I hope you’re all enjoying the holiday weekend and looking forward to our first meeting at our new venue on Thursday.
Here’s a position for your consideration.
Black has a substantial material advantage, but White has a substantial attack.
It’s White to move. How would you continue here? How would you assess the position? You’ll need to provide more than just the first move to score full marks.
Monday’s position came from a simul game between Emanuel Lasker and Benjamin Leussen, played in The Hague on 9 May 1908. Thanks to my virtual friend Neil Blackburn (simaginfan): I took this from his article here.
Black, to move, is better is this ending because of his further advanced king and White’s isolated queenside pawns. The game, as you’ll see below, fluctuated between a win and a draw.
This position is winning, but Black has only one move to score the point: 27… f6!, preventing e5, which, as Neil points out, is effectively zugzwang. You’d probably need intuition rather than calculation to find this over the board, especially if you’re playing blitz or on increment.
In today’s chess, with faster time limits, better opening preparation and greater tactical skills, more and more games are reaching endings. If you want to maximise your potential you need to excel at this aspect of the game.
One way to do this is to search databases for interesting pawn endings such as this one and play them out against your training partner, your chess teacher or your computer. Write down your moves and then switch on an engine and see how you got on.
Here’s the complete game, with Neil’s excellent annotations.
Our last week at the Adelaide saw four matches: three wins and one defeat.
We had two home matches, both in the Surrey ‘novelty’ leagues.
Our Ellery Williams team took on Wimbledon. scoring an impressive win.
Well done to everyone, and a warm welcome to Advik, successful in his first of what I’m sure will be many games for us.
Our Fred Manning Trophy faced Surbiton: the result was a mirror image of this.
Thanks to all for playing.
At the Twickenham Club, our Thames Valley D team entertained Ealing D,
A solid performance, with excellent wins from Alex and Dan.
The most important match of the week was our TVB team’s visit to Surbiton B. Although we’re almost at the end of the season, both promotion and relegation were both possible in what is a very tight division.
We were relieved to see that our opponents weren’t at full strength: we outrated them on five of the six boards. Our hopes were fulfilled like this:
Polina quickly reached a minor piece ending which was agreed drawn. Jon, playing the Dutch Defence, attacked like Tal, crushing his opponent who had left most of pieces on the wrong side of the board. I was, as always with Black, worse from the opening, but Graham didn’t press things too much and I was happy to accept his draw offer: my first draw, and my first non-loss with Black of the season. Bertie went down in a bishop ending where his weakened pawns proved fatal: a nice win by his opponent leaving the score 2-2. We were doing better in the last two games: James (welcome to the team!) won a pawn, but his opponent managed to eliminate the queenside pawns, leaving him, in the second bishop ending of the night, with BPP v BP. It should have been drawn, but, like Carlsen, he kept on probing and eventually managed to swindle his way to victory. Victor played a beautiful positional game in the style of Petrosian, using his better bishop and pawn formation to reach a winning rook ending, which soon became an even more winning pawn ending.
Thanks to all who played, and also to Adrian, who came along as a reserve.
This result, along with Wimbledon A beating Maidenhead B on Monday, clarifies the situation at the top of the league.
All we need to do now is win our last two matches to gain promotion: away to Maidenhead B on 27 April and home to Wimbledon B on 7 May.
Thanks again to all our players, and to our match captains this week.
As we reach the ending of our time at the Adelaide, it must be time for another pawn ending.
This position comes from a simul game between Emanuel Lasker and Benjamin Leussen, played in The Hague on 9 May 1908.
Black to move.
How would you assess this position?
What would your next move be, and why?
This week’s puzzle was taken from a game played last Sundayday in the German Bundesliga.
RJCC alumnus GM Luke McShane was playing white against teenage French GM Marc’Andria Maurizzi.
It’s Black to play in this position.
I asked you to choose between:
a) Be7 and
b) Bf8.
Black erred by choosing 32… Be7, allowing a tactic winning a pawn: 33. fxe5 fxe5 34. Nxe5 Nxe5 35. Rxe5+ Kxe5 36. Bf4+ Ke6 37. Bxc7, and Luke eventually exploited his extra pawn in the ending.
32… Bf8, amongst other moves, would have been about equal, as 33. fxe5 is met by g6 because the h6 pawn is now defended.
There are two lessons from this.
If you rejected Be7 because you spotted White’s continuation, and therefore chose Bf8 instead, you score 10/10.
Here’s the complete game: as always click on any move for a pop-up window.
In both our matches this week we came very close to achieving important victories, but it wasn’t to be.
Our TVB team faced a difficult assignment at home to Division 2 leaders Wimbledon A, who outrated us by about 100 points on every board. We received an unexpected point at the start, though, when their Board 6 failed to turn up: his email wasn’t working so hadn’t received the message.
There was also a brilliant win for Michael against his very experienced Welsh senior international opponent along with a solid draw from Sampson.
Victor and I both came close to drawing, but not close enough. Matt, though, was winning his game, but the position wasn’t easy to play and his resourceful opponent managed to wriggle out and score the full point in a very similar bishops of opposite colours ending to that on Board 1. He’s threatened to send me the game: if he does I may add the critical position here.
On Wednesday our Ellam Trophy (Surrey Division 3) team visited Chessington A, hoping to retain their 100% record against their 3rd placed opponents.
Captain Alastair reports:
We had a strange match at Chessington which started by us finding out that they had been ejected from the function room and we had to play in one end of the bar area. Ear plugs were provided but it was noisy nevertheless.
