LEAGUE RESULTS - WEEK 4

Division 1 - W2 lose away to Littlethorpe 1 (with a very strong Birstall influence!)

 

	15-Oct-07	v.	Littlethorpe 1(A)
1.	M. Hebden	1		A. Morley	0
2.	G. Sharpe	0.5		P. Horspool	0.5
3.	D. Bray	0.5		P. Gibbs	0.5
4.	D. Evans	0.5		I. Dodds	0.5
5.	S. Hewitt	1		P. Watkinson	0
		3.5			1.5

 

Division 3 - W4 draw with Hinckley

 

	18-Oct-07	v.	Hinckley (H)
1.	J. Daniel	0.5		D. Moore	0.5
2.	B. Cooper	0		G. Compton	1
3.	R. Townsend	1		T. Clay	0
4.	B. Shuter	1		B. Radesk	0
5.	D. White	0		D. Opie	1
		2.5			2.5

 

Division 4 - W6 well beaten by Spinney Hill 2

 

	18-Oct-07	v.	Spinney Hill 2(H)
1.	P. Gray	0		P. Deacon	1
2.	N. Beasley	0.5		J. Colver	0.5
3.	P. Winterton	0		S Preocanin	1
4.	C. Eastlake	0.5		R. Davis	0.5
5.	P. Turland	0		A. Butler	1
		1			4

 

Neil

Chess Puzzle - Week 3

This week's puzzle is a position from a game by our own Peter Gibbs; his match against Boris Spassky in the 1960 Student Team Championship :




Spassky - Gibbs, Leningrad 1960
White to play and win

I found this puzzle quite difficult - I would be interested to know if the first team players thought so too. For the rest of us, here is a hint. At first glance, it looks as if Peter is doing okay against the future world champion, however, looking closer, you can see that one of his pieces is vulnerable - how did Boris expose this weakness so clearly that Peter resigned?

Full marks for initiative, but no bananas if you ask Peter for the answer (or Boris Vasiliyevich for that matter). Solution next week.

Solution to last week's puzzle: 1. Qxh4! Kxh4 2. Rh7+ Kg5 3. h4 mate.

Wigston 1 v Loughboro' 1

Hi,

The result of the top of Division 1 clash has already been reported; but the match was really a lot closer than that. Until a quarter of an hour to go it looked as though my game could go either way, and Phil Horspool's looked difficult to win.

Regards,
Andy.

LEAGUE RESULTS - WEEK 3

Division 1 - 1st team easily beat Loughborough 1 at home

 

	11-Oct-07	v.	Loughborough 1(H)
1.	A. Byron	1		S. Sheahan	0
2.	M. Burrows	0.5		J. Mitchell	0.5
3.	W. Dehnen	1		A. Jex	0
4.	A. Morley	1		J. Dawkins	0
5.	P. Horspool	1		J. Glover	0
		4.5			0.5

 

Division 2 - 3rd team crush Mkt Harboro (already posted)

 

Division 4 - 5th team have big win at Syston

 

	9-Oct-07	v.	Syston 2(A)
1.	R. Stone	0		D. White	1
2.	S. Hollingworth	0.5		P. Gray	0.5
3.	R. King	0		C Eastlake	1
4.	M. Martin	0		P. Turland	1
		0.5			3.5

 

Neil

Market Harboro' v Wigston 3 match result

Hi,
The Wigston 3 team went over to Market Harborough last night to wish them welcome to Division 2:

1   Ilersic, Romilly 153 Drawn 134 Dodds, Iain
2 Oppenheim, Charles 125  0-1  130 Harlow, Phil
3      Thomson, John 117  0-1  129 Smith, Stephen
4  King, Robert (Bob) 95  0-1  123 Watkinson, Phil
5     Bradford, Keith 85  0-1  113 Cooper, Barrie
Total                   ½ - 4½ 

Iain had the toughest job, in which he succeeded with a draw. The rest of the team had comfortable wins. This gives us two wins out of two; however the next match, on Thursday 25th October, is away at the likely winners of the Division this year - Scraptoft Valley 1.

Wish us luck
Regards,
Phil.

Chess Puzzle - Week 2

Hi,

Here is a chess puzzle, courtesy of The Times, for you to try. An easy one this week; it is from

Plaskett - Velimirovic, Banja Luka 1985

White to play and win

Here is another instance of an English player beating up Velimirovic; Plaskett has sacrificed a piece to drive the Black king up the board; how did he now finish it off?

