Fortuitous Victory for Stockport League Team

Played last evening at the  Navigation -

Marple A            V         Denton A      Stockport Lge Div 1   06/11/2014 

1 A Horton       0.5/0.5    S Thestrup
2 M Fernandez  1-0        A Jaunooby
3 A Longson      1-0         S Abdullayev
4 I Craft             0-1         R Raychev
5 S Hegarty        0-1         T Hilton
6 G Trueman      1-0         L Antal 

                         3.5/2.5 

As one very strong Denton player after another trooped into the playing room I realised we were facing much more difficult opposition than we encountered in the Charnley Cup match.

Laszlo kept me fully occupied for the whole evening meaning  I saw very little of play on other boards so what follows may well be inaccurate.

Isaac was making his debut for Marple. I know from experience Rotislav is a very fine Alekhine player so it is a testament to Isaacs skill that after about 15 moves Blacks pawn structure was totally bizarre and his position looked basically untenable. Apparently Isaac missed a win but then something disastrous happened and the next thing I  saw was to my surprise Isaac resigning. 0-1.

I saw virtually nothing of play on board 2 but my special correspondent (aka  Andy H) tells me that Michael played a superb game replete with superb taking on f7 tactics and it was soon clear that Ali was losing. It's rare to see Ali lose at all but for him to have a lost position at such at early stage is something I have never seen before. 1-1.

Sarah was facing Tim on Board 5. Tims recent results show he is very underated  and here he seemed to get a big advantage in a Kings Indian. Normally I see de: being a poor capture for White in the KID as the hole on d4 usually causes big problems later but that certainly wasn't the case here. Although Sarah fought hard there was nothing she could do to stop Tim winning in the end. 1-2.

Alex was facing Shami and from what I saw it seemed to be a very interesting Najdorf. This game was the next to finish although I was completely unaware of what was going on and eventually Alex triumphed. 2-2.

So scores might have been level but the problem was both Andy I were losing.  I had a contracted doubled c pawns early in a known theoretical line but Laszlo outplayed  me and from move 15 on my position oscillated between bad and lost. Eventually we reached a Rook Ending  where my Queenside pawn majority was totally crippled and Laszlo was a clear pawn up on the Kingside. Rook Endings are often difficult though and I was desperately clinging on as we both ran out of our original time and were playing on ten second increments. After about 70 moves the position was something like  - me (White) pawns at a4,c3,c4,d6 Rook h7,King b3 Laszlo (Black) pawns at a5,b6,h2, Rook at g2,King at g1. Here Laszlo promoted his pawn ...h1=Q but after Rh1: Kh1: c5! the pawns were simply too strong and I was able to convert some moves later. I really felt sorry for Laszlo as this was a total swindle. Terry thinks I am pessimistic about chess positions but I did feel one of my rules of "Negative Chess"  had come into play namely "Playing too hard for a win in a Rook ending, even an advantageous one, is very dangerous"  3-2.

So somehow we were ahead. Andy had seemed to me to be struggling against Sixtens well placed pieces and after recovering somewhat in the middle game appeared to be in big trouble as my game reached its end. According  to Andy Sixten then fell for one last trick which enabled Andy to force a draw. 3.5/2.5.

So a narrow and at times unlikely win. Many thanks to all who played particularly Andy and Isaac who helped me with moving all the furniture prior to the match!

The final event of the evening was the presentation of the Vic Knox Trophy (Expertly renovated by Neil) to Alex who was joint winner with Daniel as they both had magnificent 100% scores in the Stockport League last season. The applause was equally as strong from the Denton contingent as the Marple one which was very nice to see.

Glenn.