The B Team had a lovely win on Monday night against Stockport A. I drew first, followed by Paul, Jamie and Ioannis - all accurate games. It all came down to the last two matches involving John and Michael. John was two pawns down and was very short on time. He said himself that he contemplated resigning at one point... However, using great technique he turned the game around and was creating dangerous checkmating threats against Alan's king. Alan still tried to win with John's king exposed in the middle of the board but eventually Alan's time was as low as John's and there was no way through so Alan took a perpetual.

This just left Michael's game which looked like a fairly level endgame but using excellent technique Michael completely outplayed Paul and won us the match. A great victory for Marple B!

A. Smith     V    J.Bentley                    0.5  -  0.5
P.Cawley    V    M.Fernandez            0     -   1
A.Reeve     V     J.Horton                    0.5  -   0.5
P.Siddall     V    S.Hegarty                  0.5  -   0.5
S.Murray    V    I.Lentzos                   0.5  -   0.5
P.Kirby        V    D.Toole                     0.5  -   0.5

 

Stockport 2.5 - Marple 3.5

Sarah Hegarty

An unlikely draw

Here's the scorecard of last evenings Div. 2 match

Marple C                 Altrincham     24/03/14

1 G Trueman     0.5/0.5   R Clucas
2 N Livesey         1-0       K Lockett
3 T Kay                0-1       M Whalley
4 A Jenkins         0.5/0.5   N Lowe
5 T Cowling          1-0       W McCartney
6 J Anderson        0-1        D Hughes

                              3-3

With a somewhat depleted team I feared the worst against a strong Altrincham side. If I am being really honest for most of the evening I thought the only thing that was in doubt was whether we would lose 5.5/0.5 or 5-1.

Andys game was the first to finish. From what I have seen and experienced of Nick he plays the openings more accurately than some players graded 50 points higher than him. Here as Black he defused one of Andys pet lines and the draw was agreed in a dead position where virtually all the pieces had been exchanged off.
0.5/0.5

Tony then lost to Mark Whalley. I've seen Mark play some lovely attacking games for Club and County over the  last couple of years and sad to say from the Marple point of view this was another one.

0.5/1.5

Joseph was making his C team debut on Board 6. He fought hard and well but was up against a very experienced opponent and was eventually ground down.

0.5/2.5

My opening experiment had gone horribly wrong and I was totally outplayed by Reg over the first 25 moves. I then fell into a devastating Rx Na5 combination which should have been terminal. The only way to keep the game going at all was to give up Queen + Bishop in exchange for both Rooks. It was pretty hopeless though, not only was I the equivalent of two pawns down my remaining pieces had no scope at all. Very luckily for me Reg missed  several utterly decisive moves and then started to run short of time. I was still very surprised when Reg offered me a draw but I suspect he was partly making a team decision to absolutely make sure Altrincham won, as this made the score...

1/3

... and things didn't look good for us on the remaining two boards. Nigel seemed to have at best a draw in a Bishop ending but Karl very much wanted to win. He played on but overpressed and excellent technique by Nigel produced a position that was won by one tempi.

2/3

Even so Terry had been facing what appeared to be an overwhelming attack for a long time, but somehow (and I still don't know how) managed to wriggle out and even managed to turn the tables completely.

3/3

So amazingly we drew the match and still have a chance of winning the league. Many thanks to all who played, particularly Joseph for standing in at very short notice.

Glenn.

