S.Ansem's 9 (Isaac S, Ivan S, Michael H, Edward H, Matthew B, Paddy D, Luke T, Ben E all won; Toby S, Max H drew)
Mount St. Mary's 1
Our very successful chess season continued with another comprehensive victory, this time against Mount St. Mary's. Their team consisted of a variety of ages from Y7 (our 4th year) upwards and on board one we were told was the 2008 England U11 Girl Chess Champion! (She's taking GCSE maths this year!).
Captain Michael H was the first to finish but their was the customary loss of a piece. Michael attacked the weak f7 square but the opposition knight was on h6 … The queen was used effectively and you took full advantage of the uncastled king to force a queen / rook checkmate. (1-0, 21 minutes).
Ben E played his first game for the school this term to release Charlie T for the play rehearsal and he played well, though his opponent made too many pawn moves early on to make life easy for Ben whose queen soon found the weak squares in the pawn structure. (2-0, 29 minutes).
Paddy D didn't make the best of starts positionally and ought to have been made to struggle. It wasn't long, however, before your knights took control over the centre of the board and the match was heading your way long before the opponent lost his queen. Last term you'd have secured a '7' for this, but you're such a rapidly improving player so I expect more from you now! (3-0, 32 minutes).
Luke T won again today, though your opponent was rather modest today as he failed to castle and he didn't manage to organise his troops into a meaningful attack. Your pieces were well sorted! (4-0, 39 minutes).
Edward H's opponent got his queen out too early and lost the initiative with limited development. Edward won a rook with a discovered check and held his opponent off well when he tried to fight his way back into the game. (5-0, 45 minutes).
At the adjudication, five matches remained, though three of them were comfortable S.Anselm's wins. Matthew B forked his opponent early on and the opponent then failed to castle. Pressure built up in the middle of the board and when the skies cleared with exchanges, Matthew held the upper hand as his own king was safely castled! Ivan S's opponent thought he was on to a winner when his queen took the weak g7 pawn after Ivan had developed his knight and bishop but his delight for him turned to horror when he realized that Rh7 trapped the queen. The rest of the match was then a formality. Isaac S lost the recording of his moves after eight moves each. From what I recall, at the adjudication you were a rook for a knight plus a couple of pawns to the good with an exposed opposition king, so a comfortable win, though you were made to work quite hard for it.
Max H ought to have taken advantage a little better of his opponent's strange opening (2. f3) and this became a close game. A lot was exchanged around move 20 and Max was a piece up which was then lost in a good attack by the opponent. A tight endgame saw rook and three pawns v rook and two …
Max's additional pawn being guarded on the seventh rank … the computer needs to look and see whether we got our adjudication right here (!), which brings us to board one and Toby S against the talented girl. Everything was equal in all respects until the 14th move, but there followed a few moves which were not quite accurate enough to keep the game equal positionally, but with pieces being equal this had to be a draw even if we all knew that she'd have gone on to win! (9-1, 48 minutes).
Posted on
Thu, January 29, 2009
by Anselms