Tag: Cumnor 1

Match Report: Didcot 1 v. Cumnor 1

 

So last Thursday, the 24th January, saw Cumnor 1’s first match of 2022, away in the Deep South at Didcot.

Following our great first half of the season a win or a draw would see us go second, over taking Banbury, and as such we got out about our strongest side. Unfortunately, at least for us, Didcot also had pulled out all the stops and the match card looked very closely balanced:

Don’t be deceived by Joe Conlon’s rating – he is a very strong titled player coming back to “proper” chess after a bit of a break.

Well, what to say … After riding our luck a bit through the first half of the season the chickens came home to roost, so I’ll keep this short but the most important thing is we were outplayed – Didcot were definitely the better team on the night. I’ll gloss over Mark and Eldar who both had games they probably want to forget, and while Liam had more chances it probably won’t feature amongst his top 10 either. Even Nigel, one of our three draws, I know was not happy with his play. So that leaves me, and especially Stuart.

My game was fun if not wonderfully correct:

I got move-ordered in the opening going into a setup Peter obviously knew much better than I, and my 10. O-O was just very short-sighted, I knew the form his attack would take and I castled straight into it. Having no sensible counter-play I managed to make some complications with 20 Nfd5 which I muddled through  into a better endgame, which I then misplayed. Thankfully for me Peter missed a horrible blunder by me near the end (in time trouble) and it ended as a draw – probably overall a fair result, though I came away feeling a little lucky.

Stuart’s game was also not a thing of subtle strategy, here it is, along with some annotation that Stuart sent around:

I first wandered over at about move 15, and was amazed to see Black’s King so open – “this looks fun” was very much my thought. I don’t play 1.d4? nor the Kings Indian (except by transposition), so I don’t know if this is mainline theory but it does look like a good try by white! Stuart did everything but win it – he just needed to get the knight out and get on with the attack rather than worry about niceties such as the e4 pawn – something it is much easier to say when firstly it is not your game, and secondly somebody has kindly provided some analysis! Anyway Joe survived Stuart throwing the kitchen sink at him, and an honourable draw was the result – and a good game to look over.

So 4.5-1.5 was the final result

Oh well. Well played Didcot again, and I really shouldn’t feel upset that we are “only” third in the table!

 

Match Report: Cumnor 1 v. Cowley 1

I’m not a great fan of memorizing the names of mating positions. I don’t see what it gains you. It’s the experience needed to recognize the possibility of reaching the setup which is important, not the label it has been given. So when Jon d’Souza-Eva told me earlier in the week “It’s only taken me 30+ years to land a Canal’s Mate” I really couldn’t have told you what that position was, or that  the position Jon had reached is in fact “Boden’s mate”. But … some things stick in your mind, and the name “Arabian mate” is one of them

It’s so called because it’s one of the few checkmating positions that is valid in both the older Arabian version of the game, and the modern form; around 1500 the Bishop and Queen’s moves changed from the older, slower form to the long range terrors we know and love today, but the Knight and Rook stayed the same. A related bit of trivia is that the oldest known piece of endgame theory still considered (mostly) correct dates back to 1257 and is a study by an Arabian player of a K+R v. K+N endgame. The game has been around a while!

Anyway enough trivia, though the relevance will become apparent later. On Thursday we welcomed Cowley 1 to a nice and toasty Old School (yes, the heating has been fixed!). It was great to see so many familiar faces, but also a bit of a relief that Cowley weren’t quite as strong as they could be. In fact the two teams were pretty evenly balanced:

All to play for! As usual I’ll report in the games in roughly the order they finished.

Liam, after last week at Banbury, caught up for lost time by dropping a pawn fairly early on. The compensation was fairly nebulous, really only Bob’s queen being a little short of squares. I’ll spare Bob’s blushes for what happened next, let’s just say partially because of that Bob managed to walk into a nasty tactical sequence which ended up dropping a whole rook – tricksy pieces knights! Cumnor 1 Cowley 0.

Mark was next to finish, playing Will Burt. After starting 1 e4! it entered a Two Knights Defence, a line where White gains a pawn but gives Black the initiative; it’s a very sound gambit. Now I myself don’t go down this line, it somehow seems wrong to me to be on the defensive as White out of the opening, and I would be especially nervous about this against such an imaginative attacking player as Will! Early on I strongly suspected a Burt miniature was about to occur, but Mark held it all together very nicely, and after 16 … fxe4 ( Rxd4 is better ) he took the advantage and won in some style. The complete game is

Well played Mark! Cumnor 2 Cowley 0.

