Millar Cup v Margate (h)

                                            Broadstairs  5½         Margate 1½ 

1 David Faldon (175) 1-0    Peter McGill (149)
2 Trefor Owens (167) 1-0    John Thorley (140)
3 Shany Rezvany (163) 1-0    Colin Gregory (119)
4 Bob Page (144) ½-½    Clive Le Baigue (111)
5 Paul Carfrae (141) 1-0    Leon Garfield (101)
6 Richard Clement (128) 1-0    John Clarke (98)
7 Michael Doyle (90) 0-1    Roy McAloney (86)

David Faldon writes:

What seems a comfortable win actually wasn’t. We were 1-0 down for a long time, with several of the other games looking either dodgy or drawish. It was a relief when Shany converted his extra exchange into a win on board 3 and Bob secured a draw on board 4. All four of the remaining games went into the last half-hour when the time left on a player’s clock starts to be important. Richard was a couple of pawns up for not much compensation on board 6 and in the other three games the Margate players had much less time, so at last the situation began to look favourable. In the end we won all four games. Trefor’s game on board 2 looked the most interesting, a delicate knight versus bishop ending that is possibly a bit too long for a game of the week, with Shany’s tactical mess a close second. We’ll have to see what the webmaster decides. Well done to the team on our first Millar Cup win of the season, and congratulations to Margate on putting up such a tough fight despite the wide gap in ratings on most of the boards.

China sweeps the board

The 43rd Chess Olympiad is over and we can now (almost) confidently announce the winners. Chess 24 has all the results and if you click on ‘standings’, it has the following: 1. USA 2. Russia 3. China. All three are level on 18 MP (match points?) but the USA and Russia have 29 BP (board points?) to China’s 28½ so that seems to suggest a tie break between the USA and Russia which could be fun. However, a check on chessresults.com shows four separate tie breaks with TB4 appearing to carry most weight although it’s not clear what it stands for. Crucially, though, it has China first with 149, the USA second with 147 and Russia third with 144. All three teams won 8, drew 2 and lost 1. (Incidentally, congratulations to the England team who won 8 drew 1 and lost 2 to finish in an excellent fifth place – their best finish for 22 years.)

There was still confusion amongst contributors to the official website’s message board even while the closing ceremony was taking place. This was an event in itself with medals handed out like confetti in a programme interspersed with an unusual choice of songs from local singers (‘Chain Reaction’, ‘Cabaret’) adding to the consternation of chess fans messaging (“Who is this woman?” “No, not another song! Where’s my gun? I can’t stand any more!”), alongside some more unrepeatable remarks, the most charitable of which questioned her ELO rating. Medals were handed out for first, second and third individuals in five categories: reserve then boards 4, 3, 2 and finally 1.  With some confidence I can announce that Ju Wenjun of China won the prize for best women’s performance on board 1 with 7/9 and Ding Liren for best male on board 1 with 5½/8. However, a further ‘gold medal’ was then awarded to Ju Wenjun – ok, this seems to confirm her place as overall female individual winner – and Jorge Cori from Peru, who scored 7½/8 including seven games as White! He was rested for the last round, perhaps to protect his score.   One can only assume that there must be some seeding of opponents faced when judging the individual winners because England’s board 1, Jovanka Houska, had a terrific tournament, losing only one game and finishing with 7½/9. However, two of her opponents were under 1800 whereas Ju Wenjun did not face anyone below 2300.

                           Ding Liren

After yet more music the final medals for the top three teams were awarded. (There had earlier been medals for the top three teams in about four other categories but remember – there were almost 200 teams taking part.) Eventually, China was confirmed as winner of both the men’s and women’s competitions although, interestingly, the tournaments were named ‘Women’ and ‘Open’.  After each of the team winners was announced, an anthem was played and everyone stood up but whether this was the Chinese national anthem or a FIDE anthem – one wag suggested ‘Georgia on my mind’ would be more appropriate – was not clear and the Chinese players certainly did not seem to accord it much reverence.  As for Wei Yi, he had a rather modest tournament. After winning his first two games, he did not win another, was not selected for the last two matches and finished on 3½/7. Congratultions to Ding Liren, however, who was unbeaten in the competition, played for the winning team, took the medal for the best performance on board 1 and played one of the best games in the tournament in the crucial defeat of Poland in the penultimate round.

