October 2013
Consequently RR found himself with black against George Scattergood, who generously left a bishop en prise on move 10. I can only assume that Holmes Chapel has been the scene of religious persecution in the past, for which revenge is now extracted, for David playing on board three for us was the recipient of a similar ecclesiastical donation. So we won the match. But I'm not convinced that there is any virtue in showing any moves, so I shalln't.
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Ole Bay-Paterson v RR after 9 ... Bd3 |
Ole Bay-Paterson v RR after 20 Qf3 |
21 Ne4 Bxe4, 22 Qxe4 Ne7 black is very much lacking compensation for his pawn deficit
23 Rab1 Nd5, 24 Bd2 Rfe8, 25 Qf3 a6 Create something on the queenside or die - that supported passed d-pawn will win the game for white if black does nothing.
26 Rfe1 b5, 27 h4 a5, 28 h5 Rxe1+, 29 Rxe1 Ra6
30 Qe4 b4, 31 axb4 axb4, 32 Rb1 presumably not liking look of
32 cxb4 c3 though I don't think the c-pawn gets through.
32 ... Ra2, 33 Qe2
Ole Bay-Paterson v RR after 33 Qe2 |
33 ... Qc8, 34 Qf3 Qd8, 35 Bf4 Ra3 RR again tries to keep things under control rather than allowing the wildness of exchanges with Nxc3.
36 Qg4 b3 So now RR decides to rely on a supported passed pawn rather than taking a pawn for his late game threats. The game nevertheless becomes very open before a draw is agreed.
37 Qe6+ Kh8, 38 Bd6 Nxc3, 39 Re1 Ra8, 40 Qxc4 Qxd6
41 Qxc3 Qd5, 42 h6 gxh6, 43 Rb1 Rd8, 44 Qe3 Qxd4
45 Qxh6+ Kg8, 46 Qg6+ Kf8, 47 Qh5 b2, 48 Qh8+ ½ - ½
One that got away, but also one rescued.
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RR v Colin Fell after 8 ... Bb7 |
12 ... Ne8, 13 exd6
(13 e6 fxe6, 14 Ng5 Nc7, 15 Bg4 cxd4, 16 Bxe6+ Nxe6
17 Nxe6 Qb6, 18 Nxf8 Rxf8 leads to the win of an exchange but black has powerful central pawns.)
13 ... cxd4, 14 dxe7 Qxe7, 15 Rfe1 Qd6 Diagram left.
RR v Colin Fell after 15 ... Qd6 |
17 Bxd3 Bxb2, 18 Qxb2 Bxf3, 19 Re3 Bb7 and I soon accept that the piece deficit is fatal to my survival chances.
0-1
How many times have I done that? Decided there is one move I can't play, and that after looking at other possibilities return and play that move anyway. I've a sneaking suspicion that some of my readers have acquired that particular T-shirt too.
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John Peters v RR after 8 ... Be6 |
10 Ng5 Qd7, 11 c3 h6, 12 Nh3 Bd6, 13 Qd2 Nc6, 14 O-O-O Rad8
15 Nf4 Bxf4 Ill-judged. The knight can be annoying rather than dangerous on g6. Now black has considerable problems finding gainful employment for his remaining bishop.
16 Bxf4 Rf6, 17 Bb5 a6, 18 Bxc6 Qxc6 Whilst opposite coloured bishop endings are often drawn, though not necessarily as frequently as their reputation would have you believe, when there are other pieces on the position is liable to favour the side with the freer bishop. Who might that be?
19 Be5 Rf7, 20 f3 b5, 21 f4
John Peters v RR after 21 f4 |
27 Rxb4 Rxb4, 28 Qxb4 Qxb4, 29 axb4 c6 Cannot leave defence of the c-pawn to the rook else white will play Rc1 with the resulting death of the pawn leaving his b-pawns passed. Notice the difference that acting on previous comment could have made - Bd7 instead of Qa5 would now allow Bb5 and then c6. With the bishop outside my pawn chain my survival prospects would have been far greater. Now it is impossible to generate threats with any speed to counter the multiple problems white can set me. The rest is an exercise in squeezing the life out of black, whose death throes and thrashings are pretty ugly.
