Another "bad" evening...

Grantham 2 had another very bad evening playing against West Nottingham 1, ambitious team which was relegated last season from Division 1.
Away team from Nottingham beefed-up by Alex Posazhennikov (Elo rating 2259) outplayed opponents from Grantham and allowed them two draws only.

Grantham 2		1:4	West Nottingham 1
Hebert A	160	0:1	Posazhennikov A	2259*
David I	159	½:½	Levens D	158
Mason B	140	0:1	Kenyon M	167
Wollerton G	144	½:½	Clare A	-
Foard C	-	0:1	Kenyon A	132

                                                                                                                                                                                   *ELO rating

Claudio Mangione - The Hero of the Hour

New season of 4NCL has started and Grantham Sharks put up two teams into division 1! It has been possible after the merger between former Sambuca Sharks and Pandora's Box Grantham. You may have read the previous glosses on this subject and I do not want to continue playing this tune. But what I really want to highlight is exceptional performance of my esteemed colleague and dear friend - Claudio Mangione.
He faced to IM Colin Crouch and GM Mathew Turner and from those two games he gained one and half point for the team!!!
Well played Claudio. Now, you can judge for yourself!

Grantham 2 vs Ashfield 2 Convincingly 4:1

In the home match Grantham 2 team convincingly outplayed away team from Ashfield.

Grantham 2		4:1	Ashfield 2
Hebert A	160	1:0	Herrington J	150
David I	159	1:0	Taylor R	153
Mason B	140	1:0	Morgan P	147
Foard C	-	0:1	Robinson A	132
Holt C	148	1:0	Default	-

And here you have two games from top boards:

East Midlands Chess Academy Junior Training Tournament, Sunday 1 December, Risley

East Midlands Chess Announcement: 

Anand vs Carlsen: Another rather boring draw?

The second game of the long awaited match Anand vs Carlsen brought another very short draw. Carlsen reacted to 1.e4 in the style of Petrosian and Karpov when playing main line of Caro-Kann defence.

So what is going on in this match? Are we going to be facing to situation that the match will be decided after all draws in the final "blitz" sudden death? We'll see.

The truth is that in the press conference Anand said he had been caught in the preparation, he had not expected Caro as an option.

Tomorrow is day off so we can be looking forward to seeing next game on Tuesday.

Anand vs Carlsen: Press conference and opening ceremony video

Press conference and opening ceremony video.
Anand vs Carlsen Official website.

Debacle in West Bridgford

It was one of those days which is better to forget. Grantham 2 team went for the match in West Bridgford and lost terribly 3½:1½!

West Bridgford 2		3½:1½	Grantham 2
Truman R	171	1:0	Hebert A	160
Place W	155	1:0	David I	159
Croasdale H	146	½:½	Holt C	148
Atiomo W	138	1:0	Wollerton G	144
Murphy R	136	0:1	Mason B	140

Grantham 1 Convincingly Beat Gambit 2

Yesterday evening Grantham 1 team convincingly outplayed Gambit 2 and won ½:4½.
Let's have a look at the result sheet of this match.

Gambit 2		½:4½	Grantham 1
Swain J	169	½:½	Mangione C	203
Sudar D	164	0:1	Birtwistle N	196
Hayward B	167	0:1	Prior S	181
Roper K	157	0:1	David I	159
Jennings G	155	0:1	Hebert A	159

Claudio Mangione this time nearly lost and there were several twist and turns in his game with John Swain. In the final position, John, who had 10 minutes left comparing a few minutes on Claudio's clock, offered a draw. The offer came in rather juicy position which was, according to a computer analysis, certainly a draw, but John missed his chance couple of moves before.

Nigel's opening strategy was really mysterious and I think he attempted to bamboozle Drag completely. Whether it worked or not it knows only Drag himself. The truth is that Nigel finally obtained a winning position with several pawns, however, he was in terrible time trouble. Drag then displayed tremendous sportsmanship and feeling for fair play when he resigned having plenty of time on the clock while Nigel's flag ominously hung in the air. Here is the position 10 moves before the end - Nigel, from obvious reasons, did not keep the record till the end.

Sudar vs Birtwistle, 10 moves before the end of the game

Steve's game was in the style of Nimzo-Larsen attack and there were some moments where he could played even stronger moves. Final position is real delicacy.

Prior vs Hayward, final position

What to say about my game against Keith Roper? Rather drawish and bit boring ending Keith seasoned with blundering an exchange. Here you have how I turned the advantage into the final victory.



I do not have Andy's game. He did not play opening very well and in one moment I believed he was lost having troubles with deadly pin on a7-g1 diagonal where Black dark-squared Bishop was bearing down to the King-side pinning the White Knight+Queen+King. Andy himself was of opinion that he could have lost a piece several times. However, he is real warrior. Not only bailed himself out of difficult position but he won a pawn and then he went to win the rook and pawns ending which he played splendidly.

Tight Victory For Lincolnshire Over Derbyshire

This afternoon the Lincolnshire County Chess Team played match against Derbyshire and nothing was possible to take as a granted. Grades on the paper and reality on the chessboards looked completely different.

Section:  OPEN
Home Team: Lincolnshire	Away Team: Derbyshire
Venue: Lindum Atrium - North Hykeham	Date:  2nd November 2013
Team having white on odd boards: Derbyshire	Result reported by:  Nigel Birtwistle

Board	ECF Code	Grade	Home team players’ names	Score	Score	Away Team players’ names	Grade	ECF Code
1	280480H	203	Claudio Mangione	0.5	0.5	Ray Evans	193	110349A
2	106801F	196	Nigel Birtwistle	1	0	Trevor Bould	182	107033C
3	119269H	192	Nick Stead	0.5	0.5	Simon Gilmore	178	111264J
4	222105G	191	David Coates	0.5	0.5	Ray Forey	167	110757E
5	247736J	190	Samuel Milson	0.5	0.5	Ralph Allen	163	105641E
6	181511D	190	Joe Kilshaw	1	0	Martin Cobham	164	136751B
7	231112E	183	Daniel Wells	0	1	Derek Jarvis	162	173444B
8	216825L	177	Harry Russell	0.5	0.5	John Hoddy	162	112778A
9	116655E	169	Keith Palmer	0.5	0.5	Luke Alldread	151	166478F
10	190995H	160	Andrew Hebert	0	1	Maurice Hill	142	112669G
11	772721E	159	Ivan David	1	0	Dave Hoddy	140	210955E
12	152031D	159	Steve Allott	0	1	Paul Moore	136	115733E
13	270555C	158	Alastair Summers	1	0	Ian Edmundson	135	281310F
14	277271G	151	Stuart Macdonald	0	1	Ronald Harrison	122	111222J
15	111157H	149	Denis Georgiou	1	0	Roger Walker	121	120998L
16	244268B	170	Kevin McCarthy	1	0	Default	-	-
				9	7

As team captain Nigel Birtwistle summarized in his e-mail: "...match was not one of our most inspiring performances against a Derbyshire team who we outgraded by a considerable margin. Having said that we can be happy that we won the match,even though it was by a smaller margin than expected."

Well, we can be looking forward to our next match on Saturday, December 7th against Leicestershire hoping that we will do better than Americans in 1941. Actually it was Sunday and not Saturday.