Solution next week.

SUBSCRIPTIONS DUE

A reminder to all members that your 2007-8 season subscriptions are now due.
Full Membership - £36 ; Reduced Membership - £18

(A reduction of £9 is available for members who already are Direct Members of the ECF).
Please Pay Neil or Martin asap

County Individual Championship

2007 Leics Chess Champion is Martin Burrows

For the 3rd consecutive year a Wigston member has won the County Individual Chess title.
After the scheduled 5 rounds Martin Burrows and Birstall's Graham Sharpe were level on 4 points. In the first two quick play games they had two draws and so a further two games were played and Martin ran out as champion by winning one of those games

Neil

LEAGUE MATCH RESULTS - WEEK 2

Div 1 - Wigston 2 give Wigston 1 a good fight:

 

	4-Oct-07	v.	Wigston 1 (H)
1.	A. Morley	0.5		A. Byron	0.5
2.	I. Dodds	0.5		M. Burrows	0.5
3.	P. Watkinson	0		W. Dehnen	1
4.	S. Smith	0		P. Gibbs	1
5.	A. Pike	0.5		P. Harlow	0.5
		1.5			3.5

 

Div 3: Wigston 4 get excellent Draw away to Braunstone 2

 

	2-Oct-07	v.	Braunstone 2(A)
1.	P. Colburn	0		P. Watkinson	1
2.	D. Sandrovitch	1		J. Daniel	0
3.	P. Hogan	1		B. Shuter	0
4.	G. Young	0.5		D. White	0.5
5.	A. Robinson	0		P. Gray	1
		2.5			2.5

 

Div 4: Wigston 6 lose away to Ashby 2 - Bd 4 at best is drawn

 

	4-Oct-07	v.	Ashby 2(A)
1.	P. Gibson	0		D. White	1
2.	V. Armstrong	1		P. Gray	0
3.	T. Rossell	1		P. Winterton	0
4.	R. Evans	a		C. Eastlake	a
		2			1

 

Neil

 

 

 

Tony Peterson Chess Books

Hi,

As you may know the Club recently sold some of it's older, unwanted, chess books. The buyer was Tony Peterson, who runs a mail order business in secondhand and rare chessbooks from his house in Southend-on-Sea in Essex. I went down to see him with the chess books and we did a good deal which I think both parties were very happy with. Tony is a modest man, with a modest lifestyle and I can recommend him if you are looking for a particular book and prefer to do business directly with a person rather than through the anonymity of eBay.

He has a website - www.chessbooks.co.uk - with a catalogue and all the information to make a purchase.

Regards,
Phil.

Wigston 4 v Braunstone 2 : Match Report

Hi,

The boys did good! Outgraded on every board, we managed a fighting draw:

1 Paul Colburn    (135) v Phil Watkinson(123) 0-1
2 David Sandovitch(124) v John Daniel   (120) 1-0
3 Pat Hogan       (121) v Brian Shuter  (112) 1-0
4 Gavin Young     (118) v Dave White    (109) draw
5 Tony Robinson   (107) v Paul Gray     (103) 0-1
total                                       2.5-2.5

John and Brian were well beaten by much stronger opponents; Dave managed a good draw without any pawns being exchanged (!); I easily beat Paul Colburn who didn't play anywhere near his strength; leaving Paul Gray to make an excellent fight back to win his game and so draw the match!

Ray popped in later (having been to the Braunstone Social Club first and wondering why nobody was there) and so has the score sheet for submission to the LRCA.

Regards,
Phil.

Peter and the Wolf

Hi,
I just thought you may like to hear a little story; I smiled and I think you will too, and I hope Peter will not be too embarassed.

Anyway; I was chatting to Peter Gibbs after the last round of the Charity quickplay event recently. Peter was our Board 1 for the Wigston2 team (I was playing on Board 4). We had just played Birstall, led by GM Mark Hebben, and had been well beaten 3-1.

"What was it like playing Mark Hebben?", I asked; "The same feeling as being run over by a steamroller" was the reply. Dimly aware of Peter's illustrious past, I asked "When did you last play a grandmaster?"
"Oh, that guy will the Bc4 move in the Sicilian - what was his name - aah yes, Velimirovic" was the reply(!). There was a pause. "But I won that one" came the afterthought (!!).

Phil.