Nigel was next. I’m not quite sure what happened here, out of a Grunfeld it all looked very even to me last time I looked, and then it was all over. Mike tried to explain it to me at the end but my head was still full of my own game so I couldn’t quite take it in – I think the essence is in a forcing line Mike found a move order that Nigel didn’t anticipate that forced win of material. Cumnor 2 Cowley 1

At that stage it all looked pretty tense to me. On board 3 I thought I was better, but Gareth seemed to be in a mess on board 6 and was dropping pawns, and I didn’t really believe Tony’s sac of a piece for two pawns (soon to become 3), gut feeling was that Rich’s pieces were better. So I had to play for the win! As black!

Mine was a fun game. Graham and I have played any number of times, most of them very interesting. We know each other’s repertoires inside out and in fact all the rated games have ended as draws, showing how close the competition is. As is my want I played the Pirc against Graham’s 1 e4!, and the first surprise was Graham played 4 Nf3 instead of his usual more aggressive line, and went into the so called Classical Variation:

The Pirc is a flexible hypermodern system, the character of the game often being determined by white’s fourth move; 4 Nf3 or 4 g3 usually, but not always, lead to more positional lines, any other fourth move and Black should suspect more neanderthal tendencies in their opponent. This is both a strength and a weakness. White being able to determine the nature of the battle is not to everybody’s taste, and indeed no lesser a authority than Gary Kasparov has said the Pirc is “hardly worth using in the tournaments of the highest category”, as it gives White “too many opportunities for anybody’s liking” (though by example Kramnik, for instance, differs). So if you want a system rather than an opening the Pirc is not for you. However if you like to play in a wide variety of positions, and enjoy the challenge of using your flexible position to best to exploit how white has set out his board, well the Pirc may be what you are looking for.

So how to go about working out what to do against the myriad of White’s choices? Well, you guessed it, it’s time for another edition of “Ian Bush witters on about Pawn Structures.” Black plans to challenge white’s centre with (typically) at least one of e5 or c5 causing tension, and how that tension is resolved will lead to pawn structures characteristic of other openings. So one gets things like the “Benoni Pirc”, the “Dragon Pirc”, the “Ruy Lopez Pirc”, the “Philidor Pirc” and the “Kings Indian Pirc”, and it is the last one which occurred in the game. And given those pawn structures you can follow the plans characteristic of those openings.

That a Kings Indian type game is possible is not too surprising from the above position, for if the next moves could be 5 … 0-0 6 c4 [illegal] it would be a bona fide Kings Indian.

In that opening typically black will play e5, white will resolve the tension in the centre with d5, so grabbing space, and the game usually then involves black attacking on the king side (after f5) and white on the queens side; white’s attack is usually quicker, but black’s is against the white king – a very intense and exciting game normally result.

The big difference in the Pirc is white’s c pawn is not on c4 but on c2, and it will take a move or two to get it to c4 as white will have to find a way to move the c3 knight out of the way. Given speed is of the essence all other things being equal I genuinely think black is better in this type of position – certainly I am rarely unhappy when white chooses this structure and have a good record against it.

But are all other things equal? Let’s see how we got to the position just before Black is planning f5. Suspecting Graham had something prepared (in fact we both guessed correctly our opponents, he deviated first …) I went slightly off piste and played in a slightly provocative style:

So all things are not quite equal. Graham is a bit better developed than I would like, and my knight is on d7 rather than e7, blocking my white squared bishop – for those who don’t know the Kings Indian that is already developed on its best square, c8, and often proves crucial to the attack. That said I still think if Graham attacks on the Queen side he will be too slow, so, correctly I think, he played g4 to stop my f5 plan. Well in chess sometimes a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, and I had to play f5 anyway, totally unable to calculate all the complications that would result – but if I don’t play it where else am I getting counter play? Here’s the complete game:

As you can see it got very complicated, and I was quite pleased to find the temporary pawn sac with 15 … Ndf6, Rxf5 just tempts Bd3 in the near future. Anyway I muddled through into better position, but then agreed a draw! Why? Well the real reason is that about move 22 I saw Gareth get up, asked the result, and found out somehow he had won! So just a half point was enough for the match –  and up about 5 minutes on the clock and up (as I thought) in the position I took a Captain’s decision and decided to cash in, which after a little thought Graham (down to his last couple of minutes of normal time) agreed. Cumnor 3.5 Cowley 1.5, match won!

However as Bob Waugh pointed out afterward my last move, Nf5 to stop Rg3, is a blunder. So for this weeks quiz

  1. After 26 … Nf5 what should white play to simplify to an essentially equal ending?
  2. What should black play instead to keep his advantage? This is a real game so there are a couple of options.