 

White:  Ding Liren (2804)      Black:  Jan-Krzysztof Duda (2739)

 43rd Chess Olympiad (Batumi) Round 10

Hargreaves Shield v Bridge (h)

                                           Broadstairs  3½         Bridge   ½                                        

1 Richard Clement (128) ½-½ Jeff Green (e135)
2 Chris Stampe (124) 1-0 Tim Spencer (118)
3 John Couzens (118) 1-0 Peter Blundell (117)
4 Gary Hilleard (118) 1-0 James Smith (94)

Andy Flood writes:

A new look Broadstairs Hargreaves team got of to a flying start against a strong Bridge side in the first Hargreaves game of the season. Chris Stampe on board 2 very early on won his debut Broadstairs game against his former club for Broadstairs to go 1–0 up. In a tight game on the top board, Richard Clement put in a solid performance to earn and agree a draw. Full points were secured when Gary Hilleard forced his opponent to resign in the middle game through the power and lining up of his rooks and queen. The last match to finish was John Couzens, who had taken a break from his holidays to play and exhibit excellent end game technique against Peter Blundell. On securing the smallest of a pawn positional advantage, John forced his opponent to give up a bishop to prevent a passed pawn from queening. He then sacrificed a knight to guarantee two passed pawns at which point his opponent resigned.  So a great start and result.

43rd Chess Olympiad

Welcome to Batumi! Where? I hear you ask. Well, as the official logo on the left makes clear, Batumi is in Georgia, the country’s second city after the capital Tbilisi. It is on the Black Sea north of Turkey and is the venue for the 43rd Chess Olympiad which began on Monday and runs until October 5th as an 11-round Swiss tournament with just one rest day.  Forget the football world cup and the complaints over 32 teams, this is the big one with 183 countries taking part featuring 185 teams (Georgia is fielding three teams). And that’s just the men’s tournament….Running simultaneously is the women’s competition featuring 151 teams from 149 countries. 749 female players are taking part and 919 men including almost all the top players in the world (although not Magnus Carlsen who is preparing for his forthcoming world championship match).

The England team, seeded 8 and consisting of Michael Adams, Luke McShane, David Howell, Gawain Jones and Nick Pert, made a reasonable start but came a cropper in Round 4 against a strong Azerbaijan team (seeded 4) who outgraded the England team on all four boards. For those of you familiar with Georgia but less so with England, here is a brief summary from the official Olympiad website: ‘England, birthplace of Shakespeare and The Beatles, is a country in the British Isles bordering Scotland and Wales. The capital, London, on the River Thames, is home of Parliament, Big Ben and the 11th-century Tower of London.’ So now you know.

The USA are favourites to win the men’s competition and who can be surprised with Caruana, Nakamura, So and Sam Shankland, the current US Champion in their team. China are seeded 3 and we shall catch up with our honorary overseas Broadstairs member, Wei Yi, in a future post. Russia are the traditional favourites for the Olympiad but they have not made a strong start and lost to Poland (seeded 13) in Round 4. The crucial game was this loss by Vladimir Kramnik to the Polish no.4, Jacek Tomczak. In a fairly wild game, the position suggested a slight advantage to White until 26….Rd5? when the computer’s analysis went from “White is slightly better’ to ‘White is winning’ in one move.

White:  Jacek Tomczak (2614)      Black:  Vladimir Kramnik (2779)

 43rd Chess Olympiad (Batumi) Round 4

 

 

Game of the Week 2

We welcomed several new players to the club in 2018 and four of them played in our first Millar Cup match of the season at Folkestone. One of the four, Trefor Owens, could not have made a better start with this terrific win. Perhaps we should instigate a Game of the Season because this one would certainly be a front runner: when did you last sacrifice your queen on move 10 – and win? Although it was in a losing cause as Broadstairs were beaten by Folkestone – just our luck to produce a team with an average of 153 and come up against a side averaging 160 – it was very satisfying that two of our new members got off to winning starts against strong opponents and we look forward to more of the same in the future. Well played, Trefor, and thanks for adding your comments on the game.

White:  Martin Cutmore (173)      Black:  Trefor Owens (167)

 Millar Cup v Folkestone (a)