Marple D vs Macclesfield B 17th March 2014

Match card

1    Tony Kay                0-1        Tony Soames
2    Andy Jenkins          1-0        Chris Sizeland
3    Chris Baker         0.5-0.5      Denzil Lobo
4    Terry Cowling    0.5-0.5      Marc Jouannet
5    Jeff Barlow            0-1        Tony Brough

Total                            2-3


Macclesfield turned up with a very strong team and in the end we lost narrowly.  In my game, the black side of the French I faced 2. Nf3 for the first time and got into trouble in the opening.  I did recover material eventually but by then I was very short of time and fell to a sucker punch in the meddle game.  Consequently I also saw little of the other games.  On board 1 I saw the final position which was fantastically complex and Tony K resigned finding no satisfactory defence.  I saw some of the endgame on board 2, where Andy skilfully converted his advantage in a nicely played endgame. Chris got a draw on board 3 with very little time remaining on his clock; Chris has published this game in an email. Terry also got a draw, but I didn't see this one.  Well done all.
Marple D now lead Division 3 with the same points as Macclesfield B, but they have a game in hand!

Match Result, 3Cs 2 v Marple, 19/03/14

Here is the match card for last nights Manchester League match at 3Cs 2

1		Daniel Abbas	0.0	1.0	Alex Longson
2		Phil Adams	0.5	0.5	Michael Fernandez
3		Jason Lau	1.0	0.0	Sarah Hegarty
4		Joa Rita	1.0	0.0	Glenn Trueman
5		Paul Keech	0.5	0.5	Paul Kirby
6		Nathan Butterworth	1.0	0.0	Andy Jenkins
7		Karl Moorcroft	1.0	0.0	Chris Baker
			5.0	2.0

A disappointing loss as on paper we were at least even money.  In the Manchester League we have 3 wins, 1 draw and 3 losses.

Match Result, Chorlton v Marple, 18/03/14

Here is the match card for Tuesday nights match at Chorlton

		Chorlton			Marple A
1		H Mkhumba	0	1	A Longson
2		R Doney	0	1	A Walton
3		C Vassilou	0.5	0.5	S Hegarty
4		P Olbison	1	0	I Lentzos
5		D Owen	0	1	P Kirby
6		A Beresford	0.5	0.5	N Livesey
			2	4

This result means we have won 8 and drawn 1 in the Stockport League.  We have 3 games left including 2 against Stockport.

E TEAM HOST STOCKPORT

Although we lost, there were some good performances from the E team in last night's home match against Stockport:

    MARPLE E       2     3       STOCKPORT C

1.  Trefor Thomas   0    1       Marc Jackson
2.  Jeff Barlow       0.5  0.5     Peter King
3.  Tony Doust       0.5  0.5     John Kelly
4.  Neil Dainty        1      0      Ian Anderson
5.  Pater Kelly         0      1      Anthony Prime

We were outgraded by at least 20 points on every board, so well done to the scorers.  I saw little of the other games;  on my right Tony's game always looked equal, Peter failed to castle and his King was exposed.  He lost a couple of pieces before conceding.

I was pleased with my game.  Ian allowed me to build a commanding centre in the opening.  I let him back into the game briefly my failing to push a centre pawn but my doubled rooks on the C file led to me being a piece and two pawns up.  He tried some irritating checks which I saw off.   I forced off the major pieces and he only resigned when he realised my passed pawn couldn't be stopped.

My first win against Stockport.

Match Result, Marple A v Chorlton 10/03/14

Here is the match card / report from last nights Stockport League clash

		Marple A			Chorlton
1		Daniel Fernandez	1	0	Ron Doney
2		Alex Longson	1	0	Chris Vassilou
3		Michael Fernandez	1	0	Phil Olbison
4		Alan Walton	0.5	0.5	Dennis Owen
5		Sarah Hegarty	0.5	0.5	Alan Beresford
6		John Bentley	1	0	Dee-Fault
			5	1

The night got off to an eventful (uneventful?) start when at 1930 only one Chorlton player was present.  By 1945 and with the E-Team match already underway I had started to doubt my own diary management skills.  Fortunately, the Chorlton team bus finally showed and we could start.  Unfortunately, Chorlton had to default the bottom board due to a late cancellation meaning one of our 6 had to drop out.  John kindly volunteered, for the 2nd time this season, which at least meant he could get some rest ahead of a business meeting scheduled for today.

With a 1-0 lead before we had begun and a significant grading advantage on every board we were overwhelming favourites and so it proved.