So what had happened on Gareth’s board? Well the last time I saw it the position was something like

Two pawns down and facing the two bishops on a fairly open board you might understand why I was not too hopeful … But Gareth has beaten GMs, and that doesn’t happen without reason, so sorry David – but here’s what most of what happened:

So second quiz of the week – White to play and mate in 3.

Last to finish was Tony’s game. I didn’t really see the finish, but as I said he had sacced a piece for two pawns, and in fact got a third one back. However I never really quite believed it, and in the end Rich pushed through for the win. Cumnor 3.5 Cowley 2.5

Answer to the quizzes: Firstly Bob Waugh’s simplifying line which gives Graham a drawn endgame

When black is marginally better but white should hold.

Next what I should have played – there are a couple of possibilities, the mainline is best, but the second line is almost as good and simpler:

And Gareth’s mate in 3, which should look familiar!

So a win, but a bit by luck rather than judgement, if I were Cowley I would feel myself a little unlucky:

Back up to second, if you had told me that at the start of the season I would never have believed you, despite being a Leicester City fan!

So now we take a break for Christmas – can we continue this for the second half of the season!?

Match Report: Banbury 1 v. Cumnor 1

Well another Thursday, another match, but for the first time this season not at the Old School. Yes, Cumnor 1 were on the road, traveling to the northern edge of OCA-land at Banbury. Second verses third we thought this would be a tough one, and so it proved. We were a couple of players short of full strength while Banbury turned out a very strong side with James Jackson IM on board 1. If we were going to get anything out of this we would have to overturn an average rating difference of almost 200 points per board (about 25 in old money).

Also apologies for the briefness of this report, and for being a little late, work and then the 4NCL over the weekend have intruded on the more important business … I’ll just briefly go through the boards in order saying what I remember from last Thursday.

On top board Nigel dropped a pawn fairly early on, but got a bit of compensation in terms of pressure down the open c file. Play was interesting for a while, but it never looked like enough and indeed James pulled through to win.

On board two Gareth dropped a pawn fairly early on (you may notice a theme developing here) but got a bit of compensation with slightly more active pieces, but again it never looked enough and Georgs secured the win.

On board three I dropped a pawn fairly early on .. But at least this time it was deliberate! I played the Smith-Morra Gambit against Gary’s Sicilian defense. Gary played an unusual line, I went slightly on auto-pilot missing the best moves early on with routine play, and as much in frustration with myself then offered a piece to open up the king file before Gary had castled – a form of the Nd5 sac to all Sicilian aficionados out there. As soon as I moved I could see it was utter, utter rubbish, but I kept a poker face and had moved sufficiently quickly to persuade Gary I was still in book … Nett result he declined the knight and I got sufficient compensation for the pawn gambitted. An interesting game followed where I had pressure, especially down the d file against a backward pawn on d7 and chances of a k side attack, but Gary slowly freed his pieces until, when it was still probably more or less equal, I missed a tactic and dropped a piece. Well played Gary!

On board four Liam failed to drop a pawn early on. Against Dan’s 1 d4? a pretty symmetrical game resulted, with pieces fairly quickly swapped off into a king and lots of pawns ending, which was quickly agreed a draw.

On board five I think, but am not totally sure, Tony dropped a pawn fairly early on. Chris with his super-speed play developed some threats, but Tony found a nice bit of tactics to get out of it, simplifying down to an ending which again was quickly agreed to be a draw.

On board six our debutant Andrey, another player on loan from Bicester, showed his naivety at the first team level by failing to drop a pawn early on. Instead he played extremely well and probably had the better of a draw against Mal – certainly whenever I looked I thought he had marginally the better chances. It ended in a tricky knight and pawn ending which I certainly wouldn’t fancy playing from either side, but it was drawn after some inventive attempts from both black and white – Andrey forking Mal’s king and knight with his own knight in an effort to force a pawn through was particularly nice, unfortunately declining the sac defused the threat.

So 4.5-1.5 to the home team, given the strength difference I think a very respectable result for us:

We drop to third

Still doing well – if you had told me after 5 matches that this would be the table I would have been utterly amazed!

Anyway last match of the first half of the season at home to Cowley on Thursday, let’s see if we can end a superb first half of 21-22 with another result!

 

Match Report: Cumnor 1 v. Witney 1

Another Thursday, another match at the Old School! Starting the season with 4 home matches is a little unusual, but so it is and as such last night we welcomed Witney 1. Like City 1 in the before times Witney 1 were an extremely strong team, one of the three team “league within a league” that with University 1 regularly fought for the Division 1 title. But, as I’ve said before, we live in strange times and we wondered who would turn up to face us.

