A hard days night in Heywood

Played at Heywood Chess Club last evening -

Heywood 1       V          Marple 1   -    Mcr Lge Div 1   - 11/03/2015

1 D Rabbitte    0-1         M Fernandez 
2 M Mazek      1-0         I Lentzos
3 M Hamer      1-0         I Craft
4 L Rabbitte   0.5/0.5     J Reed
5 N Jayawarna 1-0         G Trueman
6 B O'Rourke 0.5/0.5     P Kirby
7 D Almon        0-1          A Jenkins
               
                         4-3

For the second week running Marple faced a lengthy journey to play a chess match, this time in the Manchester League but sad to say we went down to a strong Heywood side.

I didnt see much of the games as I was being kept very busy. Ioannis game was a relatively quiet Slav that burst into life. On one of my rare excursions to look  I saw that Marek had found a very impressive mating attack and it was game over.  (0-1).

John seeemed to be a tad worse against  Liam Rabitte throughout but very resilient defence saw the position burn out to equality. As an indicator of the Heywood teams strength Liam on board 4 has a grade of 189. (0.5 - 1.5).

By contast my opponent had a grade of "only" 156. However he is only 11 years old. I had been warned in advance just how strong a player Nugith is and I think I would have had  to  have played at my very best to have any chance against him. Instead I gave a performance akin to the England cricket team against Bangladesh. I did suceed in making him think but having to play his last twelve moves in  seven minutes didn't phase Nugith at all. Once the time control  was reached my only choice was whether to lose my King or Queen. Having come this far it seemed churlish to resign so I became the second Marple player of the evening  to have his King publicly executed.  (0.5 -2.5)

Isaac lost to a strong player who I have played alongside in the 4NCL in the past in Martyn Hamer. Isaac seemed to be calling the shots early on in the topical early Nc3 line against the Alekhine. Somehow it went wrong and in the car on the way home Isaac and me both tried and failed to pinpoint what had  happened. BTW can anyone help Isaac download Houdini or similar so he can check his games against computer analysis?  Anyway the score was now (0.5 - 3.5)..

And we were clearly struggling. Andy produced a good win in what looked like a fluctuating struggle where I was a bit alarmed by Andys isolated doubled f pawns...but he did get his Rook to g1. Andy tells me that his opponent went pawn grabbing and allowed the creation of a very strong passed pawn which ultimately cost Dave a piece. Although the game went on for some time it was really just a matter of technique for an experienced player like Andy. (1.5 - 3.5)

Meanwhile on Board 1 Michael ploughed on  against Dominic Rabbitte  and showed his great strength by creating winning chances from what had looked  to me like a drawish position. Suddenly Dominics King was on the wrong square and like a preying kestrel Michael swooped (2.5 -3.5)

So we were theoretically back in the game  but Paul had no winning chances against Bill O'Rourke. I had thought Paul was on top early on as Bills King had been forced to go a wandering but he fought back and finally a B v N ending was reached with Paul (who had the Knight) a pawn down. Perhaps there was a way to progress but Paul produced one of his amazing escapological acts which I have seen before, despite having virtually no time left. Eventually a drawn position was reached (3.0 - 4.0)

So a narrow loss in the end but we are now in a position of really needing to pick up some points in this league if we are to avoid relegation. As always many thanks to all who played or drove.