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.