In the end it was a set of familiar faces but lacking one or two of the superstars that Witney can turn out – with all due respect to Mike Truran not seeing Marcus Harvey FM on top board was a bit of a relief! In fact the two teams were incredibly evenly matched, with just a few points difference in the average rating:

So while we were a little out-rated on the top boards, we were just favourites on the bottom 3 – but on all boards both players could be expected to have real chances.

So at 7.30 pm we kicked off with 1 d4? played on all 6 boards (“O tempora! O mores!” to quote the philosopher Cicero) and perhaps, given the similarity of strengths, unsurprisingly it was over 2 hours before a game finished – and thankfully the electric heaters more or less filled in for the broken central heating in the hall. In fact I was the first to finish. Danny played a quiet line against my Modern Benoni, quickly swapping down to a late middlegame where both players had R+R+N+N+7 pawns, and offered a draw. I declined, thinking myself marginally better, and we played on. And then I over pushed. I saw a forcing line that I thought won me a pawn, but to my horror realised half way through I had missed a knight fork on f6 at the end. I managed to limit the material damage to a pawn, but what a pawn, a passed one on d5, soon to reach d6. Luckily for me Danny missed a couple of opportunities at this point and I managed to exchange down to a double rook endgame just a pawn down with crucially a bit more activity for me – which was soon drawn after I managed to establish both rooks on his second rank. Cumnor 0.5 Witney 0.5

Next to finish were Mike and Stuart on top board in a very classical looking Queens Gambit. Mike lined has pieces up against Stuart’s king side and while I had little time to think about it at certain points it looked like a sac on g6 might open up the black king, but nothing quite worked and Stuart held it all together very nicely. I particularly liked

where Stuart coolly played h4 which keeps lines nicely closed; though it looks simple you have to carefully work through white’s attacking options before playing it. Anyway as the game progressed Stuart repulsed the attack and started to have his own opportunities, but with no obvious way through a draw was agreed. Cumnor 1 Witney 1

Gareth against Alan was another game where Witney seemed to have some pressure, but the Cumnor player managed to repulse the attack, and in this case push through to win very nicely. Gareth’s method was plenty good enough, but can you spot the short cut he missed in the position below?

White to play and win

The whole game was

Played Gareth! Cumnor 2 Witney 1

Gareth and I then discussed the remaining boards in the club room – as Gareth put it 3 draws to win the match but it was far from clear to me, Eldar needed to hold a difficult ending, Mark looked worse to me against Howard, but on other hand I thought Tony had a few winning chances. But when we went back in it was all over!

I don’t actually know the order in which the games finished, so let’s look at Eldar’s first. As white he had misplayed the opening slightly against Dave Hackett, losing a number of tempi. Now there are openings where this doesn’t matter, but unfortunately this was the Taimanov variation of the Modern Benoni, a.k.a. the Flick-knife attack i.e. the sharpest line of one of the most sharp openings. Losing a tempo, even as white, is not good news here! What happened was that Eldar played a5 to stop Black’s queen side expansion, but unfortunately that failed to make room for his bishop when it was forced to retreat next move and it had to go to e2, which just got in the way of everything. As a result Dave gained a lot of time and early on Benoni-geddon seemed to be going on, the kind of position I dream of as black – look at the position after move 20:

The Q side pawns are marching, the black rooks are doubled on the half open e file, black pieces are working, while white’s are not, scattered more or less randomly across the back few rows. Further Black was very much up on the clock. But somehow Eldar held it all together, and with  21 … Nd3? the pressure started to lessen. Eventually it simplified into a still difficult R+N v. R+B endgame – even now his pieces were not working that well and were a bit awkwardly placed. But held it Eldar did, a tremendous defensive display – and bloody knackering I bet as well! The game is below, and this made it Cumnor 2.5 Witney 1.5

Tony’s game allows another episode in the occasional series “Ian Bush witters on about Pawn Structures.” Tony played 1 d4 for about the first time in 3 years – The English is his usual poison, but knowing that that’s Derek’s favoured opening he decided to avoid it, and ended up playing a very unusual variation of the Benko which transmogrified into something like a Kings Indian where black has used c5 as the primary pawn break. Anyway at his move 14 Derek started to change the pawn structure with 14 … e6:

When the pawn structure changes it’s always a good idea to stop and think. Here there are 3 main possibilities

  1. Play 15 dxe6
  2. Let black play exd5 and take back with the e pawn creating a Symmetric Benoni structure
  3. Let black play exd5 and take back with the c pawn creating an Asymmetric Benoni structure

I think we can dismiss 3) as clearly inferior. Black gets the hope of counter play with his passed c pawn and maybe pressure down the e file, and further I well know that in Asymmetric Benoni structures the white squared bishop can just get in the way, so White having the two bishops is not a big issue. But which out of 1) and 2)?

