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Wednesday 5 February 2014

Chorlton V Marple B Stockport League Div.1 04/02/2014

Played at Chorlton Chess Club-

Chorlton        V   Marple B  Stockport League Division 1 04/02/14 

1P Olbison (162)        0-1            S Hegarty  (189) 
2R Doney (182)         1-0            P Kirby      (151)
3C Vassiliou (170)      0.5-0.5     G Trueman (161)
4D Owen     (159)       1-0            T Kay         (132)
5A Sainsbury (155)    0.5-0.5       C Baker    (130)
6A Beresford (155)    1-0             A Jenkins  (125)

                                   4-2

Player unavailability meant we were always going to be "up against it" and as I suspected we were outgraded on five of the six boards.

 I saw very little of Andy and Tonys games so I can't really comment, but their opponents were both strong players.

My own game was an object lesson of how not to play against the Sicilian. I had played this line against Chris Vassiliou  in 1996 but it was rather naive to think his conduct of the opening would not improve over eighteen years!. I exchanged on c6 hoping that Qd6 would cause problems but Blacks control of the b file was the most important feature of the position. GM Rowson advises maintaining a constant dialogue with your pieces but after I played b3 my white squared Bishop wouldn't talk to me at all. With no way of creating play I was reduced to preventing any of Chris' potential  pawn breaks (a4,d5,f5,g5) being terminal and in this limited sense was  succesful.

G Trueman V C Vassiliou  1e4c5 2Nf3 e6 3c4 b6 4d4 cd: 5Nd4: Bb7 6f3 Bc5 7Be3 Nc6 8Nc6: Bc6: 9Bc5: bc: 10Nc3 Ne7 11Be2 Ng6 12Qd2 0-0 130-0 Rb8 14Rfd1  Qb6 15Rab1 Rfd8 16Qc2 a6 17Bf1 Qc7 18Qf2 Qa5 19Qc2 Rb7 20b3 Qa3 21Rbc1 h6 22Nb1 Qb4 23Nc3 Ne7 24Rd2 Rdb8 25Rcd1 Qb6 26Qd3 Qc7 27Qc2  0.5/0.5

Board 5 was a triumph for heroic defence against a higher graded opponent. Chris (B) refused to panic despite facing massive pressure down the f file and when his opponent erred secured a draw by pepetual check with 43 seconds left on his clock!

On board 2 Paul showed Houdiniesque qualities to survive a difficult opening and for one brief moment appeared to be winning. However its extremely difficult to play accurately when you have only 90 seconds left and in a flurry of moves it was all over and Ron had triumphed.

Sarahs game was a fascinating struggle in a Classical French. Although Phil was a late replacement he is a very talented tactician and Sarah had to show  all her ability to subdue her opponent. One amusing feature of the game was that Phil castled Kingside at 10.38pm , which must be the latest ever castling in the Stockport Chess League?

So  a 4-2 defeat in the end. Sarah has asked me to thank everyone for playing, particularly those who were significantly outgraded.

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