Matthew’s London Systems which John had met in enterprising fashion by playing 2…b5. At first it looked like Matthew would perform his usual trick of slowly outplaying his opponent using his superior knowledge and understanding of the resultant middle game position but on this occasion John fought back. First of all, he landed a blow that Matthew had completely overlooked and then he won an exchange when Matthew blundered in what was otherwise still an equal position.

From Suttie vs. Khan in the Belgrave ‘A’ vs Hebden Bridge ‘A’ match. White to play. What would you do here? Solution in the game viewer at the end of this post

At this point in the evening two defeats and a draw looked like the likely outcome on the last three board for Hebden and that would see them lose the match. Thankfully, two of their three players were able to improve their situations. First, Neil fought back against Karim. He managed to win back his piece although it was at the expense of going two pawns down. It was a very hard game to both assess and play and both combatants got into pretty desperate time trouble as they approached time control. In the last few moves of the game Neil, in his haste, missed both a tough checkmate and then another clear winning line. Karim meanwhile rustled up enough activity to salvage a draw by perpetual check. It was probably a just result.

Sadly, no such justice was on offer for the stout resistance out up by Dave Patrick on board 2. He and Stavros reached an endgame in which they both had four pawns, a knight and a queen. Dave had a distant passed pawn on the b-file. In these types of position’s however, the initiative is crucial as a knight and a queen can be very dangerous indeed when working together. Stavros found a way to offer Dave a pawn in order to take the initiative. Dave misjudged the resultant position as both players time began to run out and Stavros forced a decisive attack home.

These two results meant that Hebden had already sealed match victory by the time John had, to his great credit, seen out a hard-earned victory over Matthew in the last game of the night to finish.

Here is the match scorecard:

Belgrave ‘A’ vs. Hebden Bridge ‘A’
J.Morgan 1 – 0 M.Parsons (W)
D.Patrick 0 – 1 S.Pantazopoulos (W)
T.Slinger 0 – 1 D.Shapland (W)
M.Corbett ½ – ½ A.Leatherbarrow (W)
K.Khan ½ – ½ N.Suttie (W)
2 – 3

Your editor can’t remember the last time Hebden Bridge lost on top board for two matches in a row. Surely the run won’t continue and fortunately the results have not cost them too dearly as they rejoin Halifax at the top of the table on 7 points behind the leaders only by a single drawn board. However, Hebden Bridge’ B’ are now breathing down the necks of the leaders as they have 6 points and a better board count. Hebden Bridge ‘B’ play Halifax at home in their next match on Monday while Hebden Bridge ‘A’ host Belgrave ’B’. The title race is shaping up nicely.

League 2

This Monday night the four League 2 teams faced each other again with Hebden Bridge ‘C’ hosting the run-away leaders Huddersfield ‘B’ and Halifax ‘B’ hosting Belgrave C’.

Unfortunately, Hebden were unable to stop Huddersfield’s momentum and continue their recent run of good form as they went down heavily 1 – 4. Paul Gledhill and Chris Marsden were able to hold draws against players of similar ratings to their own, but John Alllan, John Kerrane and Terry Sullivan went down to David Gray, Granville Boot and Bryn Charlesworth respectively. Here is the final match scorecard:

Hebden Bridge ‘C’ vs. Huddersfield ‘B’
J.Alllan 0 – 1 D.Gray (W)
J.Kerrane 0 – 1 G.Boot (W)
P.Gledhill ½ – ½ J.Hill (W)
T.Sullivan 0 – 1 B.Charlesworth (W)
C.Marsden ½ – ½ C.Haigh (W)
1 – 4

In the other match to take place this week, Belgrave ‘C’ re-took sole possession of second place with a closely fought victory over Halifax ‘B’ at Halifax. Pete Moss managed to win for the hosts on board 2 but wins by Les Johnson over John Nicholson on board 3 and Paul Edwards over Barry Wadsworth on board 4 were enough to see the visitors to victory.

There are a few games from the Belgrave ‘A’ vs Hebden Bridge ‘A’ match in the game viewer below.

Hebden Bridge ‘C’ got off the mark at the third time of asking last Monday night when they beat Halifax ‘B’ away. Photo credit: The U.S. Army’s Flickr photo stream

Just a short report this week folks as your Editor is away on his holidays.

