Photos

Round 5

		OXFORD 1		6-2	WESSEX 1
1	w	Savage, Ben D	2305	1 - 0	Corkett, Anthony R	2306
2	b	Rose, Matthew	2248	½ - ½	Poulton, James	2364
3	w	Shaw, David A	2261	1 - 0	Lock, Gavin R	2213
4	b	Smallbone, Kieran	2230	½ - ½	Webb, Richard M	2260
5	w	Eckersley-Waites, Tom	2215	1 - 0	Simons, Martin J	2228
6	b	Rawlinson, Aidan	2229	½ - ½	Yeo, Michael J	2110
7	w	Dickinson, Timothy R	2166	½ - ½	Neil, David R	2176
8	b	Lang, Heather	2072	1 - 0	Moore, Gillian A	1905

On a weekend where Berkshire returned to its sunny ways when the rest of England was struggling with flood, the Oxford troupe returned to Sunningdale to resume its quest of Division 1 promotion, and Saturday's match suggested that this weekend might justify the pre-season attribution of ‘easy' that had been assigned to it: four wins and four draws and a reasonably early night. Sunday was, though, to prove a little more testing, with a shock at the tail end of the day...

... in retrospect, though, how can any chess game or match be deemed ‘easy’? On the Saturday, an average 21 FIDE points per board difference doesn't amount to even an openings edge these days – it probably only counts for a touch more confidence when ordering refreshments – and only on bottom board was there a FIDE ratings difference significant enough to justify confidence in the overall result on that board. And all this before factoring in the Fritz game search factor, which usually means that players usually can get a position to their liking against an youthful Martian IM without having to worry about not having seen them play in person on this planet.

Arriving a little late thanks to the usual travel sickness (I'm sick of travelling), only Ben and Tom, on boards 1 & 5, seemed to have an advantage in prospect, the rest being locked in the unclear area... ... Time to find the room, a TV that worked, a quick shower before returning to the fray.

... to find Tim Dickinson on board 7 briskly pursuing a king-side initiative against David Neil, all the while unaware of his burgeoning reputation elsewhere in Essex...

Described on the opposition website (here) as a “notorious hacker, who true to form found a dangerous looking piece sacrifice when a much better move was available” - a reference to the diagram position where White continued 18.Bxh6 gxh6 19.Nf6+ Kh8 20.Qh5 Bg7, and where presumably 18. Qf3 was the preferred continuation.

Meanwhile, Tom E-W had wrapped things up nicely on board 5, after what the Wessex report notes as a ‘slight inaccuracy' in the opening, which allowed an exchange sacrifice which ensured a last initiative as long as it wasn't recouped. Tom wisely refused to take any rook until:

Eckersley-Waites – Simons (W)
26.Qxc6+ Kb8 27.Qd6+ Ka8 28.Bd5 Qg7 29.Bxb7+ Kxb7 30.Qc7+ 1-0

Kieran continued his quiet ways with the Caro on board 4, drawing against the opposition's Drawmeister who “even turned down a draw offer from the opposition captain on the basis that the match looked to be going badly, before thinking better of his bravado a few moves later.” Hmmm. Whether this game makes it to Kieran's article for a future magazine - Raising Caine with the Caro - is debatable, but the crowd will wait patiently...

On board 2, though, Matt chose perhaps less willingly a more scenic approach to the half-point – and the opposition viewpoint (“James was a comfortable 3 pawns to the good but allowed a perpetual”) certainly held sway with the Oxford supporters at the time.

An even more successful grovel on Board 3, saw Dave Shaw escape from this dog's dinner of a French:

On board 1, Ben had picked up an easy to play, hard to convert, advantage on top board, and while we weren't sure of the merits of 8. Nh3, particularly as it was never followed up with either f3 or f4, it had his 2300 opponent on the rack for the rest of the game, which ended quite decisively with this piece win in time trouble:

This left two games left to finish after the first time control, which was reduced to one when Heather's opposite coloured bishop disadvantage was compensated by her opponent's two-pawn deficit, and completely relieved by a one-move blunder of the remaining cleric in the White camp.