John Peters v RR after 29 ... c6 |
RR v Andy Walters after 8 ... Be7 |
9 Ne5 O-O, 10 Bf3 Qc7, 11 Bxb7 Qxb7, 12 Nc3 d6
13 Qf3 Qxf3, 14 Nxf3 Nbd7
Queens have gone too. Am I trying to win the endgame? If I get my knight into e6 will I be able to get it out again? Don't know. Think I'll just tell him to keep an eye on his b-pawn.
15 Na4 h6, 16 d3 Kh7, 17 Rfe1 g5
RR v Andy Walters after 17 ... g5 |
21 exf6 Bxf6, 22 Rxe6 Bxb2, 23 Nxb2 All as expected.
23 ... fxg2 oops
24 Re7+
Free gifts of pieces seems to be the theme of the season! Pleased to be the recipient rather than the donor.
1-0
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Chris Jones v RR after 13 a3 |
14 e4 Qc6 Not now. d5 called for.
15 Rae1 O-O-O, 16 d3 d5 back on track
17 e5 d4, 18 Nce4 Nd5, 19 Nd1 g6 In play I dismissed Bh4 as a waste of time, but by encouraging g3 there is a latent route to h1 opened.
20 c4 dxc3, 21 Bxc3 Qb5, 22 b4 Nxc3, 23 Ndxc3
Chris Jones v RR after 23 Ndxc3 |
23 ... Qc6, 24 Rc1 Kb8, 25 a4 cxb4, 26 Nb5 Bc5+, 27 Nxc5 bxc5
28 Nd6 Rxd6, 29 exd6 Qxd6 There is no hurry to take this pawn as it can only be protected by the queen, which with the mate threat on g2 still in existence, is not yet possible. Consequently black has time for Rc8 first, which would make life easier. Mostly though the problem for the remainder of the game was a lack of belief on my part, together with a lack of sufficient time that would have enabled me to do the thinking to reveal my thought processes as too pessimistic.
30 Qe5 Rd8, 31 Rxc5 f6, 32 Qxd6+ Rxd6, 33 Rc4 b3
34 Rb4 Rxd3, 35 Rb1 Kc7, 36 R4xb3 Rxb3, 37 Rxb3
My inability to resist these exchanges because of the threat to pin and win my bishop should have been pre-calculable. No great surprise that from here my bishop was no match for the rook, and another loss was recorded against RR's name.
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RR v Steve Brown after 7 Nc3 |
RR v Steve Brown after 14 ... Nc6 |
15 Nxc6 bxc6, 16 Ba6 Rab8, 17 Bc1 c5, 18 dxc5 Bxc5
19 Bf4 Rbd8, 20 f3 f6, 21 Ke2 Bf7, 22 Rhc1 Bd4
23 Be3 e5, 24 Rab1 Bxe3, 25 Kxe3
RR v Steve Brown after 25 Kxe3 |
25 ... Bc4??, 26 Rxb6 Rd3+, 27 Kf2 Bxa6, 28 Rxa6 Rc8, 29 Ne2 1-0
Another game won a piece up.
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Roger Butters v RR after 10 QxBe2 |
11 c4 Nb6, 12 Nc3 Qd4, 13 Rd1 Qxc4, 14 Qxc4 Nxc4
RR has a pawn, but white's control of d6 is a considerable barrier to be overcome.
15 f4 Nd7, 16 b3 Ncb6, 17 Ne4 O-O, 18 Ba3 Rfe8, 19 Nd6 Reb8
20 Rac1 Nd5, 21 Ne4 Rd8, 22 g3 N7b6, 23 Nd6 Rd7, 24 Kf2 Rad8
25 Ne4 Nc8, 26 Nc5 Rc7, 27 Ne4 h6, 28 Rd2 Re8, 29 Rdc2 Rd7
½ - ½
Final position, Roger Butters v RR |
Andrew is an American businessman now living in London having reputedly made a considerable fortune through his Russian publishing and media interests. Despite the pound signs that clearly appeared in some of the electorate's eyes, the actual size of the fortune is not relevant, as Andrew is not proposing to spend any of it on British Chess. Its him we've got, not his money, which is how it should be.