Well 1) is definitely a good option. Black is going to get a glaring weakness on d6, and white can get at it through a knight on b5 and down the d-file. Black can’t really stop the former by a6 due to the weaknesses it creates on the Q side, and stopping the latter by blocking with a minor piece on d4 is not possible, white will just swap it off. So Black has to play for d6-d5 which will either lead to an opening of the position where white has the two bishops, and more space, and a weakened K side and c pawn to aim at, or, after e5, white establishing a monstrous knight on d6. I know who I prefer. Picking a sample line using Stockfish’s preferred moves gives something like

It’s clear white has the easier game – and note d5 doesn’t work in much of this due to the e5 and Nd6 idea.

What about plan 2), the symmetric Benoni structure? Well we know all about this from Liam’s game against City 1. White wants to

  1. Keep minor pieces on to maximise his space advantage
  2. Keep control of e4
  3. Then advance on the k side and win

This is in fact what Tony did, but didn’t quite find the best execution

Black has managed to get rid of a second minor piece, and should now play Bxb2 and he is fine – in fact Stockfish thinks slightly better. In the actual game Derek played 17 … Qd7 which is not so good blocking the knight re-routing to the king side, and Tony soon got an overwhelming position based on a quick f5 and opening the f file. And then … well I’ll spare Tony’s blushes.

White really wants to play 16 exd5 in the above, but can’t because of Ng4, planning an invasion on e3 and possibly a nasty check with the bishop from d4. So white is forced to swap off knights first. But this does suggest the right way to play the symmetric Benoni plan, 15 h3! to stop the knight coming into g4, and also giving a useful bit of luft after Bd4+. Following this leads to something like

where white has a nice attack, but arguably black has more counter-chances than in plan 1) above. Note also how the white queen bishop goes to d2 to avoid swapping pieces.

Which of the plans is better. Mr Stockfish puts them about the same – ultimately it’s a matter of taste, and I can see attractions in both. Anyway an interesting game, and as indicated above Tony got an excellent position but missed the win, Derek finding his equalising chance. So Cumnor 3 Witney 2.

That leaves Mark’s game. Howard played a London system. Mark used a Kings Indian type set up against it, but seemed to be under a little pressure most of the game, with Howard pressing against some weak pawns on the Queen side. Going into injury time it looked as though Howard was about to win his pawn and, well, I don’t have the score but the below gets the essence of position, what did Mark (Black) play at the end which resulted in Howard’s immediate resignation? Anyway final score Cumnor 4 Witney 2

So all in all a very tough match, which maybe we were a little lucky to win – certainly I feel I got away with murder and on another day other games could also have gone against us. But to quote the contemporary philosopher Dr. G. Lineker (Leicester) “They all count the same!” (https://twitter.com/garylineker/status/1261190324115910657)

Still top of the table, but I suspect when University 1 visits Didcot on Monday that will be end of that – so let’s enjoy it while we can!

Match Report: Cumnor 1 v. Oxford University 1

Last night we welcomed University 1 to the Old School – possibly the first time this has ever occurred given our recent promotion to the top tier. Of course we expected this to be a tough match, University 1 have been winning everything for a number of years now, but when the first of their players arrived it turned out we may have a glimmer of a chance – a number of their strongest players were busy over the weekend so could not play. That said when the rest of the team arrived while it was true that it was not as strong as we feared we were still somewhat outrated, especially on the top boards. This was not going to be easy!

I say “when the rest of the team arrived” that in itself was a bit of an story. I won’t name names but a couple of their players missed the Cumnor bus stop and ended up at the Greyhound in Wooton. A rescue car was sent out and they started their games about 20 minutes late. We didn’t even start their clocks – maybe we’re too nice …

Partially because I don’t have a long train journey today, partially because I didn’t see too much of the other games this week (I was trying to dig myself out of the mess I made of the opening) this weeks report will be much shorter than last time, and so apologies for the lack of deep, laser like analysis of the intricacies of all the games :)

Nigel was first to finish, losing to Filip Mihov. No shame there, Filip’s record in OCA competitions is remarkable, 24/26 in the now 3 seasons he has been playing. It was a Kings Indian but Nigel’s king side play just didn’t seem to kick off, while in next to no time Filip had lots of open lines on the queen side. Cumnor 0 University 1.

