Reelin' In The Years

Played at the Navigation last evening -

Marple 1            V        Bolton 1       Manchester Lge Div One      31/03/2016

1 A Longson     0-1      J McPhillips
2 S Longson      0-1      J Hall
3 J Reed            0-1      H Lamb
4 G Trueman 0.5/0.5   N Barnaby
5 A Hall             0-1      A Tyton
6 C Baker       0.5/0.5   A Gardner
7 T Cowling      1-0       J Clissold

                            2-5

As the Bolton players entered the playing room I realised they would be formidable opponents for a below strength Marple team. They comprised one young superstar and six very strong and very experienced chess players. One measure of their experience is the fact that Harry Lamb has just been officiating at the Bolton Easter Congress. This is the 61st consecutive occasion when he has participated either as a player or organiser.Surely this must be some kind of record?

The last time your correspondent faced Nick Barnaby he obtained a terrible position against a Trompowsky. Deciding  discretion was called for I eschewed 1...Nf6 in favour of defending a Queens Gambit. I tried a line I have never played before and Nick chose the one plausible continuation I haven't really looked at. Consequently I was on my own from move five and drifted into an uncomfortable situation. Fortunately my position remained just about plausible enough to offer a draw in the early middle game which after some thought Nick accepted. I was quite happy about this as winning the toss meant we had white on four of the six remaining boards and more importantly what appeared to be good positions on the majority of them. (0.5/0.5).

Alan was unfortunate on board five. Adam played very aggressively as black with h6, g5  and Nh5 hitting the dark squared Bishop. However the very nice retreat Ne1 left the Knight on h5 vulnerable and it seemed to me that Alan had the advantage. When the players entered the analysis room I expected to hear result was either a draw or a white win but sadly Alan had gone wrong somewhere and lost. (0.5/1.5)

The remaining five games all finished well after 10.30 and I am not sure of the exact sequence as all ended within a few minutes of each other.

Terry came into the team as a last minute reserve after Isaac was unable to play. He played superbly to create a beautiful attack with Harrwitz Bishops raking the black King. Julian is a very good defender but although he held out for a long time eventually Terry crashed through. (1.5/1.5)

The battle of the Titans on Board One had distinct echoes of Spassky - Fischer 1972 game 13 with a Rook trapped on the first rank by a pawn on the seventh and a Bishop on the eighth although  I suspect Bobbys five passed pawns offered more compensation  than Alex' attacking chances against g7. Among his many attributes Joe is a very quick player and Alex not only had problems on the board but also on the clock. Ultimately the situation became untenable and sadly for the first time since we returned back to the Navi, Alex lost a home game (1.5/2.5)

Johns game was a epic fluctuating struggle. Harry eventually got on top and was a pawn up in a R+N position. By Houdini like play John got back in the game and I really had no idea of what would happen. The big problem was lack of time and with less than minute left John lost his Knight to a Rook fork and Harry just had enough time to finish things off. A very unfortunate loss. (1.5/3.5).

On the latest ECF gradings Chris was outgraded by 34 points on Board Six. He did tremendously well to turn things round from what seemed to be a somewhat inferior position and won the exchange for a pawn to create a position where from a chess point of view only Black had winning chances.However time was again  major factor with Allan a couple of minutes ahead and a draw was agreed in a position where it wasn't really possible to make progress. (2.0/4.0)

The last game to finish in some ways encapsulated the entire evening. John Hall is a superb player of the white pieces and Sarah played tremendously well to reach a position where only two results, draw or Black win were objectively possible. After Sarah won a pawn to reach a B V N endgame with Black a clear passed c pawn  ahead John must have feared the worse. Yet again however time played the leading role. With both players down to about one minute each , what happens so many times in blitz games occurred, as the Knight forked King and Bishop. As in the Board 3 game there was just enough time for the Bolton player to finish things off. (2.0/5.0)

So a very disappointing loss but congratulations to Bolton on their win. For me the evening was a further confirmation that playing with increments , even ten second ones, is vastly preferable to a straight blitz finish. In my view you are far more likely to get a result that is in accordance with the chess that has been played previously.

Many thanks to all who played. We are in a real relegation dogfight now and our last two matches in this competition against Denton and Heywood will be critical.