Last Monday night saw the third round of Calderdale League 2 take place with the top two teams facing each other for the right to lead the League and the bottom two facing off to see who would get out of the basement.

Sadly Hebden Bridge ‘C’ were in the second of these contest having lost against Belgrave ‘C’ and Huddersfield ‘B’ by the narrowest possible margin. Now they faced Halifax ‘B’ in a match that would decided who would be the back markers after the first of four rounds of fixtures.

Hebden fielded their strongest line up yet with Andy Leatherbarrow on board 1 and Pete Leonard on board 2. Neil Bamford played on 3 with Paul Gledhill on 4 and Chris Marsden on 5.

Hebden’s captain on the night was Andy Leatherbarrow and he reports that it was a very noisy night at the Lee Mount venue as the players had to play in room next to bar rather than the usual room due to the venue having other conflicting commitments. There were some very loud drunken people around which made concentrating on the games rather hard but it seemed to disturb the home side more than the visitors.

Horward Wood played Andy on board 1 was so perturbed that he decided to resign on the loss of a pawn early on as he was fed up with background noise. Shortly afterwards Pete Leonard won on board 2 when his opponent blundered horribly and this was followed by Neil Bamford winning on board 3. Chris Marsden also won what was just his second ever competitive over the board game. He must think  this chess lark is all rather easy! Last to finish was board 4 where Paul Gledhill struggled on a pawn down but lost to Barry Wadsworth in an endgame.

Here’s the match scorecard:

Halifax ‘B’ vs. Hebden Bridge ‘C’
H.Wood 0 – 1 A.Leatherbarrow (W)
D.Rowley 0 – 1 P.Leonard (W)
A.Whiteley 0 – 1 N.Bamford (W)
B.Wadsworth 1 – o P.Gledhill (W)
E.Fynn 0 – 1 C.Marsden (W)
1 – 4

In the other League 2 match, Huddersfield ‘B’ seized sole ownership of the top spot after they beat Belgrave ‘C’ 2 – 3 away. The home side succeeded in beating higher rated opponents on board 2 and 3 where Chris Edwards and Les Johnson took down David Gray and Granville Boot respectively. However, the visitors won all three of the other boards to take the match.

This week the League 1 teams return to action and we hope to bring you a brief report and some games from the Hebden Bridge teams later this week.

Ingmar Bergmans’ ‘The Seventh Seal’ contains the most iconic chess game in cinematic history. At it’s heart Max Von Sydow’s character chooses to answer our question for today: “Chess or extinction?” with the answer “Chess”. Which of us wouldn’t do the same?

On Monday night patrons of the Golden Lion in Todmorden were greeted with this seemingly stark ultimatum as they entered the premises. The occasion was the first local derby match of the Calderdale Evening Chess League season between Hebden Bridge ‘A’ and Hebden Bridge ‘B’ and the alternative on offer was an ‘Extinction Rebellion’ group meeting taking place upstairs. Our genial host merrily posited these two options from behind the bar to any customer who she didn’t really recognise. It didn’t fail to raise a chuckle from the chess players, who were in the know, and quizzically alarmed looks from genuine newcomers.

It’s the kind of scenario that can only really happen out at the Golden Lion. On Monday what could turn out to be one of the most serious and earnest chess matches of the season was punctuated by musical interludes from the bar next door. Funky breaks and wailing guitar solos were in plentiful supply. It could have been off-putting (and possibly would have been at another venue) but at the Golden Lion pretty much all the players seemed to be bobbing their heads in appreciation and even humming the tunes to themselves at some point. It certainly didn’t seem to adversely affect the standard of the chess being played, which was pretty high.

Last year, the Hebden Bridge based team beat the Todmorden based team not only in the corresponding fixture but to the title too. The Golden Lion fraternity had a desperately awful start to the season last year, drawing one and losing four of their first five matches. They were not helped by having some lower rated players on boards 4 and 5 early for the early matches before the roster stabilised. This time around, with Hebden Bridge ‘C’ having been relegated last year and a few new players arriving at the club, the ‘B’ team is stronger. Much stronger. Ferociously strong. The five players in the line-up on Monday sported an average ECF rating of 174.8!! Those five in order were Martyn Hamer; the Calderdale Individual Champion of the last three seasons, Phil Cook; Andrew Clarkson; Sam Swain and Richard ‘Beaky’ Bedford. It’s got to be one of the strongest lines-ups ever fielded in the league – certainly it is just about the strongest your correspondent has ever seen.

