The Oxfordshire under grade 150 team won their away Chiltern league
match against Hampshire by 11 games to 5 in Basingstoke on 28th March.
This means that we will win the cup this year even if we were lose our
one remaining match, but in any case we expect to be able to make it
six wins out of six games.
Two Cumnor Players took part in the match, myself on board 6 and Gareth on board 8.
Both of us played as Black and we both won!
The details of the games are as follows:-
Wantage is a market town in the Vale of the White Horse, Oxfordshire, England. The town is on Letcombe Brook, about 8 miles south-west of Abingdon, a similar distance west of Didcot and 14 miles south-west of Oxford. It is notable as the birthplace of King Alfred the Great in 849 and for having a pretty good Chess Club.
Before I start, special thanks go out to David, Steve and Richard who came into the team after a couple of our regulars couldn’t make it, as well as Andrew and Mark who moved up the boards.
Steve was the first to finish on the night, a very early draw which was accomplished by forcing Nicolas in to repeating moves or losing. Mark won his game on board 3, with a lovely tactic which won a Knight and swapped off the remaining pieces into a clearly won endgame but Stephen resigned before it got to that point.
Well, not for the first time this season Richard was the last to finish and the result of the match was going to be decide on this game. Richard had reached a great position but didn’t have much time left. However, with a little work Richard finished George off and got the win for Cumnor. What makes this such an impressive result is that George is 36 Grading points higher than Richard. In fact Cumnor was out-graded (or equal too) on every board!
It was an remarkable result especially as we where down a number of first team regulars.
Shopping, spending time with the family or at the footy….
Well, I spent the afternoon playing for Oxfordshire in the Chiltern League Division One.
I have been involved in for the U150’s for the last couple of years and having some decent results I got the call from Simon King and was asked to play for the Oxfordshire A team.
In reality I think he was a few players down which was why I was asked!
I managed to get a draw in the end after nearly 4 hours of play. Simon’s view of the match is below.
“This was narrowly lost by us 9-11, and could easily have gone the other way.
Once again, we turned in a creditable performance in a match where we were
outgraded on every board, by an average of 9.2 points.
Many thanks to all those who came, notably to our increased number of 180+
players (a 300% increase on the last time we played Bucks, and reflected in
a plus score of 3.5-0.5 on the top four boards) and to Dr Tim King (City,
128), who stood in on board 20 at a couple of hours’ notice *and won his
game*. Gary Jackson (Banbury, 161) also did well to draw against an opponent
graded 182 after having lost 45 minutes on the clock due to a car
break-down.”
Simon King
Team Captain
Oxon “A”
Our Oxfordshire under grade 150 team won their match against Buckinghamshire by 11 games to 5 at Rose Hill on 28th February. The score includes 2 Buckinghamshire defaults, one signalled on the Friday evening and one non-arrival.
Our very own Gareth Stevens picked up a draw on board 7.
The team have won all four of their matches so far this season and are now looking forward to playing cup holder’s Hampshire both at home and away during March and April. Check out the result here.
Grandmaster Peter Wells will be holding his annual simultaneous display at Witney Chess Club’s Ducklington Village Hall venue on Monday 30 March 2015; start time 7.15 pm.
The evening is open to all Oxfordshire players, and Witney are very much hoping that, as with last season’s simultaneous display, it will be well attended such that further such evenings can be arranged in the future.
So that Witney can cover their costs they are proposing the following prices:
1. Adults booked in advance: £10.00 (on the night: £12.00).
2. Juniors booked in advance: £5.00 (on the night: £6.00).
Witney are keeping prices as low as possible (i.e. they expect to break even at best) to encourage as many people as possible to attend, and are also offering junior entries at half price in accordance with their aim of promoting junior chess in Oxfordshire.
For more information please take a look at Witney’s Website here.
The draw for the 2014/15 Frank Wood Shield (FWS) was not particularly kind for Cumnor 1. Our first game was against Witney 1, currently the Champions of the Oxfordshire Leagues and winners of the Sheild twice in the last 3 years. However, we took them on and won! Well, technically it was a draw but the FWS is a handicap competition and we only needed to “lose” 2.5-3.5 to get into the next round. It was a spectacular result and for the match report please click here.
Nevertheless the team was in a confident mood for the match which took place at Cumnor on Thursday evening. Again like the first round, we only needed to “lose” 2.5-3.5 to get through or another way of putting it was we only need a draw and 2 wins out of the 6 boards (or better).