Aidan therefore missed first helpings at tea, as he attempted to grind out what seemed to be a clear advantage in an ending resulting from a Sveshnikov, an opening in which my ignorance lasts deep into the resulting middle game structures. We join the game late on, when Black needs to avoid mate on the move,

Round 6

		CHEDDLETON-POINTON		4½-3½	OXFORD 1
1	w	Bellin, Robert	2385	½ - ½	Savage, Ben D	2305
2	b	Lamoureux, Charles	2354	½ - ½	Shaw, David A	2261
3	w	Wallace, Paul A	2267	½ - ½	Rawlinson, Aidan	2229
4	b	Harman, Kenneth B	2173	0 - 1	Eckersley-Waites, Tom	2215
5	w	Lamoureux, Izabelle	2095	0 - 1	Smallbone, Kieran	2230
6	b	Hamblin, David J	2028	1 - 0	Coleman, James	2147
7	w	Butterworth, Andrew	2065	1 - 0	Starkie, Ray	2140
8	b	Edwards, Simon	2019	1 - 0	Lang, Heather	2072

Well, maybe it had to happen, but for a long time this Sunday it did seem like we were going to scrape by with a bare win. (Or so it seemed, to this particular reporter's hangover.) Outgraded but outperforming on the top four boards, we fell apart in the lower half to pick up a sole point from what seemed like the bare bones of four promising positions...

Top board saw Ben hold comfortably enough against Robert Bellin, who recently enough picked up his first GM norm aged 55.... nice. A 17-move draw which suggested both players had had a decent result the previous day (RB drew against Andrew Whiteley on Saturday), or too good a time the night before. Looked like Ben had the better of things by the time hands were shaken, but any other result was a long think away.

Not to be outdone, this drawing motif was taken up two moves earlier on board 3 by Aidan with Paul Wallace, a fellow countryman against whom I have a perfect record (unfortunately, it's the wrong type of record).

Wallace - Rawlinson (W)
DRAW agreed

Viewing this debacle, I now see that my real problem was my inability to offer draws at the right moment, but leaving personal bitterness and rancour to one side can report that “both sides feeling that their advantage was one that could be converted only at the expense of missing the last train to London”, a handshake was deemed the order of the morning.

A continuing travel theme seemed to have drifted to the adjoining board 4, where Tom and his opponent vied to win the Excelsior theme prize for the weekend:

while on board 5 Kieran produced a very neat finish to his game:

So, 3 points out of a possible 4 ... what could possibly go wrong?! Well.... Let's take them in order, then.

On board 6, James (Coleman, above) had started out brightly with the White pieces, only to be dragged back towards equality and then a chronic minus from move 15 onwards. As the storm clouds approached along the e-file, he had engineered his pieces to positions where they could help in the defence – and just in time for the last few moves before time control:

Score : 3-2 with 3 to play

On to board 7, where Ray is playing an accelerated Dragon middle-game without Queens ... or Knights, ... and in a position where most would have been producing the diplomatic draw offer, neither he nor Andrew Butterworth were being distracted by the verbal interludes that had produced the requisite draws on boards 1 or 3. By the time the diagram position has been reached, White probably would not be interested in a draw – the match situation alone would have suggested a few more moves – but a blunder by Ray meant that only a few more moves were needed:

Butterworth,A - Starkie,R (W)
33.g4 Kf6 34.Re1 Rc7? 35.g5+ 1-0

Score : 3-3 with 2 to play

... this brought us to board 8, and a titanic struggle there, which could have been better understood by this reporter had he realised Black had sacrificed a piece as early as move 8 in the Ruy Lopez, and where by move 30 had reached an ending with two pawns for the exchange, which seemed enough to secure the win. With Dave Shaw securing a draw at the fourth hour on board 2, the result here would decide the match. Heather sought to set up a blockade, and team members were consulted on whether it could be held:

Seani

Photos

Matt, in a packed post-mortem area

MoTD - Kieran and Tom

MoTD - Ben and JC

MoTD - Ms and Mr Hunt. And Mr Lawrenson.

The morning after. Dave in action.

Nearing the final whistle on Sunday.

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