The reigning champions had strengthened their line up too! They boasted an average rating of 172.8 and were comprised of Matthew Parsons; Calderdale League debutant, Stavros Pantazopoulos; Dave Shapland, Andy Leatherbarrow and Neil Suttie. With the two teams so closely matched it was bound to be a tight, tense and enthralling match. It also promised to be a very late night, and that was exactly how it turned out.

The ‘A’ team playing White, did their best to try and exploit their ‘advantage’ in the early stage of the evening. On board 1, Matthew and Martyn duelled in Matthew’s favorite London System. The early exchanges were very cagey and Matthew appeared to get very little from the opening despite his best efforts. On board 2 it was a different story as Phil met Stavro’s 1.d4 and 2.c4 with a very unorthodox approach. It cost him a pawn early on and it wasn’t clear if it was a gambit or a blunder, but it certainly led to some unclear and unusual positions. More importantly, it caused Stavros to start thinking hard and, with him playing the relatively short evening league time limits for the first time, he soon got very behind on the clock.

Dave Shapland sprang a surprise on Andrew Clarkson on board 3 – well maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t – as he decided to take on Andrew’s Grunfeld rather than having yet another go at his Pirc which he has never yet been able to defeat. Inspired by some recent games from the FIDE World Cup, Dave played the first moves of the mainline exchange variation and then selected an offbeat continuation with 8.Bb5+. He succeeded in stabilising his pawn centre and getting his pieces developed onto active squares in the opening while Andrew was given some problems to solve from the early stages.

Andy Leatherbarrow and Sam Swain contested an English Opening in which the centre of the board soon become rather blocked with pawns. Both players switched their efforts to counter attacks on opposite flanks with Sam playing f5 and Andy playing b4 to try and break the position open in their favour.
Finally, on board 5, Neil and Beaky contested the latter’s favoured Nimzowitsch Defence. This too was a very tense game in the early stages with Beaky gradually manoeuvring his pieces over to the king’s side to build what looked like a dangerous attack.

For much of the night it was really difficult to see which way the match would go as all the boards seemed rather unclear. Slowly but surely though, the games started to resolve themselves. The first to finish was the board 2 match where Stavros found himself with a rook and pawn versus Phil’s knight and bishop. He also found himself very short of time as early as move 20! Phil too had consumed a fair deal of time and the end of the game demonstrated the tension of the encounter and the pressure of the clock as Stavros overlooked a move that would have secured him the advantage and instead actually handed Phil with a winning opportunity. However, Phil in turn missed his opportunity as he opted to sacrifice a bishop to force a perpetual check and the game ended abruptly in a draw. This was a rather curious but by no means bad game.

The game on board 1 finished next with both players choosing not to take any undue risks although it looked like they explored some interesting possibilities in the post-mortem. There’s a health respect between Matthew and Martyn who have both won games from each other in the past. This time it was a draw.

The home side took the lead shortly afterwards when Sam beat Andy on board 4. In a very complicated middle game, Sam finally succeeded in opening up the position in the centre and damaging the White king’s protective shield. Meanwhile, Andy opened the b-file for his heavy pieces. It would appear that this scenario favoured Black because, by the time Andy had decided on a tactical approach with 24.Re6!? it looks like he was already in trouble. Sam found the right solution to the problem and emerged an exchange up. Andy didn’t have enough compensation and his king was too exposed to try and mount a serious counter-attack. Sam snuffed out any counter play and mopped up efficiently.

I often think you can measure the intensity and drama of a chess game by the number of pints consumed by the players. The game between Neil and Beaky was clearly a ‘six pint’ game, which says it all really.

The champions struck back on board 3 where Dave’s initiative against Andrew built up into a strong attack. Andrew may have missed a couple of fleeting opportunities to defend himself more robustly but generally the position was much harder for Black to play than White and once Dave had been able to initiate a rook lift and transfer his queen to the h-file it was all over bar the king hunt as Andrew’s monarch staggered drunkenly up the board as far as d5 in the vain hope of finding a refuge.