Gareth was next. Gareth grabbed his opponents Queen Knights pawn. It was poisoned, a nice line closing combo won a piece for his opponent and it was always going to be difficult from then on. Cumnor 0 University 2

Mark was next, but for reasons I’ll explain below yet again I didn’t see the important part of his game. Mark was on the white side of an advance French, and while very early on Chris seemed to be doing nicely against Mark’s centre as the game progressed Mark’s position seemed to get better and I was very hopeful. Then the next thing I know is Mark had lost – apparently dropping a piece in a winning position. Bad luck Mark, we’ve all been there. Cumnor 0 University 3

The next few games all finished fairly quickly. The first was mine against Max, about 10 minutes after Mark’s finished, and the time scramble was why I missed much of his and the other games from this point. I’d misplayed the opening dropping a pawn, but had managed to make enough of a mess that I was back in the game. Both of us made mistakes in ever increasing time pressure, until right at then end we repeated moves. In a position where I had a winning combination … I’ve put the position below, try to solve it in less than 15 seconds with a clock ticking against you. But that was the match gone, Cumnor 0.5 University 3.5

White to play and win

I missed the majority of the last two boards. All I’ll say is both our unbeaten guest star Tony and Liam looked pretty comfortable in their games, Liam in particular having nice pressure against his opponents weakened pawn structure. Anyway the important bits happened while I was scrambling against Max, and both in our favour.

So the final score was Cumnor 1 2.5- University 1 3.5.

Rather than looking on the missed chances I think we can be pretty pleased – we expected nothing from this match, and somewhat out gunned we gave them a real run for their money.

Still top of the table!

Witney 1 is next week, a top 2 clash, another tough match.

Busy Nights at the Club Coming Up

The over the board Chess season is now up and running. For the next two weeks, 21st and 28th October, both teams will be playing League Matches. The Club will be open for social Chess but there numbers will be down as 12 players will be involved in the matches two weeks running.

Cumnor One will be playing against Oxford University 1 on the 21st and Witney 1 on the 28th, both matches will be at home. Cumnor One currently sit top of division one with two wins from two but these two matches will provide some tough games for the first team. Oxford University 1 will be playing their first match of the season as the University teams as they need fit their matches around the academic year.

Cumnor Two will be playing their first matches of the season after two false starts. They will be playing Cowley 3 on the the 21st and then Oxford University 3 on the 28th both of the matches will be away from home. Originally Cumnor two’s season should have started against Abingdon School on the 4th October but it was postponed due to Abingdon’s Michaelmas fair. Then the Oxford University 3 fixture was also rearranged after they had some issues with the fixture pile up.

Match Report: Cumnor 1 v. City 1

Well for our second match in two weeks we welcomed City 1 to the Old School. With all due respect to Didcot, our previous week’s opponents, we expected it to be a much tougher match, partially because a few of our stronger players were not available, but mainly because City 1 in the before times were an extremely strong team, challenging University 1 for the title, while we are but newcomers to the top table. But we live in strange times, so while City had two very strong players on the top boards in Jon Manley and Phil Hayward, lower down there were a lot of new faces – great for the OCA, great for chess, but this also meant the match was going to be much tighter than we expected.

As in the previous report I’ll go through the boards in (roughly) the order they finished. Mark finished first, and to be honest I missed the vital phase. At one point it all looked fairly equal, a moderately complex queen-less middle game, at the next Mark had powerful rooks on the semi-open b and c files blasting away at the queen side castled white king, supported by his white squared bishop on f5. It looked to me that white was in all sorts of trouble, especially on the white squares, and so it proved – the next time I looked Mark was a rook up. 1-0 to Cumnor.

For the second time in two weeks I was second to finish. William played the Grand Prix Attack against my Pirc/Modern, but I managed to force the exchange of his white squared bishop – I had learnt after a few bloody noses from Joe in the Cumnor Clash that this makes white’s attack a lot less powerful. Anyway it sort of transposed into a strange Sicilian Dragon, and when William tried to attack he over-pressed and dropped a pawn. And then in trying to win back the pawn he ran into a nasty pin that bagged me a knight. After that it was a little bit one way traffic, and after struggling for a bit William resigned. Cumnor 2 City 0.

Tony and Liam finished more or less at the same time. Tony handled Tamal’s attack from a Stonewall structure very nicely – while the pressure down the g file looked nasty and sacrifices were very much in the air Tony realised that he could just calmly run his king to the centre, leaving the attack dissipated and White in a better position. And a pawn up, which became a piece as Tamal struggled to stop that extra pawn queening. And again there was a bit of a struggle after that, but soon Tony recorded his debut win for Cumnor, well played! Cumnor 3-0 and couldn’t lose the match.

