Team Quickplay

Broadstairs have won the 2019/20 Thanet & East Kent League team rapidplay tournament held at Margate on Tuesday December 10th. We won all of our four matches, beating Bridge by scores of 3½ – ½ and 3½ – ½ and beating Margate by scores of 3½ – ½ and 4 – 0. Trefor Owens on top board beat Peter McGill (Margate) twice and fought two interesting draws with Alan Atkinson (Bridge). David Faldon (board 2), Manoj Natarajan (board 3) and Paul Carfrae (board 4) scored eleven wins and one draw between them. The only blot on the landscape came when Colin Gregory of Margate gave me a real pasting in one of their games, finishing the game with king, queen and five pawns against bare king. Unfortunately Colin’s 15 minutes ran out at that point, which meant the game was a draw. Bridge beat Margate twice in the other matches, so they finished second. Many thanks to Margate for providing the venue, and for all the tea and biscuits.

David Faldon

(Full details can be found on the LMS under ‘Latest Results’. Click here. – Ed)

 

 

Blunder of the Week

Here’s a rarity – yes, folks, you heard it here first – a blunder by Magnus Carlsen. It was played in the Grand Tour Chess Finals in London this afternoon (Sunday) in the 3rd/4th play-off between Carlsen and Lev Aronian.  Admittedly, it was a rapidplay game but Carlsen had five minutes left on his clock when this position arose after he (Black) had played 33…Nc4.

At this point Stockfish had the game as equal (-0.45). White then decided to exchange his rook for Black’s knight and Stockfish immediately gave Black as winning (-4.82). The game continued like this:

34. Rxc4     Qxc4

35. Qa8+    Kf7

36. Qf8+     Kg6

37. Rc1?!

Is this the blunder, you are thinking? But no, it was played by Aronian. So, what’s the blunder? Did Carlsen not take it? Yes, he did – this is how the game continued:

37…………….. Qxc1

38. Qe8+      Kh6

39. Qe6+

At this point we reach the following position:

This is like one of Danny King’s ‘How Good is Your Chess?’ questions. What would you play in this position? Incredibly, Stockfish gives three very contrasting scores depending on your choice. The best move for Black is 39…..Kh5 (-14.46) whereas after 39….Kg5 (0.00) White can force a draw with 40. Be7+ Kh5  41. Qf7+ Kh6  42. Qe6+. If Carlsen was wary of this, it doesn’t explain why he didn’t play 39…Kh5 because instead of either of these he chose to play 39….g6??  Hands up if you would have done the same?! But after 40. Bf8+ Kh5 41. Qe7 Black resigned. And so, in one move Black has gone from a winning position of -14.46 to facing mate in 12! After the game the commentators said that Aronian was walking around grinning like the Cheshire Cat. He knew he had swindled Carlsen and he must have played 37. Rc1 as a last throw of the dice (he had less than two and a half minutes left at this point) in the hope that Carlsen would make the fatal move.

The advantage of being an average woodpusher is that that as a result of personal experience, you know a blunder when you see one. And this, my friends, whether you are a world champion or not, was a blunder.

 

Shany Rezvany 1954-2019

Shany (left) at last year’s Christmas Dinner

It is always a shock when someone you know dies and although Shany had been seriously ill for some time, this was certainly the case when we heard the sad news on October 27th. He was buried on November 18th in Canterbury Cemetery after a service attended by members of his family and friends from both Broadstairs and Bridge Chess Clubs. Shany was a strong player and a key member of Broadstairs’  Millar Cup team. His cheerful and outspoken presence will be much missed. As a small memorial, here is his last game at the club. It’s well worth playing through.

