CCs Major (5) Ross Vs Beach

On Tuesday, Ray and I played our fifth round major tie at the Arms. Ray had been playing at the e2e4 Coventry Congress for most of the weekend - see previous blog.




The Grand Prix Attack was popularised by Mark Hebden and a few others who won a lot of games very quickly with it in the 1980s. Gawain Jones has written a nice book on it and has also produced a DVD ROM with Simon Williams' Ginger GM Series - both really good. I learned to play this from AWOL Hacker and have been able to surprise a few 130 and 140 players with it.

White plays an early f4 and develops rapidly on the kingside before pushing the pawn to f5. If Black accepts the pawn, this opens up a file and white has a space advantage. White then attempts an early attack on the castled black king.

Here, Fritz gives 10. Ng5 as a ?? preferring 10. d3 d5, 11. exd5 Nxf3 12. Rxf3 Bxc3 13. bxc3 Nxd5 14. Qh6 with an advantage for white.

Gordon, Drew, and new Graham were also in the skittle alley for some friendlies.

Next Tuesday, there will some friendlies at the Arms, and on the 10th we have an away Harrod Match against Syston 1.

Colin.

Horrid Cup / CCs

The AGM minutes will be out soon. Annual subs are due now and unchanged from last year: £27-50 Basic Adult membership to include Bronze ECF membership, £6 more for Silver etc etc.

Our Harrod Cup team should have been at home on Tuesday, but there was some confusion over the dates and Loughborough did not arrive. We could have rearranged the match, but we were holding up the draw for the next round. Loughborough has defaulted.

We had a new player show on Tuesday; Graham (this will be our 4th Graham) is rusty, but can play.

On Thursday, it was the Minor and Challengers Sections of the County Champs at Wigston.

In the Minor, Ray and Gordon played each other with Ray winning. I beat Stan.
I left before the end of John's game against Andrew Reeves, but John was a pawn up with the black pieces.

Here is my game against Stan. 14...Re8 would have been better:



Next Tuesday, Ray and i play our Major game at the Heathcote.

Well Done Everyone,

Colin.

Edit

The Grinder adds:

My game against Andrew Reeves (158) was going my way until late on. I had won his h-pawn in the middle game with some tactics, but I knew it was a bit double edged.

We were both low on time in the rooks and pawns ending, although I had a bit more. Although I ended up with two unconnected passed pawns, I had difficulties due to one of my rooks being badly placed. I was unable to prevent him doubling rooks on my 7th rank and forcing a draw by perpetual check.
John

Edit

Ray is spending the bank holiday weekend at the e2e4 Coventry Congress. Follow his progress at:
http://www.e2e4.org.uk/coventry/Aug2013/index.htm

AGM

Our, somewhat belated, AGM will be held on Tuesday 13th August at the Heathcote Arms.

Colin.

July Grades

Ref	Name	Sex	Age	Club	Standard		Previous		Rapidplay		Previous
263015B	Beach, Ray	M		Blaby District aka Heathcote Arms	92	A	101	A	95	D	99	D
106989F	Booley, Graham M	M		Blaby District aka Heathcote Arms	153	X	151	A	139	C	139	C
107208A	Bray, Dave J	M		Blaby District aka Heathcote Arms	176	C	167	C	165	E
282104H	Bubb, Michael A	M	17	Blaby District aka Heathcote Arms	40	E	38	C
108975E	Cowley, Michael H	M		Blaby District aka Heathcote Arms	141	B	144	B	146	C	146	C
263024C	Ensor, Rob	M		Blaby District aka Heathcote Arms	135	B	140	B	147	D
161682B	Ganger, Rajan	M		Rushden	183	X	179	A	187	D	191	E
288540C	Ganger, Sajan	M		Rushden	128	X	136	D
291278J	Harbidge, Drew	M	13	Blaby District aka Heathcote Arms	65	D	67	E	89	E
112216C	Harrison, Peter K	M		Blaby District aka Heathcote Arms	156	B	152	B	147	D	151	D
112575J	Hewitt, Sean D	M		Marple	166	X	151	A			159	D
250159E	Manger, John D	M		Blaby District aka Heathcote Arms	140	X	139	X	140	D	143	D
288615H	Milner, Gordon	M		Blaby District aka Heathcote Arms	49	B	50	D
263017F	Ricketts, Dave C	M		Blaby District aka Heathcote Arms	78	B	83	A	103	E	103	D
272934K	Ross, Colin	M		Blaby District aka Heathcote Arms	107	A	117	A	89	D	89	D
283533C	Sanders, Gary	M		Blaby District aka Heathcote Arms	37	E	37	D
118781J	Sharpe, Graham J	M		Blaby District aka Heathcote Arms	178	B	184	B	188	D	185	D

Heathcote Arms exit from Birstall Cup

Syston had the slightly stronger team - with 24 grading points difference - but not enough difference to give us a handicap bonus.

Mike Cowley scored an early win. Ray then went on to lose. I had been doing fine, but, in my usual time trouble, managed to implode at around move 52. We were not playing with Fischer incremental times and Bob Wallace was down to one second remaining on the clock. The rest of us crowded around the one remaining table and telepathically willed John to make any move whatsoever. This did not work, however, as John's remaining minute and a half counted down to zero.

John was not at all happy afterwards and said that this was the most stupid thing that he had ever done. I pointed out that this was nothing like as stupid as AWOL Hacker resigning in a won position against Mick Garland (October 2012 - see past blogs), but this did  not seem to cheer him up any.

30 Jul		Heathcote Arms 2		v	Syston 1		GD
				1 - 3			27
Handicap				0 - 0
				1 - 3
1	W	144	Mad Mike	1 - 0	Pourmozafari, Ben	147	3
2	B	139	The Grinder	0 - 1	Wallace, Robert	136	-3
3	W	117	Not so big boss	0 - 1	Suchak, Parin	127	10
4	B	101	Raymondov	0 - 1	Stone, Robert	118	17

Here is my game against Parin Suchak:



Well done everyone,

Colin.

County Champs 4th Round (Minor and Challengers Sections).

Minor

In the Minor, Ray had a bye. I was paired with Gordon.



Also in the Minor, there was an upset on board 1, with Nick Chalashkanov beating the previously undefeated Mr McKiernan. Also Paul Martin, looked sure to beat Stan, but left himself vulnerable to some mischief from Stan's queen.

Challengers

In the Challengers, The Grinder had the white bits against Steve Wylie - things went down to an endgame with Steve coming out on top.

Chess Set Raffle

At the end of the evening, Andy Morley pulled out the winning ticket. The set of Lewis Chessmen with wooden board was won by Paul Martin of Braunstone Chess Club. John's efforts have succeeded in raising over £100 towards club funds.

Well done everyone,

Colin.

Harrod Cup Third Round

I am a bit behind with updating the site. I hope to put this right over the next day or two.

On the 16th, I had food poisoning, so Ray stepped in as Captain.

A 4.5 to 3.5 point win gave us our first win, this year, in the Horrid Cup.
 

16 Jul	Syston 2		W - B	B - W	Heathcote Arms 1
			3½ - 4½
1	95	Martin, Maurice	0 - 1	0 - 1	Manger, John	143
2	88	Mundy, Rob	1 - 0	0 - 1	Beach, Ray	99
3	83	Adams, Mick	1 - 0	½ - ½	Harbidge, Drew	67
4	65	Morelli, Nando	0 - 1	1 - 0	Milner, Gordon	50

Well done everyone,

Colin.