Liam’s was like mine a Grand Prix Attack, but against a Sicilian rather than the Pirc, and Liam was white. And interestingly, at least for me, it resulted in a “Symmetric Benoni” structure:

The reason I mention this is I am currently studying “Chess Structures – A Grandmaster Guide” by GM Mauricio Flores Rios,

and the next chapter I’m going to read is on the “Symmetric Benoni”, so let’s see how it applies to Liam’s game. The position at move 21 is

Now GM Rios says in his book “… White usually retains a small spatial advantage. This a advantage increases if White manages to expand on the kingside, restricting Black’s pieces substantially. Black’s play can be rather difficult, and great precision is required to avoid being asphyxiated. A main theme in this variation is whether Black manages to trade off some minor pieces to decrease his space problem. In addition, the control of the e4-square is often an important factor to determine whether Black can equalize or not”. So how is Joseph doing currently? Not bad must be the assessment, he’s swapped off a couple of minor pieces, and he’s got some control of e4, and while White has started to expand on the King side nothing too much has been achieved yet, though g4 looks as though it is coming soon. And Mr Stockfish puts it about equal, maybe a small advantage to black but it is minuscule. “But, but, but what about that knight on d4? Doesn’t black have to deal with that now?” we all cry. NO! 21 cxd4 Qxd4+ drops at least one pawn, so black does have time to ignore this “threat”. Thus, given what is said above, 21 … h5! is the move. It holds blacks position together by stopping g4, so keeping pressure on e4, and incidentally threatening the somewhat embarrassing Bg4. Instead Joseph played 21 … Bxd3?!, arguably the losing move as it loses control of e4 and g4, and so white can be expected to expand on the king side. See how Liam takes it from that point:

Yup, squeezed to death. These GM’s know what they are on about … 4-0 Cumnor.

This left the top two boards. Phil had played the Dutch as is his want against Gareth’s 1 d4?. I don’t understand the Dutch. It always seems to me that black has no space and the pieces aren’t working, and then black wins by crashing through on the kings side. To me it looked like Gareth was a bit better early on having a bit more space and better pieces, but Phil is a good player, and slowly worked his way into the game, and guess what – eventually his attack crashed through on the king side. 4-1 Cumnor.

I don’t understand the Dutch. But I do understand the Pirc, and the last game to finish, the top board clash between Jon and Nigel, showed a fascinating example of what can occur. It’s also very much an example of what *not* to show the kids, at least when it comes to teaching them about development and the opening in chess … Here’s the game:

 

So what’s happening? Black seems to make weaknesses preparing Bg7, then never plays it and instead makes lots of pawn moves – look at the position at move 10. How can this be sound? This isn’t what we were taught! The point is after 5 Qd2 Black knows white’s plan – Bh6, swap, 0-0-0, h4 h5, sac, sac, mate. So if this is the plan why castle king side into the attack? In fact why even play Bg7 if white is just going to swap the bishop off? You can play Bxh6 just as well from f8 as g7. So the idea in not playing Bg7 and 0-0 is to save a move or two to further plans elsewhere, in particular on the queen side. If Black can make enough noise over there white might chicken out of queen side castling, and if white does that the sac, sac, mate plan doesn’t work.

So this is the point – Nigel’s queen side demonstration eventually makes Jon decide to castle king side, at which point the hack attack down the h file is no longer on and now Nigel can decide how to place his king in safety, which, complete with a nice sidestep, he achieves by marching it to the queen side. At which point Black has his own king side chances, but he has to keep an eye on white’s sacrificial ideas like Nxd6 or Nxc5.

So a nicely complex game between two very good players, ending in an honourable draw when both were running a bit short on time. So in the end Cumnor 4 1/2 – City 1 1/2:

Top of the table a while yet!

Match report: Cumnor 1 v. Didcot 1

So last night chess returned to Cumnor Old School for the first time in over 18 months!

It was so nice to welcome Didcot 1 for one of the opening matches of the 21-22 season, and just great both to see so many familiar faces after all this time and to welcome a new one or two into the fold. COVID of course meant we had to be careful about a few things like keeping socially distanced where possible and having the Old School’s windows open in late September, but all in all it didn’t intrude too much into an enjoyable evening.

As for the games Stuart was first to finish. He dropped a pawn to Andy early in the opening, only for Andy to return the compliment with interest, losing a knight to a queen fork. It was over soon after that once Stuart activated his pieces, 1-0 Cumnor.