White:   David Faldon (178)    Black:  Shany Rezvany (160)

John Couzens Vase 2019  

David Faldon writes:

This was a semi-final of the John Couzens Vase – the club handicap knock-out tournament where the higher rated player has less time. By winning the game, Shany therefore qualified for the final which, sadly, was never played and so he was declared joint champion for 2019 with the winner of the other semi-final, Trefor Owens. In this game, Shany played his favourite defence and the position was pretty level right up to 21…h5. This h-pawn advance is not the start of a crude attack but rather a subtle defensive idea to keep white pieces out of the g4 square. It also sets a trap, which White (short of time) fell into with 22.Bg5? and 23.Qe3?, swapping off his good bishop. After that White had to be careful not to become much worse but he failed, allowing the terrific move 29…Ra3! So what, you might think, both sides have the same number of pieces and pawns, and White even has a bishop for a knight … but none of the white pieces have any good moves and to me Black is just winning. Rather than waiting around to be finished off, White immediately counter-attacked. The counter-attack is actually quite dangerous and Shany had to find some very good moves to preserve his advantage, for example 38…Na6!, 40…Rg3! And 41…Kf7! Any slight slip from Black would have seen White turn the tables, but Shany was on top form and made no mistake. A really great game – one I’m quite proud to have lost.

Back to School

                                         Year 3 pupils from St George’s Primary with Bob and Reg

It was back to school for Reg and me this week – in Reg’s case, he really was going back although the new St George’s School in Broadstairs is a far cry from the one he attended a few (!) years ago.  As many people know, St George’s Secondary School has hosted the Thanet Congress for the past two years and following the opening of the new school building in 2010, a primary department was added in 2016. At our AGM in September a decision was made to strengthen our ties with St George’s and the local community while at the same time helping to promote the game we know and love. It was therefore decided to donate ten new chess sets to the school and the presentation took place on Tuesday. The primary department does not have a chess club at present but will use the new sets to start one up and the six Year 3 pupils you see here are going to be the ambassadors sent to spread the word. At the presentation we asked a few questions and then invited the children to ask us anything. “Why are there 64 squares?” asked one boy. “Ah…er…” Reg and I looked at each other. “Why are the pieces black and white?” asked one of the girls. “Another good question!” we replied unconvincingly. We knew what they were thinking – ‘Who are these imposters? They say they come from a chess club and have been playing all their lives but they can’t answer the most basic of questions!’ Time to beat a retreat, we thought.

We look forward to hearing about the new St George’s chess club which it is hoped will lead to matches against other schools in due course. Broadstairs Chess Club will follow the school’s progress keenly and we have offered any help and advice that is required. For any school wishing to start a chess club there is plenty of help available. In this county there is the Kent Schools Chess Association, and nationally there is the excellent Chess in Schools and Communities (CSC) set up by Malcolm Pein in 2009 which provides coaches to teach chess in 300 state schools across the country and offers help to 500 more. Finally, there is the UK Chess Challenge, the world’s largest children’s chess competition which last year involved 40,000 children from over 1,200 schools. Perhaps St George’s will make that 1,201 in 2020.

Blunder of the Week

It’s always reassuring to see grandmasters making the sort of mistakes that plague the average woodpusher week in week out –  what do you mean,  ‘speak for yourself….’? – and this Blunder of the Week falls into that very category. In the recently completed Isle of Man International Tournament David Howell was seeded 24/150 before the start and had enjoyed a successful tournament in ten of the eleven rounds, including a win over GM Alexander Grischuk in Round 10. Victory in his final game could have given him a share of first place depending on the result of the Nakamura-Caruana game on Board 1. In his way stood China’s Wang Hao (playing with the white pieces) who was also on 7/10 with similar ambitions. Here is the position after White’s 18th move. A glance at the board suggests that a win for either player is unlikely but likewise neither is defeat. White has just played 18. Qa4 so the bishop on a2 clearly has to move. Who knows what Howell was thinking but 18….Be6 looks a good bet.  However….

18….Bd5??

The joke about Howell making a howler has been made before – not least here – and this does look a shocker. It probably did not take White too long to reply 19. Rd1  and although the game continued for another nineteen moves, after 19….Bxb7 (what else?) 20. Rxd8 the damage was done. Howell still finished in eleventh place with a performance rating of 2743 but as a result of his victory, Wang Hao won both the tournament on a tie break and also a place in the 2020 Candidates Tournament.