Daniel again wheeled out the Caro Kann and again managed to demonstrate it as a potent attacking weapon whipping up an attack on Ron's king in the endgame.

My game was quite straightforward as Chris found himself in an unfamiliar position in his favourite Sicilian Kan and had to enter a depressing endgame a pawn down which I soon converted.

Michael played an interesting and sharp game eventually prevailing against Phil Olbison on the black side of a 2.c3 Sicilian.

Sarah had a good position out of the opening (6.g3 Sicilian Najdorf) but Alan seemed to play quite well and eventually succeeded in persuading Sarah to accept a draw offer.

Our Alan's game was last to finish and went right to the wire.  Alan had been nursing a tiny edge from the opening (Queens Gambit Declined Exchange Variation) but with all the rooks swapped off I thought his advantage was largely symbolic, and Dennis was playing very solidly.  Down to around 4 minutes each Alan blundered a pawn and entered a minor piece endgame where his knight appeared to be trapped.  At the cost of a pawn he was able to extricate it and the game came down to knight and pawn (Dennis) vs a knight.  It looked complicated and with around 20 seconds left who knows what was going on.  Alan was able to sacrifice his knight for the lone pawn and a draw was finally agreed with about 10 seconds remaining.

Thanks all for playing / turning up.  We now have 7 wins and 1 draw with 4 games remaining and are top of the League table at the moment.

East Cheshire B -v- Marple C

We visited East Cheshire last night for another important game in our quest for promotion. The night started well when Ioannis's opponent missed a tactic which cost him a piece. He played on but Ioannis produced an elegant finish to put us 1-0 up inside the hour.

Shortly after that, it was 1-1. I didn't see the game, but Tony appeared to have been mated by his opponents queen and knight.

At this stage, things looked good. I had a nice position, Nigel a raging attack, Andy was the exchange up and only Paul was under any pressure. How things can change though! Andy was next to finish. I had assumed he must have won but no. His opponent had managed to pull off a swindle. It looked like there was a potential threat of mate in the corner with two bishops and in avoiding that, Andy got his rook skewered. 1-2.

I finished next. Having finally released my monster KID bishop I was confident I would win the rook, bishop and opposite coloured bishop endgame when my opponent allowed a tactic winning his bishop and the game 2-2.

So, down to Nigel and Paul. Paul looked in real trouble. He was an exchange and a pawn down and his opponent had a monster pawn centre. Nigel on the other hand appeared to have any number of winning choices. He went for the fancy queen sac (who wouldn't). Sadly, it didn't win and merely exchanged queen for rook and knight.

Meanwhile, Paul's opponent generously donated a knight to the cause for, as far as I could see, no reason whatsoever. Very generous and Paul quickly mopped up the pawn centre to win the game. 3-2.

It was 10.15 and Nigel was still playing. He had 30 mins compared to his opponents 7 mins. I should explain that the analogue clock the game had started with continually stopped working. Eventually it was swapped for the digital that had been in use on board 1, but not before 15 minutes had been lost due to the defect. Nigel had managed to win an exchange and we now had 2R+2P -v- Q+4P. It could be a long night! However, as his opponent started to play more quickly, Nigel set a little trap which his opponent missed ended up with his queen pinned. 4-2.

So, victory in the end, but it didn't look on the cards 30 minutes beforehand. Exhausted, we retreated to the Church Inn round the corner and had a Dizzy Blonde. As Napoleon said "Don’t give me good generals, give me lucky ones". Lady Luck certainly smiled on us tonight.

1	Broadbent, David	0-1	Lentzos, Ioannis
2	Rickards, Tudor	0-1	Hewitt, Sean D
3	Bamford, Paul	0-1	Livesey, R Nigel
4	Flaherty, Nicholas C	0-1	Kirby, Paul
5	Stokes, Alan	1-0	Kay, Tony
6	Taylor, David R	1-0	Jenkins, J Andy