What of his chess background? There are no records of his ever having lost a game of chess, which would be impressive were it not that the reason for this is that there are no records of his ever having played a game of chess. His company Agon have acquired the rights to organise and commercialise the World Chess Championship cycle. Obviously a good guy to tap for ideas for jazzing up the strong players GP.
What do we get?
Beyond its day-to-day activities the ECF needs a grand purpose; I propose that it become the moral vanguard of functional and honest chess adminitration.
Yippee!
and
UK chess is the perfect laboratory in which to which to fine-tune old institutions and test new ideas
Maybe the ECF can raise money by selling "I'm a lab-rat" badges.
Did you know that
My first major initiative is a new business model to bring sponsorship revenue to all the ECF's interests, projects and affiliates. The ECF will offer a consolidated asset (ALL of English chess, at every level, every event, any individual) for sponsorship and act as a central clearing house equitably to distribute this revenue to all participants.
Sounds good, but under questioning on the Forum he had to admit that much of chess in this country is not the ECF's to offer to sponsors. Moreover when talking about the London Candidates (Agon had the rights to organise remember) he conceded that
The budget had to be cut due to underperformance in meeting sponsorship targets.
More:
a commercial director will be appointed or elected and paid to find the revenue and manage the sponsoring partners.
Ouch. How often do we hear of professional fund raisers only raising enough, if that, to cover their own salary and expenses? Does this mean that the ECF's own limited financial resources will be put at risk to hunt for sponsors? In truth sponsorship deals can have at most two threads - advertising and philanthropy. Is the chess community such an attractive destination for such activity beyond supporting local (to the sponsor) people and initiatives that money is going to roll in.
And this:
My first concrete goal is to arrange for the Government to accord the status of sport.
A man not shy of his abilities to make things happen. The ECF, and before them BCF, has been chasing this for some considerable time. We now have the man with the wand to make it happen. I fear he will find his influence less telling than he thinks.
What's in it for him?
My personal interest derives from the legitimacy I will earn as a spokesman for chess in Africa and India if I succeed with the ECF.
An eminently understandable motivation.
The ECF already suffers from an image that it is not overly interested in the grassroots, yet our latest president appears interested only in the upper echelons of the game - he has nothing credible to say to those for whom the game forms the centrepiece to a night out with the lads. He's looking up towards FIDE (with whom he has a contract) rather than down towards the local leagues. And dealing with FIDE means Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, its head. Sepp Blatter he is not. After all Mr Blatter has not been abducted by aliens. (Kirsan says that he has, so it must be true). Kirsan will be up for re-election soon, and Nigel Short our FIDE representative wishes to see Kirsan toppled by Kasparov. (Actually, Nigel would put it more strongly than that, but this diary is for family consumption despite some of the scary happenings in some of the games I report.) Guess what? Mr Paulson is anti-Kasparov, though he claims not totally convincingly that this does not make him pro-Kirsan.
It is difficult not to conclude that the best we can hope is that Mr Paulson will move on quickly with he and the ECF soon being seen as irrelevant in each other's lives.
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A voting register is published before each meeting showing who holds the votes, and how many votes each holder has. Thus the North Staffs League is shown as having 3 votes at the AGM, and the Leek congress one. The Newcastle mini does not have a vote as its results are submitted through the league, potentially helping to boost its numbers.
Inevitably the various vote holders act in varied ways towards those they represent. Some actively seek opinions, others will listen to those interested enough to submit opinions without prompting, whilst others still treat the vote as their own personal possession.
Whilst the above situation may not be ideal, it still seems better than each member of the ECF being given a vote, as to me it is inevitable that under that scenario only a small proportion of votes would be cast, thereby making it relatively easy for an organisation willing to whip its members into voting to have disproportionate influence.
I can't help comparing with our district association where the limited voting structure means that clubs cannot simply flood the AGM with their members in order to get their way. On the other hand one can't help also believing that at the North Staffs level club reps represent their members more accurately than is always the case within the ECF council.
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Anyway I've now acquired a shiny new Windows 8 laptop. Do I need an equally shiny new version of Fritz, or will Fritz 9 work? So I sucked it to see. Immediately got some warnings about incompatibility, so ignored those as one does, and installed anyway. In it went. no problems at first sight, but then it became apparent that some of the symbols in the analysis panel were not as expected. Fonts problem. Go to original disc, copy fonts directory across. Open said directory and select all the contents. Immediately an option to install fonts arises, which is taken. Problem cured. Can't claim to have tried all the features, and am particularly suspicious that the media ones may fall over - they seems the most likely to give rise to incompatabilities - but its a definite case of so far so good.