I decided that we should continue with the match anyway as we knew that their top player (actually a “ringer” – Peter Lalic from Kingston) was unavailable due to a match clash. We outrated them on every board except board 2, and by over 100 points on most boards, so the prospects looked good. However, it did not go as planned.
The strangeness continued when Chris Briscoe, on their board 1, responded h5 after Mike’s e4 opener!
Eventually our superior experience on the bottom three boards won out with a nice exchange sacrifice from Maks into a winning Knight and two pawns endgame against a rook. Sampson was actually dead lost but managed to swindle his opponent for a win.
James won and Mike and Chris both went down to their strong opponents leaving me to win the match for us.
I had played poorly in the opening but my opponent had not capitalised on it and I got the upper hand on his loose dark squares as can be the case in the Kings Indian. I burned a lot of time and by the time this position was reached, we both had less than 5 minutes left.
This position should be trivial to win as a simple Be5 is totally crushing. If White exchanges queens, he is then forced to play Rh1 to prevent mate and after Rxa2 by black the a-pawn will queen. If White tries to keep the queens on the board with Rg1, I have a nice choice between Rh2+ or the even better, Qxf3!! with mate in a few moves.
I saw some of this, but also that I could force Queen exchange by threatening Qe6+ so I played Qe5 thinking he would have to exchange immediately, totally overlooking White’s response – f4! Now Qe6+ is met by f5. The shock of this move meant I took my time below 1 minute before playing Qe8. White then follows up with Rg1 where amazingly Black is still winning but you have to find the right line. I didn’t find it in time and played Rd2 which is catastrophically bad and fatal.
The right line line is Qd7+ where f5 is forced and then you play g5 in response to keep the file closed. If hxg5, Be5 wins due to the attack on the Queen and mate threats. Any other move by White, g4+ is coming and White King is squeezed out of existence.
So, a 3-3 draw, leaving Coulsdon as clear leaders in the league with one match to play…against us! That match will be the decider with us needing a win and them just needing a draw. All eyes on the finale!
Never let it be said that we’re not up to date at Richmond & Twickenham Chess Club.
Today’s puzzle is taken from a game played yesterday in the German Bundesliga.
RJCC alumnus GM Luke McShane was playing white against teenage French GM Marc’Andria Maurizzi.
It’s Black to play in this position.
Choose between:
a) Be7 and
b) Bf8.
You’ll need to provide the right reason for your choice to score full marks.
Monday’s wicked Mate in 3 problem was composed, according to some online sources, by a teenage Aleister Crowley, later billed as ‘the wickedest man in the world’, and published in the Albany Evening Journal on 11 February 1893.
(It was published under the initials EAC so some have made the assumption that Crowley was the composer, although a later problem in another source was described as his first 3-mover.)
Here’s the solution (copied from yacpdb.org (Yet Another Chess Problem DataBase), where I found the problem.
You can find out much more about the early chess career of Aleister Crowley, with a lot more problems and games, in my latest (and 100th) Minor Piece here.
Much more about Crowley to follow shortly!
Some important Thames Valley League results to report this week.
Our C team faced two tough matches in consecutive days, on Monday travelling down the M4 to take on third placed Maidenhead C. Not quite at full strength, we were slightly outrated and went down to a narrow defeat.
Excellent wins on the top two boards from Tom and Viorel, but only Abhay, promoted from the E team for the occasion, managed to add to the score.
On the same evening, our Ellery Willams Team travelled to Wimbledon, where we were outclassed on Boards 2-4.
A difficult task: thanks to all for playing.
The Adelaide was crowded on Tuesday for two critical matches.
Our TVA team faced Kingston B in a relegation match. It was great to see our London League star Caspar playing in the Thames Valley League.
We scored the wins we needed on boards 1 and 2 – well played Mike and Caspar – but were unlucky not to be able to add more than a point on board 3-6.
A drew was better than nothing, but, with our last two matches being against Kingston A and Hammersmith, we might not have done quite enough.
Here’s the latest league table.
At the other end of the room, our TVC team faced their rivals Ealing C, needing a win to guarantee promotion and improve their chances of first place. With a stronger team than the night before, this time we slightly outrated the opposition.
Unlike Monday, we got the result we wanted, thanks to wins from Tom, a strong candidate for our player of the season, David and Captain Mike RC, along with a draw from Pablo.
Here’s the current league table.
This win means we’re now certain of promotion. Our last match is at home to Hounslow B (date yet to be confirmed), while Ealing C have two slightly harder matches, home to Maidenhead C and away to Surbiton C, to come. Unless they score big wins in these matches, we’ll just need to win our last match to claim the trophy.
It’s also very possible that we will have three teams in Division 2 next season, should our A team face relegation from Division 1 and our B team stay where it is. That should be fun. At least it would cut down on the travelling.
As always, thanks to all players, especially Tom, Viorel and David for playing on both Monday and Tuesday, and, most of all, to our hard working captains.
In other news, last weekend we entered two teams in the Thorpe Trophy, a Surrey rapidplay competition, our A team finishing 5th.
A warm welcome to our new junior member Doruk, who scored 3/4 playing on Board 4 for our A team in this competition.
You can find the results here: click on ‘Thorpe Trophy’ on the menu on the left of your screen.
I have a wicked three-mover for you this week.
White to play and force mate in three moves against any Black defence.
Have fun! I’ll publish the solution, as always, on Friday.