And that meant that the outcome of the match would be settled by the board 5 encounter. As the rest of the players gathered around it was far from clear who was better if anyone. Both Neil and Richard burned their clocks down to almost nothing before the time control and then almost as soon as they’d had their 15 minutes added, they slowed down their rate of play and got into time trouble again!

It’s clear from the game analysis that the pendulum swung between these two several times during the game but in the end the game and the match was decided when Beaky over-stepped the time limit and sportingly pointed it out himself. By that point Neil seemed to have secured a winning advantage anyway.

Here’s the final score card from what was a fabulous match full of interesting play and you can find four of the five games with some annotations in the game viewer at the bottom of this post.

Hebden Bridge ‘B’ vs Hebden Bridge ‘A’
M.Hamer ½ – ½ M.Parsons (W)
P.Cook ½ – ½ S.Pantazopoulos (W)
A.Clarkson 0 – 1 D.Shapland (W)
S.Swain 1 – 0 A.Leatherbarrow (W)
R.Bedford 0 – 1 N Suttie (W)
2 – 3

Elsewhere on Monday night Huddersfield ‘A’ were busy putting Brighouse to the sword in much the same fashion that Hebden Bridge ‘A’ had done in round 1. The score was ½ – 4½ and this time it was Robert Broadbent on board 1 who salvaged Brighouse’s pride by holding Greg Eagleton to a draw. Nick Sykes, Alec Ward, Steve Westmoreland and David Booth all won their games.

At the Lee Mount Cllub in Halifax, Halifax ‘A’ were rustling up a highly convincing victory against last season’s runners up, Belgrave ‘A’. Certainly, Belgrave were weaker for this match than they had been for their first-round match, missing Tony Slinger and Colin Proctor as they were. Into the breach stepped Malcolm Corbett and Steve Harrington. Halifax meanwhile welcomed back Richard Porter to board 3 and this strengthened their line up enough for them to be higher rated on all five boards. The home team won on all three of the top boards as Darwin Ursal, Winston Williams and the afore mentioned Richard Porter beat John Morgan, Dave Patrick and Malcolm Corbett respectively. Karim Khan and Steve Harrington held their adversaries, Carlos Velosa and Vivienne Webster to draws as Halifax romped home 4 – 1.

All these results mean that after two rounds, only Hebden Bridge ‘A’ and Halifax ‘A’ have perfect scores and 7½ board points each. Huddersfield and Belgrave ‘A’ have two points each and the other three are yet to score although both Hebden Bridge ‘B’ and Belgrave ‘B’ have both got a game in hand.

In round 3 it will be the reigning champions turn to sit it out as Halifax will be given the chance to go top on their own if they beat Belgrave ‘B’ away.

Newly promoted Brighouse were given an infernally warm welcome back to League 1 by the current champions on Monday night. Photo credit: chuffin’s Flickr photostream

The Calderdale Evening Chess League saw its opening round of fixtures for the 2019-20 season played on Monday night as League 1 teams gathered to test their metal and shake off any rustiness that may have accumulated over the summer break.

This season there are only seven teams in the League after the decision was taken at the League AGM in July to change a long-standing rule that stated that League 1 must have eight teams in it. The rule change means that League 2 can maintain four teams. Next season the numbers will change again to go to six teams in League 1 and five in League 2 – always assuming there are no more teams that disappear in the meantime of course!

This further change to the number of teams in each league means that two teams will be relegated from League 1 at the end of this season but only one will be promoted from League 2.

Right, let’s get kicked off with the match reports then. The reigning champions of League 1 are Hebden Bridge ‘A’ (though as they won the title as Hebden Bridge ‘B’ last season, they can hardly be named the ‘B’ team again this season can they?) and they faced off against the League 2 champions from last season, Brighouse. It was always likely to be a stern test for the new-comers and so it proved to be as they were roundly thrashed 4½ – ½.
The visiting team’s night got off to a pretty bad start when Tim Pryke blunder early on in his game against Pete Leonard on board 4 and resigned on move nine.

After that the pace of Hebden’s advance slowed down rather as three of the other four games became grinds. The exception was the board 1 game between Hebden’s Matthew Parsons and Brighouse’s Robert Broadbent. In this one Matthew gained a great deal of space on the queen’s side in a Closed Sicilian type of position. He followed this up with a positional exchange sacrifice that left Robert almost completely helpless, before finishing the game off with a checkmate in the endgame that his opponent was generous enough to let him play out.