I (Ian) was next. I had a bit of an advantage out of the opening – more space; a bit of an initiative; a little bit of pressure down the d file; more active pieces. Basically while I had no game winning threats white’s position was easier to play than black’s. Florian worked hard to activate his pieces, but as is typical in such position he got a bit too optimistic, which lead to dropping a knight, and soon after the game. 2-0 Cumnor.

Eldar was playing a fascinating game on board 1 against Nick Gough, a heavyweight clash indeed! Eldar on the black side of an Advance French had grabbed white’s pawn on d4 with his queen, so while a pawn up his queen had very few squares and it would have been so easy to let it get trapped. One position I remember distinctly. On first glance Be3 won the queen, but on looking harder back rank threats saved it – all very complicated! Anyway Eldar navigated all the problems, and as is his way won with the extra pawn. In fact Eldar has previous here, winning a very high quality game in the same line against Dave Hackett in 17-18 4NCL, see below for the game.

So Cumnor were 3-0 up, and couldn’t lose. but the other 3 boards were far from foregone conclusions. Simon’s game on board 5 against Gary Reynolds was interesting. Gary as white had mangled his pawn structure with doubled, isolated h pawns to gain pressure down the open g file against a backward pawn on g7. On going through some of the game afterwards Simon and I demonstrated our different chess philosophies, I very much liked White because of the pressure, Simon preferred black because of the long term structural advantage. As is often the semi-conducting monster told us the truth was somewhere in between … Let’s say dynamic equality. After various excursions Simon lost in the endgame – I suspect as much because he was much lower on time as anything else. 3-1 to Cumnor.

I didn’t see the end of the other two games as I was going through Simon’s with him. On board 6 I thought Mark looked good early on, but his opponent managed to unravel his position and established a strong knight on e5 which Mark couldn’t kick away with a pawn. It went down to a Q+B endgame, which Tony won – 3-2 to Cumnor.

So it came down to board 3. The last time I saw Nigel’s game he was 2 pawns down in a N+P endgame. But, as is his way, he managed to swindle a win. Nigel, how do you keep doing this? A few lessons would be much appreciated. 4-2 to Cumnor!

So a tough and exciting match – I think we just deserved to win it, but then again I’m biased. And with Cowley drawing at Banbury it leaves us top of the table!

Three Month Membership to the Club for Free!

“Cruel as it may sound’ but the COVID-19 lockdown was a boom for chess”

said five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand at the end of last year. We at Cumnor Chess Club would have to agree with him.

Its been a funny old 18 months or so but Chess has handled it pretty well.

Not just the lockdown, Netflix’s hit The Queen’s Gambit, has been a driving force behind at least some of it.

With an audience of 62 million in its first 28 days it did reawaken many peoples love of the game along with bringing new people to the game.

Chess has never been more popular.

Chessboard sales jumped 87% in the US after the show’s release. Lichess announced this week that 4 billion games have been played on the platform and Chess.com had 2.7 million new accounts setup last November, the month of the Queens Gambit release.

The club opened it’s doors at the beginning of September and it has been great meeting people and playing over the board again. We would like to give everyone a chance to come and enjoy our favourite game. So the Club will be free to all old and new members until January 2022! That gives any you 12 weeks of over the board matches, friendly and competitive games and even a chance to play in the league for free!

We are in a very fortunate position that this has happened and hope the offer gets taken up.

Cumnor One will play the first league match this coming Thursday the 30th September against Didcot 1. In fact this will kick off the season along with the Banbury 1 v Cowley 1 match, the first set of league matches since early March 2020.

More information can be found on our New Members page.

Open Club nights start on the 9th September

So last tonight concluded our regular online Thursday evenings, and great fun they were.
For the past eighteen months we’ve been able to continue playing chess with each other. This of course was due to Graham Cluley building the platform at the start of the first lock-down in March 2020.

Thanks a million Graham, it was a god send.

Next week we shall reconvene once again at the club.
Thursday 9th September at 7pm.

The OCA 20/21 season commences during the last week of September. Only three divisions this season, as a number of clubs have reduced their teams.
Cumnor 1 remain in Division 1, and Cumnor 2 play in Division 3.

When we meet next Thursday can we please do the following:
Bring a mask, in case you wish, or your opponent wishes you to wear one.
Bring your own refreshments, and take any empties and waste home with you.
Sanitiser will be available. Please use the sanitiser prior to playing a game.

The club now has seventeen digital clocks, which is enough for match and club play during the same evening. The OCA 20/21 season requires digital clocks to be used only. We have therefore complied with this new ruling. The club will still have a few analog clocks on site should they be needed by anyone.

We looking forward to next Thursday, fingers crossed it will be permanent.

Message from Steve Bennett 03/09/2021