Braunstone Chess Club

Nov 30th 2010

Braunstone 3 entertained Melton 3 on a cold wintry night on Tuesday. Both top boards withdrew from the match 'at the last minute',  but luckily I was able to step in for Braunstone as I was going to the club anyway. Unfortunately for Melton, this meant a default and the other players moving up a board.

First to finish was our captain, Barry, who beat Peter Poolan: we then only needed a draw to win the match. My game started well, but I came under a lot of pressure in the middle game. Then towards the end, I missed what might have been a winning move. However, luck came to my aid 2 moves later, when my opponent blundered and left me with a forced mate. Cyril's game was fairly even, but he lost time fending off a king side attack and shortage of time eventually resulted in defeat.

Finally, full marks to Melton for turning out on a snowbound night, with a dodgy forecast. Report by John Oliver.

Nov 25th 2010

Braunstone 1 travelled to Scraptoft Valley for the latest League Cup match. League Cup matches are handicapped, but the grades between the two sides were very closely matched, and it was a straight fight.

Dave Sandrovitch agreed a draw with Mick Tate early on, when subsequent analysis indicated that Mick had the better chances. Jim Bingham took a pawn in a very sharp line, and then had to weather a storm. He returned the pawn, and the position looked double-edged, but equal when Paul Deacon put his queen en prise, thinking it achieved an exchange of queens. Jim found a zwischenzug which threatened mate, and Paul resigned immediately, as he couldn't avoid the mate AND save the queen. Paul Colburn had the worst of it against Roland Graf, played on material down, but eventually succumbed. John Robinson was a pawn up in a complicated BvN ending, but Ray Burgess was able to achieve a defensive blockade and obtain a draw. John did have a few sacrifices to try and open the position, but in analysis, there were dangers associated with these tries. Earlier on, it appeared that John may have had a long combination to win the exchange, at the end of which Ray had an unguarded rook. The sort of thing that Fritz sees instantly, but we humans don't! Anyway, a creditable draw, although we now have 2 draws from 2 matches, and we will probably need to win our last 3 to have any chance of claiming the title. Match Report by Dave Sandrovitch.

Nov 18th 2010

After heavy defeats in our first 2 matches against Shepshed and Melton, the prospect of meeting an equally strong Ashby side was pretty daunting.It was therefore with some incredulity that I looked at the score sheet after the match. How on earth did we manage to win and without conceding a game?

Roy suddenly won and went home.

Nov 16th 2010

The first team entertained, if thats the right word, a strong Melton first team and came out on top in some tight games. On board 1, Mark played Graham Lee and soon got the initiative on the black side of a Giuoco Piano opening that Mark remarked in the bar afterwards "he'd played thousands of times"! He then sac'd an exchange, Graham had to return it quickly to avoid mate and the game soon finished with mate inevitable. With Paul and Jim having what appeared to be winning positions, I took a draw with Tom Reynolds in a level middlegame, then Jim won a nice finish against Alan Jex. As the match was then won, Paul agreed a draw with John Denton, even though he was the exchange up with all the pressure (good team player!) and John agreed a draw with John Billingham in a level endgame. So overall an excellent result which gives us 5 out of 6 points to start the season. Report by Mike Salisbury.

The third team however had a tough night. Outgraded on every board by a strong Heathcote Arms 2 team, all the matches went the full distance ( none of the matches were finished when the last match in the first teams match against Melton finished). Unfortunately we ran out 4-0 losers. Details:

Nov 9th 2010

The first team travelled to Heathcote Arms with our "not so secret" weapon Mark Hebden making his first appearance for the club for a number of years. He soon had his opponent Rajan in trouble, firstly winning a pawn then in his inimitable style slowly putting more pressure on his opponent until the inevitable resignation. Paul was the first to finish against Dave Bray, after some jockeying for position a draw was agreed with both players seeming scared to make a mistake it seemed to this observer!

John went into a double rook ending with equal pawns and despite putting pressure on Sean Hewitt, a draw was soon agreed. I then won a piece against Mike Cowley in a frantic time scramble with both players down to the last 2 minutes on the clock, and when the time control was reached the game was won. Jim had pressure against Graham Booley but unfortunately the game slipped away from him towards the end. So the final result was a 3-2 win. Report by Mike Salisbury

The third team had a good win at home to Kirby Castlers by 3-1. Unfortunately, team captain Barry Read had to drop out, but this allowed us to bring in Roy Lathwood on board 1. Roy had only recently returned from a cruise and it was his first game this season. So, what happened - Roy was soon in difficulties against Paul Gray,who ruthlessly attacked on the kingside and displaced Roy's uncastled king. To Roy's credit he eventually unravelled his position and secured a draw.