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RR v Doug Barnett after 26 ... Ng6 |
RR v Doug Barnett after 6 ... b6 |
7 cxd5 cxd5 the only sensible recapture
8 Qc6 Rb8, 9 Nc3 Bb7, 10 Qa4 a6, 11 Rc1 b5, 12 Qh4 Be7 Having ones queen on the same diagonal as an enemy bishop is rarely to be recommended. Clearly I need to keep a close eye on making sure that the f6 knight cannot jump away and grab material. This is somewhat reminiscent of a line in the Centre Counter
1 e4 d5, 2 exd5 Qxd5, 3 Nc3 Qa5 in which white develops his queens bishop on d2 hoping to do nasty things to the enemy queen by moving the knight away at an opportune point. Yet black wouldn't play this line if it were prone to resulting in nasty accidents. White is better ignoring the queen and letting black work out what exactly it intends to achieve on a5. I'm hoping the same sort of principle will apply here.
13 Bd3 greedy, but I'd like to preserve e2 for swinging the c3 knight onto the queenside.
13 ... e5 I spy a fork. At the time I had been intending to meet
13 ... d4 with 14 Nd4 Bxg2, 15 Rg1 not seeing that he then had
15 ... Ne5, 16 Bb1 Nfg4, 17 Qg3 Bb7 Now he's the one with the kingside attack will I enjoy Bh4? On reflection I'm glad I didn't need to find out.
14 Bb1 Ne4, 15 Qh3 Bf6, 16 Ne2 0-0 17 d3 Nd6 (Qa5+ with intent to retreat the knight to c5 to protect his twin may look promising but achieves nothing.)
18 0-0 Bc8, 19 g4 (Qg3 saner, but my one track mind is still eyeing h6.)
19 ... g5
RR v Doug Barnett after 19 ... g5 |
20 Rc6 Qe7
Qh6 was now my immediate thought, pinning the bishop to the knight.
How about 21 d4 e4, not attacking the knight as the pawn is now pinned against mate. Or doubling the rooks? But RR came up with a move-waster:
21 Ba3 b4 (what else!), 22 Bb2 e4, 23 Nfd4 Didn't want to take off the bishops first and bring his knight to join in the attack on g4.
23 ... Ne5, 24 dxe4 Bxg4, 25 Qh6 Bd7
Had been expecting 25 ... Bxe2, 26 Nxe2 though black cannot now take on c6 because of the power of the mate threat exd5.
26 exd5 Ng6 which is the puzzle position above.
I'm sure you've spotted
27 Rxd6 Qxd6, 28 Nf3 with Nxg5 to follow, threatening mate on g7 if black takes the knight, and on h7 if he doesn't. The grovelling necessary to defeat both threats will leave black well behind.
RR didn't spot this, so the game continued
27 Nf5 Nxf5, 28 panic, due to loss of memory.
What should have happened is
28 Bxf6 Qxf6, 29 Qxf8+ Kxf8, 30 Rxf6
or 28 Bxf6 Nxh6, 29 Bxe7 with variations all to white's advantage.
28 Bxf5 Bxb2, 29 Rc7 Rfd8, 30 Ng3 Qd6, 31 Ra7 Bxf5, 32 Nxf5
Down a piece for a pawn RR is in big trouble, but at least the clock is on his side.
32 ... Qf6 (Qb6 nastier), 33 Qh3 Rf8, 34 d6 Rbd8
At least I get a second pawn:
35 Rxa6 Ne5, 36 Rd1 g4, 37 Qh5 Nf3+, 38 Kg2
missing 38 ... Qxf5, 39 Qxf5 Nh4+, which Doug did (or declined to play) too.
38 ... Qg5, 39 Qxg5+ Nxg5, 40 d7 Ne6, 41 Rd5 missing the obvious and advantageous
41 Ne7+ and 42 Nc6.
We're both on increments now, so perhaps its not surprising that Doug played the solid Bf6 rather than Nc7, nor that a draw was agreed several though not too many moves later.
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