|
18/04/08 - NATIONAL STAGES U125 County Team - National Stages - Update All National Stages are now on the ECF website Brian Whitaker CLEVELAND NCCU CHAMPIONS FOR SECOND YEAR RUNNING Incredibly Lancashire did pull off that miracle 12-0 win that they required to tie with us! However, under the tie splitting rules (which are a form of board count)
Cleveland are identified as over all winners. We now go straight into the quarterfinal stage of the National Championships with a provisional date set of 17th May
2008. However, I notice once again that this date clashes with the FA cup final, so it may be subject to change. Our opponents are yet to be determined, though we
should find out who they are within the next three weeks, or so. FINAL STANDINGS P W D L F A Pts CLEVELAND 3 2 1 0 24˝ 11˝ 5 1st LANCASHIRE 3 2 1 0 24˝ 11˝ 5 2nd YORKSHIRE 3 1 0 2 16˝ 19˝ 2 3rd DURHAM 3 0 0 3 6˝ 29˝ 0 4th Brian Whitaker
CCA U125 Fixtures and Results Oct 14th Cleveland 10˝-1˝ Durham Nov 25th (Sunday) Yorkshire 4-8 Cleveland Feb 3rd (Sunday) Lancashire 6-6 Cleveland Feb's match is cancelled due to C&NW not entering a team!? First named team is the Home team. All dates (except Durham) indicate the relevant weekend and are to be confirmed. Matches will usually be played on the Sunday though. Sun 14th Oct Cleveland v Durham U125 county match Report by Brian WhitakerSunday 14th October, 2007 saw the start of Cleveland U125’s campaign to retain the NCCU U125 title, won in such convincing fashion last season. Cleveland have unfortunately lost the services of three top players this year, namely Ernie Lazenby, Mike Creaney and Dave Richardson. These players have now exceeded the upper grading limit for the event (the price of success!). Nevertheless, due to Peter Ridsdale’s hard work in pulling a team together over the summer, I think we have a pretty formidable squad this season too. This showed when we took on Durham in the first round and secured our first win. Unlike last season there were no cliff-hanger finishes here. Final score Cleveland 10˝ - Durham 1˝ !! The venue for this local showdown was the Billingham Synthonia club, renowned in Cleveland for its er… excellent lighting, quietness, comfort and, oh yes, it’s free!. Seriously though, inspite of its reputation, Synthonia did us proud and offered us a much airier and brighter room than the usual Foster’s suite, where Synthonia chess club play. They also laid on a very acceptable buffet, which I think most players enjoyed as an alternative to the Sunday roast. Biggest problem was those infernal bingo numbers being announced over the PA system. Didn’t know whether to call ‘CHECK’ or ‘HOUSE’ at one point! After the speakers were turned off though, all went fairly smooth. Our only loss of the day was on board 4, Graham Matthews v Steve MacCormack. Steve was winning this one hands down when, oops, overlooked a back rank mate!! Haven’t we all been there?! Made a bit of a pig’s breakfast of the opening in my game. Ended up with three pawn islands, hanging pawns, etc. With the difficulties I created for myself, I inevitably slipped up and lost the exchange. After battling on for another 10 moves or so I won the exchange back (with a gasp from my opponent!). Looked at the scoreboard to find we were 6 – 1 ahead, returned to the table and promptly offered my opponent a draw, which he duly accepted. So, phew…match in the bag! Perhaps one of the more interesting games of the day was Jason Gentle v Peter Harker. Peter kindly sent me his game score for publication. Although incomplete it does show some interesting aspects of the game. Annotations by yours truly. 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Nf6 3.d4 Bg4 (Don’t know if this is standard in the Scandinavian but it seems to allow White a rapid pawn expansion) 4.f3 Bf5 5.g4 Bg6 6.c4 c6 7.h4 cxd5 8.Nc3 h6 9.Qb3 Qc7 10.Be3 (development is probably more important than the pawn) e6 11.c5 a6 12.Qa4+ Nfd7 (would 12….Nbd7 be better here?) 13.Nb5 Qg3+ This seems to be the critical point in the game. Black has to be careful about the threat of Nc7+, but his Queen is running out of squares! 14.Bf2 Qf4 (photographed position) 15.Ne2! axb5 (I can see Black’s thinking here but, in hindsight, perhaps 15….Qxf3 would have been better?) 16.Qxa8 Qxf3 17.Rh3 Qxg4 18.Qxb7 Bxc5 (looks like Black’s trying to get 3 pawns for the Bishop here but, as he’s already material down…??) 19.dxc5 Qb4+ 20. Rc3 Qxb2 21.Rac1 0-0 22.Rb3 Qxa2 23.Qxb5 Rc8 24.Nc3 Qa8 25.Qb7! (forcing the Queens off) Qxb7 26.Rxb7 Ne5 27.Bg3 Nbd7 28.Bxe5 Nxe5 29.Nb5 Bd3 30.Ra1 1-0 Peter had stopped scoring at this point, but enough to show a very aggressive game by Jason, foregoing castling and concentrating instead on a massive space advantage. Hanging on to the last was Cleveland’s other captain, Peter Ridsdale. Peter was playing Bishop Auckland player, Bryan Bainbridge, on board 2. Peter had a Queen and 6 pawns playing against Bryan’s Bishop, Rook and 5 pawns. Yes, theoretically I suppose Peter was the better, but trying to convert it to a win was never going to be easy. With mounting pressure Bryan eventually lost on time, concluding Cleveland’s best day at the office since I took over as captain. All in all a great afternoon of chess and I hope this sets a trend for the rest of the season. Many thanks to all players that took part. Individual results (Cleveland first and white on odd boards)
Many Thanks to Collin Smith for taking the photos and sending them in - cheers ! Sun 25th Nov
