A busy week, with some great Thames Valley League results to celebrate.

But first, our London League team were in action against the students of University College London. We’d lost narrowly to them in the Eastman Cup, and the league result was the same.

We dominated the lower boards, but they were too strong for us at the top, where it was great to be able to welcome Liam back to our team.

Congratulations to Martin, Maks and Mike S for winning their games.

At the same time, our TVB team were taking on Ealing B. We had a weaker team than we’d hoped for due to various clashes, but still outrated them heavily on the lower boards.

Our strategy was to win on boards 4-6 and hope to salvage something from the top three boards. The first result, a win for Tom with a strongly played attack, was a sign that things were heading in our direction. Ealing equalised when Michael went down against a strong and solid opponent, but we then managed a clean sweep of the lower boards. Matt lost material, but his compensation was too much for his opponent to negotiate. Board 5 was a King’s Indian where Black’s kingside attack never got going and Victor, in his first match of the season, won on the other side. Peter’s opponent also seemed to play too passively. I was the last to finish, in an eventful game. I had much the better of the opening, but chose the wrong plan, allowing a counterattack which should have resulted in a perpetual check. Instead I blundered into a lost ending, but, with very little time on the clock, Xavier transposed what he thought was a winning pawn ending: luckily for me he’d miscalculated badly, so I scored a fortunate and undeserved victory.

With just four matches to play, both promotion and relegation are still very possible!

Our third match of the evening saw our TVD team travelling down the M4 to visit Maidenhead C, who are challenging for promotion.

What a fantastic result, also doing our C team an enormous favour! Great wins there for Alex, Barry and Dan (against an early RJCC alumnus), with a draw from Captain Laurie sealing a historic victory.

This means that our C team need to win just one of their last three matches, two of which take place next week, to guarantee promotion to Division 2 next season.

Our week continued on Tuesday with another Richmond v Ealing encounter, this time a Division 1 match between our A teams, with both clubs looking for a win in a vital relegation battle.

Ealing weren’t at full strength, and it looks like our rating advantage on the lower boards made us slight favourites. But their fifth board played an excellent game, and, towards the end of play, we were 3-1 ahead, but both Mike and John were behind on material in the ending. Mike duly lost, but John’s opponent (another RJCC alumnus), a pawn ahead but playing on increments, blundered a piece. John generously offered a draw to give us the match.

Our final match of the week, on Wednesday, saw our TVE team visit Surbiton D for their final match of the season, needing a draw to guarantee winning the league.

Captain Karl reports:

Hard earned draws for Mike and Abhay tonight. Aditya won his game with his opponent left with no time and facing a passed pawn.

We did it and huge thanks to everyone to took part this season. There was no weak link anywhere and we just marched on.

Here’s the league table.

It’s White’s move in this position.

What would you play here, and why? What other moves did you consider before making your choice?

Do let me know – in private – before Friday.

There were mixed fortunes for our teams this week.

Our Thames Valley D team match at home to Harrow on Tuesday was won by default as our opponents were unable to raise a team.

At the Adelaide, our Ellery Williams Trophy team went down to Epsom.

Well done to Sampson for preventing a whitewash. Alex and Oscar gained some valuable experience against tough opposition on boards 3 and 4.

On Wednesday our Thames Valley A and C teams both travelled to Surbiton for matches against their A and C teams.

Surbiton A were much stronger than in their earlier matches, outrating us on every board, so our defeat, while disappointing, wasn’t surprising. There were some excellent individual performances, though.

Captain Maks reports:

Overall a surprisingly close match. 

We did well on our top two boards as well as our bottom board. Alastair on board one held an endgame with an IQP well. Chris baker equalized quite comfortably in the Dutch Defence and went on to outplay his opponent for a win. My own game on board 3 was a bit of a mixed bag. My opponent’s position was quite uncomfortable for most of it with bad light-square weakness but in the end it didn’t matter as it was decided by a silly blunder in time pressure. On board 4 Richard attempted a Benko Gambit out of the Modern Defence move order. An early e6 was tried in which his opponent got an edge and went on to win.

Boards 5 and 6 looked like mirror images of each other. Sampson playing against the Caro-Kann in the Advance Variation and Jon defending in the French Defence. Sampson lost a piece at some point and was much worse in an endgame whereas Jon Eckert managed to hold.

It was a different story for our C team, who, looking for a big win to increase their promotion chances outrated their opponents on every board. They weren’t disappointed.

What a great result! Well played everyone.

Here’s the current league table.

Our remaining matches:

Mon 16 Mar 26 Maidenhead C v Richmond C

Tue 17 Mar 26 Richmond C v Ealing C

Tue 21 Apr 26 Richmond C v Hounslow B (to be rearranged)

Two critical matches in two days later this month: a difficult away trip to Maidenhead, followed by a home encounter with our main rivals. We’ll need to win at least one of them as well as beating Hounslow to ensure promotion.

On Monday I offered you the position after Black’s 12th move in Timman – Korchnoi (Tilburg 1991)

Timman continued 13. Nxf7! Rxe1+ 14. Qxe1 Kxf7 15. Bc4+ Kf8 16. Qe6! and soon won.

Here’s the complete game, with annotations from ChessBase. Click on any move for a pop-up window.

Following the announcement of our forthcoming move, I have some more big news today.