Hebden were 2 – 0 up and cruising. The next game to finish was on board 5 where John Kerrane took down Brighouse debutant Dave Gunthorpe. This was a Queen’s Gambit Declined Exchange Variation game in which the Brighouse man acquitted himself well but then slowly started to bleed pawns through out the middle game. John accumulated his advantage and mopped up efficiently to make it 3 – 0. It was a similar story on board 3 where Andy Leatherbarrow essayed his Scandinavian Defence and slowly and steadily improved his position against Ronnie Grandage all the while giving his opponent no real active play. Finally, Andy was able to simplify down to a king and pawn ending in which he was a pawn up. This left Ronnie with little choice but to resign.

The last game to finish at least ensured Brighouse would not leave Hebden Bridge on the wrong end of a whitewash as their captain Paul Whitehouse held a draw against his counterpart Dave Shapland on board 2. This was a strange game originating from a London System. Dave had no problems equalising but was unable to create any significant problems for Paul after the queens were exchanged early in the game. Try as he might, Dave couldn’t avoid blocking the position up and it gradually became evident that he was going to need to take great risks to play for a win. That was unnecessary given the match situation and so, when Paul offered a draw at time control, Dave saw no reason to refuse.

The final match score was:

Hebden Bridge ‘A’ vs Brighouse
M.Parsons 1 – 0 R.Broadbent (W)
D.Shapland ½ – ½ P.Whitehouse (W)
A.Leatherbarrow 1 – 0 R.Grandage (W)
P.Leonard 1 – 0 T.Pryke (W)
J.Kerrane 1 – 0 D.Gunthorpe (W)
4½ – ½

A fine start for Hebden and a difficult one for Brighouse who were seriously outgunned ratings-wise. At least they can console themselves knowing that the rest of their matches before Christmas should theoretically be against teams who finished below there first opponents last season.

With the league down to seven teams there are just three matches being played in each round with one team having a bye. This time round it was Hebden Bridge ‘B’. They will return to action on 3oth September when they will host their ‘A’ team at the Golden Lion for the first derby match of the season. That should be an absolute cracker if both teams can gather their full ordnance.

Away from Hebden Bridge, Belgrave ‘A’ beat their ‘B’ team in their first derby clash. The ‘A’ team look like a solid outfit this season with a new addition to their line up on board 4 in the form of Colin Proctor. On paper only the top board encounter between John Morgan and Gordon Farrar looked like it would be closely fought, and indeed it was drawn, but elsewhere the ‘B’ team held their higher rated opponents on boards 4 and 5 where Angel Gonzalez and Paul Jacobs drew with Colin Proctor and Karim Khan respectively. Belgrave ‘A’ did their damage on boards 2 and 3 where Dave Patrick beat Mike Barnett and Tony Slinger (who could very easily be playing on board 1) beat Chris Edwards.

The third match in the round took place at Halifax’s Lee Mount venue where Halifax ‘A’ hosted Huddersfield ‘A’. A first glance at the Halifax team suggests they could be a serious threat if they can get the returning Darwin Ursal and Winston Williams on to their top two boards on a regular basis. The home side were missing Bill Somerset and Richard Porter on Monday, if that pair join forces with Ursal and Williams then they’ll be capable of beating any team in the league. Instead their bottom three boards were Carols Velosa, Sam Scurfield and Vivienne Webster. Fine players all but not the same standard as Somerset and Porter.

By contrast, Huddersfield were slightly weaker than they often are at the start of the season. No Greg Eagleton or Mitchell Burke in their line-up. Instead, Captain Steve Westmoreland played on board 1 and was backed up by experienced players in the form of Dave Keddie, Nick Sykes and Richard Boylan and then another welcome newcomer to the Calderdale League, David Booth.

Huddersfield were out rated on every board but board 4 and the form books played out as Halifax took the match 3½ – 1½ with the home team not managing a single win with the White pieces. The wins for Halifax came on board 2, where Winston Williams beat Dave Keddie, and on board 5 where Vivienne Webster saw off David Booth.

All five games from the Hebden Bridge vs Brighouse match are in the game viewer below. Next week sees the return of League 2.

Readers would be well within their rights to wonder if your editor had been kidnapped by aliens such has been the paucity of updates here in the last five weeks. We are pleased to inform you that we are alive and well but have been busy!