The first game to finish was Daniel’s game. An early kingside attack by Sean Terry put Daniel’s King under some pressure and he had to resign. Gareth went an exchange down but his Knight was well placed when entering the endgame meaning Philip Hayward did not have enough to win and the draw was agreed. Phillip even said he thought Gareth was better!
Mark pulled off the first shock of the night as he set up astonishing Queen sac which Lief Dixon missed. Mark never got to sac the Queen as Leif resigned once he spotted it. The pressure was all of a sudden on Cumnor, 1 more point from the remaining 3 games would take us over the finish line and into the next round.
I will be honest I was concentrating on my game so much I did not see much of Simon’s and Zoe’s but both made their opponents work exceptionally hard so beat them.
The tie finished 1.5-4.5, a commendable result against such a strong team but sadly not enough to get us into the next round. Congratulations to City 1 as they are head into the next round with a game against Cowley 2 and I would not be surprised if the Sheild has City 1’s name on it come May.
As Simon summed it up best “Ahh well, that’s what makes sport great – there is no script. An interesting night and I learned a lot.”
A thanks goes to Sean Terry who took the pictures.
The 2014 Players Cup presentation will take place on Thursday 19th February at 7:30pm at the club.
The Players Cup 2014 (final standings)
1, Simon Terrington
2, Mark Sayers
3, Daniel Varney
Congratulations to all three!
The two 2015 tournaments will be explained in more detail on the 19th, so everyone will know what’s going on this year and check out the current standings for the 2015 cups here.
Cumnor 2 took on the Studious Scholars from St Claire’s College on Thursday evening. It finished with a 3-3 draw, the result was a knock for Cumnor 2’s promotion push and it shows how far St Claire’s have come in their short time in the Oxfordshire League.
It is interesting that White won on all 6 boards!
“Tick Tock goes the clock and what now shall we play?”
I think this nursery rhyme sums up last Wednesday’s game vs Magdalen College School.
But let’s start at the beginning of the evening, MCS/B1 had a very strong team. I am guessing they had seen our recent results against Witney 1 and Bicester 1. As normal, I order this on how we finished but 2 hours 35 minutes into a 3 hour game, no one had finished.
I was the first to finish after 2 hours and 38 minutes played. I got a little lucky, I was a pawn down and had to lose a second just to try and get some counter play. Nigel looked like he played a smart move, pinning my Knight but he did not look far enough ahead and I won his Knight.
Gareth was down a pawn for most the game but ended up holding the position in the endgame. Gareth got it down to Bishops and a wrong rook pawn, click here for explanation.
Zoe was on top board after her rapid grade rise, the position was too complicated for me to analyse and Zoe did lose. Richard played very well against John who is 60 grading points above him. However, John had more active pieces against Richard’s King and delivered a checkmate.
I did not see much of Daniel’s game as I was notating Andrews game, as he was down to less than 5 minutes. But in the endgame Daniel got a pawn promoted and had many threats against Robin’s King which was more than enough to win.
With the match level at 2.5-2.5 it all went down to the last game. Andrew made a great effort to get to the match and both players had only minutes left while still in the midgame. A time scramble ensured but Andrew’s clock ran out of time first. The final score was 2.5-3.5, a close match but a loss for Cumnor.
“Tick Tock goes the clock and Cumnor lost this one”
The English Chess Federation (ECF) has just published the January 2015 grades list on its website at www.ecfgrading.org.uk.
Here are the scores on the doors (with each player’s previous grade in brackets):
Alvarez, Francisco 110 (115) Bennett Anton, Susana 57 (46) Bennett, Steven 106 (110) Carr, Robin 127 (124) Cluley, Graham 120 (112) Glenn, Liam 147 (147) Harrop, Richard 59 (55) Ives, Frida 33 (21) Ives, Leonora 94 (72) Ives, Marc 100 (97) Jones, Michael 111 (109) Sayers, Mark 138 (139) Slade, Richard 87 (-) Steel, Robert 83 (85) Sterrie, David 76 (79) Stevens, Gareth 140 (147) Terrington, Isaac 69 (74) Terrington, Simon 172 (173) Varney, Andrew 139 (147) Varney, Daniel 144 (137) Varney, Zoe 160 (149) Willan, Ann 39 (33)
There have been some great performances reflected in the updated grades list, but a simple up/down reading disguises how well others have done holding onto their already impressive grades.
I don’t think those who have lost a few grade points should feel desolated.
I think my own rise was helped enormously by being away from the board for over month during a holiday in Australia/New Zealand!
See the latest grades for Cumnor’s players here.
The next grades will be out in the middle of the year.
