The Northern 4NCL 4th Weekend, 26th-27th Mar 2011, Wychwood Park by
John Carleton
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De Vere Venues, Wychwood Park, near
Crewe |
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There was a feeling of
familiarity on our return to Wychwood Park on
the outskirts of Crewe, not only for the
prospect of the welcoming venue, but the
awareness amongst the the Spirit of Atticus team
of a tough match in prospect on the Saturday.
Our opponents were to be locally based Holmes
Chapel placed third in the league and as such
hot on our heels. There were other interesting
tussles in prospect, not least the bottom of the
table collision between Aigburth and Manchester
Manticores.
The Saturday round did have
one novel feature and that was the posting of
regular updates from the other major sporting
event of the weekend [the Sri Lanka versus
England quarter final tie in the cricket world
cup]. These were provided by controller Alex
McFarlane, who was, as ever, sensitive to the
feelings of the players, but as he admitted,
having no interest in the contest. Amazingly,
Alex's interest seemed to grow as the afternoon
wore on, and, as the magnitude of the disaster
facing England became more and more apparent,
the regular updates were almost a ball by ball
commentary. Absolutely no sour grapes on my part
obviously.
The actual games started
uncharacteristically brightly for us and after
about an hour and a half's play we had great
looking positions for myself on board 1, for
Dave Stuttard on board 4 and for Andy Mort on
board 6. In addition Peter having started
passively on board 2 was approaching equality,
Mike Driscoll was equal on board 5 and only Dave
Robertson's game was just starting to slip
towards his opponent on board 3. After another
hour or so normal service was resumed and we
were in a really close fight, with the final
outcome impossible to call. Andy had unleashed
his threatened attack and netted an overwhelming
material preponderance which forced resignation.
However, my thunderous position had settled to a
nagging edge after a fine piece of startling
castling from Patrick Bennett.
In addition Dave Stuttard was finding opponent Mike Hancock's
queen putting on a Rambo-style act of defiance, singlehandedly tying up much of
Dave's firepower as he tried to close in on the slumbering white army. Further,
by now Dave Robertson had progressed to genuine discomfort and celebrated
grandmaster-slayer Chris Doran was winding up the pressure on Mike Driscoll. The
next game to finish was Peter on board 2 following a slightly confusing sequence
of events: Peter seemed to avoid the natural equalising sequence, confidently
played a few moves and offered a draw which was immediately declined. Just a
couple of moves later his opponent returned the draw offer which was immediately
accepted; the general view is that the final position was extremely dicey for
Peter. The denouement, as is frequently the case, came round the time control;
firstly my nagging edge yielded the full point when Patrick blundered his queen
but Mike's colours were lowered on board 5 as the pressure on his king became
unbearable. Dave Stuttard had sacrificed a piece, got it back and arrived a
slightly better ending which turned into a slightly worse ending when he dropped
his most dangerous pawn [All in a day's work for Dave!]. The draw was not long
delayed once the players arrived in a dead position with just rook and one pawn
each. Dave Robertson gradually broke out of his cramped quarters and a flat
knight and pawn ending was agreed drawn just a few moves after the first time
control.
Thus, with this win by the
narrowest of margins, we had achieved possibly
our best result of the tournament to date. Other
results were significant: a thumping win by
Bradford A against the usually resilient Jorvik,
a shock win by Bradford B against Cheddleton 2
and, again against the odds, victory for
Manchester against Aigburth in the battle of the
basement.
Saturday evening saw us visit
the Thai restaurant in one of leafy Cheshire's
finest towns, Nantwich, and as usual our
research officer [Refreshments and Sicilian
defence] Robbo had provided a venue providing
fine food, drink and we of course provided the
convivial company. We were pleased to welcome a
fellow addict from another team, who perhaps
aware of our close connections with other chess
conditioning coaches [Yermolinsky and Dvoretsky
principally] followed our preparation methods
assiduously and, showing himself a quick learner
was the sole victor in his team the following
day.
And so Sunday duly arrived;
an inexplicable fatigue, the lost hour, a team
captains or interested parties meeting and of
course the jamboree format with the team spread
round the room meant, for this captain at any
rate, that it was extremely difficult to keep
tabs on what was happening. Fortunately, my
opponent lost the thread of our game early on
and my position took on overwhelming proportions
and resignation followed inside a couple of
hours. This meant I could have constant updates
ready for my players still embroiled in battle,
or could do what I actually did and go for an
energising walk round the golf club and wild
life areas in the beautiful vernal sunshine. I
returned to find that Andy and Mike had each had
somewhat the better of draws; Mike had been
playing smoothly and efficiently but was not
alone on this day in feeling real determination
from an opponent from Aigburth. Andy had an edge
but was an hour behind on the clock. Just before
my walk, Dave Robertson on board 4 against
Martina Flint from Jorvik had been offered an
interesting [and difficult to evaluate] change
of pawn formation. After considerable thought
Dave declined the offer and "got on with the
game". Unfortunately this immediately lost the
exchange to a knight fork. On my return, Dave
had dug in, grabbed a pawn and generated some
counterplay.
Eventually, the players set
up a repetition and after about 5 repeats one of
them spoke and a draw was agreed. Peter Ackley
played a queenside against kingside strategy and
kept his king in the middle ready to run if the
going got tough. His strategy was completely
vindicated keeping a black knight shut out of
the game on b8 and thus effectively playing a
piece ahead. Gradually exchanges came
emphasising Peter's advantage; his opponent gave
up the trapped knight for a pawn but to no
avail. Faced with a pawn on the verge of
queening he bowed to the inevitable and Peter
had delivered the point to ensure us the "match"
points. Dave Stuttard sacrificed a pawn in the
opening for nebulous compensation and then
generated complications which always offered
good drawing chances but little more. After 5
hours play his opponent gave up trying to chase
the elusive win, agreeing the draw in the
lifeless, despite his extra passed pawn, bishop
of opposite colour ending that had arisen.
The afternoon provided two
fine examples of bouncebackability: Jorvik after
being crushed on Saturday were leading scorers
with 5 game points and Aigburth opened their
account with 4 game points to move away from the
bottom of the league. Bradford deservedly pushed
on at the top although we've kept chasing. It
just remains for me to wish good luck to our new
friends and rivals from the North as we venture
together into the unknown for the final weekend.
•
Rd7 results •
Rd8 jamboree results
•
Spirit of Atticus team page
•
Northern league Table •
Games in PGN
This report can also be seen
here.
Additional reports by John
Carleton