Chess Heroes Puzzles: Book 2, the 8th book in the Chess Heroes series, is now available for download in pdf format.

You’ll find it here, and all my Chess Heroes books (along with much else) here.

There are three chapters.

Chapter 1 comprises 148 puzzles taken from my games played over many years.

Chapter 2 is an introduction to the art of chess problems: 200 miniature Mate in 2 puzzles for you to solve along with pen-pictures of some of the composers.

Chapter 3 offers 176 puzzles from 19th century master game. You’ll also have the chance to find out more about the leading players and tournaments of that era.

That’s a total of 524 challenging positions designed to improve your tactical and calculation skills.

This book is suitable for anyone from 1000 to 2000 strength – and the download, as with all Chess Heroes books, is free.

The book needs further proofreading before official publication: if you can help in that respect it will be much appreciated.

Chess Heroes Games: Book 2, which will probably be the final Chess Heroes book, will be ready within the next few months.

We’re delighted to announce that Richmond & Twickenham Chess Club will be moving to a new venue next month.

This means our club night will change from Tuesdays to Thursdays.

We’ve greatly enjoyed our four years at The Adelaide. It’s a lovely pub and we hope to stay in touch with them, but we’ve now outgrown the room there and have found a venue that offers more space and better facilities for our members.

Our new venue

Cambridge Park Bowls & Sports Club
Cambridge Park
East Twickenham
TW1 2PG
(Click here for maps and directions.)

Our meeting time remains 7:30–10:30pm.

Why we’re moving

The Committee considered this carefully, and the new venue offers several advantages:

• A much larger space, allowing us to improve facilities and services for members
• A central location, midway between Richmond and Twickenham town centres
• Excellent public transport links (six bus routes nearby and St Margarets Station 10 minutes walk away)
• On‑site car parking
• Full accessibility: no steps and excellent lighting
• Kitchen facilities available for our use
• A bar with drinks below pub prices (subject to our finding someone to run it)
• An excellent pub directly across the road
• The option to start earlier and potentially launch a junior section
• Opportunities to collaborate with other local leisure organisations, including Richmond Bridge Club just across the green as well as the Bowls Club
• Comparable cost to our previous venue, so no impact on club finances

Please spread the word to any friends or colleagues in the Richmond and Twickenham area who enjoy chess. We look forward to welcoming everyone to our new home.

This is the position after Black’s 12th move in Timman – Korchnoi (Tilburg 1991)

Continuing my tribute to Jan Timman, how did he continue in this position?

This week our Thames Valley A and B teams both had important matches which we needed to win to improve both teams’ chances of avoiding relegation. You’ll want to know how they went.

On Tuesday our A team entertained Maidenhead A at the Adelaide. Earlier in the season we’d lost 6-0 in a match where they were at full strength but we only had one A team player available.

Maidenhead don’t always travel well, and this time they only had one of their A team players in their team. We were expecting a big victory, but our opponents put up a stern resistance and, until the last 20 minutes, the match looked close.

Here’s what happened.

Captain Maks reports:

We enjoyed a 100 to 250 rating point advantage across all boards and it certainly showed with the result of a  5-1 victory. Some of the games were a lot tighter than the result suggests.

Chris Baker apparently missed a win of a piece after entering a sacrificial line that petered out to a dead position, where as in my own game on board 6 I was down a queen for rook and knight plus 1 passed pawn and was much worse. Somehow, I managed to coordinate eventually to an equal but tricky position where my opponent blundered his queen for my Rook and pawn. I didn’t see any of the games on board 1 and 2 as I was trying to capitalise on my own opponent’s low time. I briefly saw Raghu’s game, where he was comfortably much better in an open position, with the option of shattering his opponent’s kingside as well as Alastair’s game where it looked more double-edged in a double queen-side castling game, that was fairly closed but with Alastair having a slightly uncomfortable double pawn near his king on the queenside.

Anyway, well done to the team. It puts us out of joint bottom and into the middle of the league table!

Here’s the top board game, with notes from Mike. As always, click on any move for a pop-up window and you can play it through.

Here’s the current league table.

On Thursday our B team visited Staines A. The teams were very closely matched on paper, but we managed to come away with a narrow victory.

The league situation now looks like this:

Thanks to all for playing in this week’s matches, and congratulations to the winners!

On Monday I left you with this endgame study composed by GM Jan Timman, whose death was announced recently.

White to play and draw.

Here are the main lines of the solution: click on any move for a pop-up window.

There was sad news for the international chess community last week with the news of the death of the great Dutch grandmaster Jan Timman at the age of 74.

At his peak in the 1980s Timman was considered the world’s strongest player outside the Soviet Union, but he was much more than that.

He was also a very fine writer: if you check out any of his books you won’t be disappointed.

But Timman had a third string to his bow as well. Not content with being one of the world’s leading players, and one of the world’s best chess authors, he was also an aficionado and outstanding composer of endgame studies.

This is one of his simpler compositions. See how you get on.

It’s White to play and draw.

As always in studies, there is good and bad news for you. The good news, I suppose, is that you’re a pawn ahead, and that you’ll be more than happy to share the point. The bad news is that your rook and knight are both under attack, and Black is also looking to deliver an Arabian Mate (Nf3 and Rh2#).

See how you get on.