Sun 3rd Feb York Railway Institute Lancashire v Cleveland U125 match Report by Brian Whitaker The Cleveland U125 squad played their final match in the NCCU stages of this season’s competition on the 3rd February 2008, at the York Railway Institute, taking on the might of Lancashire. This proved to be our biggest challenge so far and we could only manage a drawn match. Result Lancashire 6 – 6 Cleveland. Lancashire have long been a considerable force in county chess, despite having a poor run last season, so our draw was no mean feat for a county the size of Cleveland. I decided to arrive in good time for this one, as I knew that we had boards to set up, paperwork to fill out, etc. I actually arrived around 12.15, even though the match wasn’t due to start till 1 O’clock. You can imagine my consternation when Peter hadn’t showed up by 12.50, as Peter had most of the equipment in his car!! Just as I was about to call him, in he came through the door, full of apologies. So it was a very flustered Peter that got proceedings underway and got everyone seated in position. I sympathise with Peter greatly here, as I’ve been in the same position many times now and it certainly makes it difficult to settle into your game. Still, Peter managed a very creditable draw on board 2. Well done! Before Peter’s arrival the Lancashire captain gave me his team list and this suggested that we were going to have a real challenge here. We were pretty evenly matched on the top and bottom boards and only slightly higher in the middle order. As slight as this difference was, it seemed to be an important factor in determining the match result, since it was on these boards where we really shone. I found myself playing in my deserved position on bottom board again and continued my poor county form, letting the side down once again! Oh well, they say Napoleon was a great leader, but a useless soldier! Mine was the sixth game to finish and was quickly followed by a fine win from David Appleyard (see game score below). At this point I thought I’d take a look at the situation. We were 4 – 3 down! Looking around at the remaining 5 games I was not feeling too optimistic! There was only really Rod Bell’s game that I had any hope for. Steve Henderson and Ron Stather looked lost for sure. Steve’s King was being crushed by a pawn storm and Ron was two pawns down. Stan Lovell’s and Peter Ridsale’s games looked decidedly drawish and, sure enough, that’s how they both finished. The last game to finish was Ron Stather’s on board 7. At this point it was 6 – 5 to Lancashire! Peter Ridsdale came over to me to tell me that he reckoned Ron had just lost it and, at that point, there was a bit of activity over at the board. So, over I go, poised to write a 1 in the Lancashire player’s box, only to find Ron had turned things around dramatically and actually won the game! Unbelievable! Take a look at what happened by playing through the games below. Click HERE to replay games R.Stather 1-0 G. Boruchava (notes by Ron Stather) D. Appleyard 1-0 L. Socha - Dave Appleyard, playing on board 1. A fine example of attacking chess G Pennington 1-0 S Henderson - Better not say anything ;-) Individual scores (Lancs. first – Cleveland white on odds) L. Socha (123) 0 – 1 D. Appleyard (123) P. Copeland (123) ˝ - ˝ P. Ridsdale (123) Geoff Pennington (122) 1 – 0 S. MacCormack (121) M. Horne (113) ˝ - ˝ S. Lovell (120) P. Raynor (110) 0 – 1 R. Bell (117) S. Flaherty (109) 0 – 1 J. Gentle (114) G. Boruchava (109) 0 – 1 R.Stather (111) Graham Pennington (109) 1 – 0 S.Henderson (111) H. Broadley (109) 0 – 1 P. Perrett (110) P. Howarth (109) 1 – 0 N. Fulton (104) A. Pritchard (97) 1 – 0 M. Walmsley (97) K. Quinn (97) 1 – 0 B. Whitaker (91)
What does this mean for Cleveland’s prospects this season? Well, Cleveland have finished with 2 wins and one draw, so that’s 5 points. Our For total is 24˝ ponits and our Against total is 11˝ points, thus giving a difference of +13. As Durham and Yorkshire have both lost to us, they’re out of the running as far as winning the NCCU title is concerned. On the other hand Lancashire has had one win and one draw to date. However, their win, against Yorkshire, was by the score of 6˝ - 5˝ . So, at the time of writing this report, Lancashire have a For total of 12˝ and an Against total of 11˝ , so their For – Against difference is +1. Therefore, they need a 12 – 0 win in their last match to just tie with us! Their last match is in March and is against our neighbours, Durham. Here’s how the table looks to date:-
P W D L F A Pts Cleveland 3 2 1 0 24˝ 11˝ 5 Lancashire 2 1 1 0 12˝ 11˝ 3 Yorkshire 2 0 0 2 9˝ 14˝ 0 Durham 1 0 0 1 1˝ 10˝ 0 I would like to take this opportunity of thanking all players that have participated in this season’s regional stages. Your efforts have been much appreciated. As most of you will know, Peter Ridsdale has been the main person involved in pulling the teams together for each match and he has often commented to me that he is finding it really difficult to play a squad of 12 players. On one or two occasions we were extremely close to defaulting a board or two! Eventually it all came together and we managed to field a full team for every match, but Peter’s difficulties are a real worry when you consider that the National stages require a team of 16 players! The hard work of all those involved (including the players) could well have all been in vain unless we are able to find another 5 or 6 players between now and mid-April. If you are interested in representing your county and are graded between say 85 to 124 (lower grades will be considered also) then please contact either myself or Peter Ridsdale urgently. Contact details are on this web site. Cleveland’s next match is likely to be played in May (assuming that Lancashire don’t pull off a miracle!) and will be in the quarter-final of the National stages. If, in the unlikely event, we finish second in the NCCU table, we will be required to play a preliminary National round in April. Updates will appear on this web site as soon as I have them to hand.
|