There is so much to catch up on but we’re going to keep our discipline and report on one round of the Calderdale League at a time. In our last post we recorded Hebden Bridge ‘B’s downfall to their ‘A’ team colleagues which enabled Belgrave ‘A’ to hit the front in the League 1 title race, as well as a League 2 update and the results of Round 4 of the Calderdale Individual Championship. So, picking up where we left off, let’s recount the action from Round 10 of League 1 which took place in the week commencing February 11th.

Newly minted League leaders Belgrave ‘A’ faced a potential banana skin in he shape of third placed Halifax ‘A’ away. The top two boards looked fairly evenly matched but on the lower boards Belgrave had strong rating advantages. In the end it was a one-sided affair with the visitors achieving a compelling 1 – 4 victory. John Morgan beat Bill Somerset on board 1 and Tony Slinger and Richard Bowman took full points off Carlos Velosa and Vivienne Webster respectively. The other two games were drawn.

Hebden Bridge ‘A’ continued their sparkling form at home to their ‘C’ team colleagues with a comprehensive 4½ – ½ victory. Andy Leatherbarrow managed to hold a draw against Andrew Clarkson on board 1 (a highly creditable result) but the rest of the team were swept aside. Here is the full match scorecard:

Hebden Bridge ‘A’ vs. Hebden Bridge ‘C’
A.Clarkson ½ – ½ A.Leatherbarrow (W)
M.Hamer 1 – 0 M.Syrett (W)
P.Cook 1 – 0 N.Bamford (W)
S.Whitehead 1 – 0 P.Gledhill (W)
A.Swales 1 – 0 P.Dickinson (W)
4½ – ½

The other match played on Monday the 11th was between relegation rivals Huddersfield ‘B’ and Belgrave ‘B’. This was a really tight match on paper and it proved to be the case over the board as well. There were draws on boards 1, 2 and 4 and then the sides traded wins on board 3, where Belgrave’s Gordon Farrar beat David Gray, and board 5, where Huddersfield’s captain, Alec Ward beat Les Johnson to save a vital draw for his team. That result left both team locked in a struggle to avoid the second relegation spot.

The last match of the round was played on Wednesday the 13th at the Lindley Liberal Club in Huddersfield where the hosts, Huddersfield ‘A’ entertained Hebden Bridge ‘B’ who were aiming to bounce back from only their second loss of the season in round 9.

In days gone by these two clubs have staged some epic clashes. This time around though the match was something of a damp squib as Huddersfield were under strength and indeed had to forfeit the bottom board. The visitors then built on their hosts generosity with three more wins and a draw to take the match comfortably.

Sam Swain got the ball rolling with a quick win on board 4 against Brendan Briggs and then Dave Shapland took down Steve Westmoreland on board 2 when the Huddersfield man miscalculated a forcing sequence that it turned out would end with him losing his queen or getting check mated. Pete Leonard then made it 0 – 4 when he defeated Amin Hossain.

The last game of the night went on to the end of the evening as Matthew Parsons tried to force a win through against Greg Eagleton. A fascinating endgame struggle ensued where Matthew had three pawns against Greg’s lone bishop. Eagleton was down to vapours on his clock when he finally forced Matthew to concede the only half Hebden gave up in the match. The scorecard is below:

Huddersfield ‘A’ vs. Hebden Bridge ‘B’
G.Eagleton ½ – ½ M.Parsons (W)
S.Westmoreland 0 – 1 D.Shapland (W)
A.Hossain 0 – 1 P.Leonard (W)
B.Briggs 0 – 1 S.Swain (W)
DEFAULT 0 – 1 N.Suttie (W)
½ – 4½

The game viewer at the end of this post below has a number of games from this match in it.

These results left Belgrave ‘A’ top of the League with 17 points, Hebden Bridge ‘B’ in second on 16 and Halifax ‘A’ are in third on 11 points a position they share with Hebden Bridge ‘A’ who after starting the season with a drawn 1 lost 5 record have won all five matches since to reach 50% for the season.

At the bottom Hebden Bridge ‘C’ looked doomed on 3 points. But then it’s a bun fight as Huddersfield ‘B’ have 8 points and Huddersfield ‘A’ and Belgrave ‘B’ both have 7 points. Any of these three teams could join Hebden ‘C’ in the drop to League 2.