The LRCA Charity and Prize Giving Event - Report

Hi,

I just want to tell everyone about the LRCA annual prize giving event a couple of Thursdays ago (20th September), held this year at the Spinney Hill WMC.

I went up to collect the Divison 1 winners trophy and Phil Watkinson collected the Chapman Cup on behalf of the Wigston 2 team. Then the charity quickplay took place, with 15 teams of 4 players with 4 rounds of 30minute (15 minutes per player) chess.

The Quickplay event was very tight, and going into the last round the score stood:

 Birstall  9.0 (out of a maximum of 12)
 Wigston2  9.0
 Wigston1  8.5
 Shepshed  8.5

Birstall (a very strong team lead by Mark Hebben) were then due to play Wigston2 and Wigston1 played Shepshed. We went all out for it and beat Shepshed 4-0 and Wigston2 managed to get a point out of Birstall's bottom board Graham Booley, thus giving us the tournament by half a point!

We should not have won if there was any justice in the world, since, in the third round, I was utterly lost against Graham Booley (really, really lost! ) but he went wrong and allowed me to get an endgame that should have been a draw - but with quite a bit of play in it. I offered a draw and, after a couple of minutes thought, he accepted. He really shouldn't have, because he still had 3 minutes left and I had 17 seconds!

I think the psychological blow of frittering away a win affected his judgement! Our individual scores:
Martin Burrows: 1 win, 2 draws and a loss to Hebbo
Alan Byron: 4 wins
Walter Dehnen: 3 wins and a draw
Andy Morley: 2 wins and 2 draws

So we won by half a point, and so retain the Charity Board. It was a very good evening, well run in an excellent venue, and enjoyed by all.

Regards,
Andy.

LEAGUE MATCH RESULTS - WEEK 1

DIVISION 2 - Wigston 3 beat a strong Loughborough 2

 

	27-Sep-07	v.	Loughboro 2(H)
1.	I. Dodds	0.5		A. Jex	0.5
2.	P. Harlow	1		J. Dawkins	0
3.	S. Smith	0		J. Glover	1
4.	P. Watkinson	1		O. Hardy	0
5.	A. Pike	1		J. Beauquel	0
		3.5			1.5

 

DIVISION 4 - Wigston 6 caused an upset by Beating Wigston 5

 

	27-Sep-07	v.	Wigston 5 (H)
1.	F. Hulford	0		R. Townsend	1
2.	P. Winterton	1		B. Shuter	0
3.	C. Eastlake	1		D. White	0
4.	P. Turland	1		P. Gray	0
		3			1

 

Neil

 

NEW SEASON

LEAGUE MATCHES START NEXT WEEK

 

I now have League Handbooks for all members.

 

The first matches on 27 September at the club are:

 

W3 v. Loughborough 2 in Division 2 (a repeat of the Chapman Cup Final!)

 

W5 v. W6 in Division 4

 

Welcome to new member Peter Turland who will be playing in my W6 team.

 

Neil

A good night in Loughborough

The finals of the Chapman Cup took place last night between Loughborough 2 and Wigston 2. It was going to be our toughest match yet in the competition and we had used up all our luck in the first rounds against Loughboro' 1 and Birstall 1.
We decided to take the team picture before the match commenced, since we reckoned we would be looking too battered and bruised afterwards:

And this is what then happened:

1. John Dawkins (142) 0-1 Phil Watkinson (127)
2. John Glover (135)  ½-½ Stephen Smith (124)
3. Otto Hardy (131)   0-1 Andrew Pike (115)
4. Terry Adcock (109) ½-½ Barrie Cooper (111)
Team Bonus            0-½
-----------------------------------------------
Total                 1-3½

I am so proud of the team - we all had the right attitude and motivation and were going to provide as much resistance to our opponents as possible whatever the outcome.

This perservance paid off with excellent results - Andrew, with positive play, gave Otto too many problems to solve; Stephen defended for a long time in the kinght and pawn ending with four knights (although the position was so complicated I'm sure I counted five knights on the board at one time); Barrie agreed a draw in an equal game but where he had all the chances. My opponent allowed me a kingside hack attack in all the best traditions of the Grunfeld Exchange, which, of course, failed but he had used up so much time that he mucked up the resulting drawn endgame.

We therefore won the match even without the handicap bonus (the team were out graded by 40 points).


The award ceremony will take place next Thursday at the Association prize giving event at Spinney Hill. We will get Andrew to comb his hair and I will try not to look like I have a broom handle up my a**e.


Cheers,Phil.