If you play for an active chess club in the London area, fixture congestion is a fact of life. So last night, two of my teams were in action. Streatham EC in the revived London League Eastman Competition, 4 boards, away v The Hung Pawns (yes really) in Hammersmith at 6.45pm. Also Streatham 2 in London League Division 2, that’s 8 boards, away v Metropolitan 1 some miles further east at Aldgate, at 6.30pm.
I captain the Eastman team. It’s not difficult finding 4 players from our 12-man squad to play in this team, so I set that up and left them to it, with the very capable Graham K as acting captain. As it happened our opponents gave us advance notice of a default on board 4, so I was able to stand down one of our team.
For myself, I turned out for Streatham 2, who have had a challenging season in a division full of other clubs’ 1st teams. We’re in the relegation zone but have matches in hand on the teams above us. Our captain Martin S assembled a decent team and I was down to play on board 3.
I arrived in London early, around 5.45pm, to pick up a message on my phone from one of our Eastman players who had just had a domestic emergency and needed to withdraw. With only one hour before the match was due to start, I asked a couple of players who I thought might be available, but they couldn’t make it.
I hate defaulting boards more than most things in life. I think I hold the club record for the highest number of players approached to fill a team. That’s 34 players asked, for an 8-board team, and yes we did turn out a full team on that occasion. So I hatched a cunning plan to rescue the Eastman team. I texted the Hung Pawns captain to say we were trying to find someone. I was the first to arrive at the Metropolitan venue. In the absence of our captain, I exchanged team lists and tossed for colours (I lost. We were black on odd boards).
I then explained the problem to their captain and my proposed solution. I would be happy to agree an early draw with their board 3 (in the trade we call this a Grandmaster Draw), leaving me free to dash across London and join the Eastman team before the default time of 7.45pm. Their captain quite rightly said I would have to discuss it with my potential opponent. So I did. But as it happens, this was his first game for Metropolitan, and he wanted to play a proper game. I understood that and I don’t blame him for insisting.
My next idea was to swap positions in our team so that I would move up to board 2 and my colleague Robin H down to board 3. There’s only a small difference in rating points, so that would have been acceptable. Facing an old stager on the Metropolitan board 2, I thought I had a good chance of agreeing an early draw. But here their captain stepped in and said he was unhappy with the idea of changing the board order once team lists had been exchanged. Nothing in the league rules prevents it, and I should know because I wrote them, but there was no point arguing about it so I let it drop. Unsporting or what?
At this point I resigned myself to the inevitable. I texted the Hung Pawns captain again to say that we would default board 3. I then turned my whole attention to the match in hand against Metropolitan, determined to make them pay for thwarting my attempt to be Captain Marvel. Here’s the game against my Swedish opponent.
White: Lars Astrom (FIDE 2098), Black: Rodney Barking (2070). London League 2023.
B22: Sicilian 2.c3
Online game: https://lichess.org/SWoQsZyK
1.e4 c5 2.c3 d5
These days I usually play the other move, 2…Nf6, but I know the 2…d5 line well (years of practice against my SW Surrey sparring partner) and my results have been good.
3.exd5 Qxd5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.Be2 e6 7.Be3 cxd4 8.cxd4 Nc6 9.O-O Be7 10.h3 Bh5 11.Nc3 Qd6 12.a3 O-O
All theory so far – although my opponent had taken quite a long time over his moves. I like this position for Black. The isolated d-pawn is going nowhere, my pieces are actively-placed, and I have a clear plan of exchanging pieces to emphasise the structural weakness.
13.Qd2?!
The first sign that my opponent didn’t really know what he was doing. In this line the queen belongs on the white squares, rather than further restricting the passive bishop on e3. So 13.Qb3 with an eye on d5 and b7 was the way to go.
13…Rfd8 14.Rad1 Rac8 15.b4 Nd5
Stockfish slightly prefers 15…Qb8 followed by …Bd6 and …Ne7, gradually improving my pieces. It’s not as if White can do anything here.
16.Ne4 Qc7 17.Rc1 Qb6
To escape the pin and nullify the threat of b5. Possibly better was …Bg6 and …a6, since the queen is slightly better-placed on c7 than b6.
18.Nc5 a6 19.Rfd1 Bf6 20.g4 Bg6 21.h4
My opponent decided to get active with his kingside pawns. But this just creates weaknesses. He’d be better off concentrating on piece play and trying to arrange Ne5 under favourable circumstances. The problem is the weak d-pawn, as he always has to work out if I can take it.
21…h5 22.g5 Be7 23.Bc4
Again not good. I thought he probably wanted to sac on e6 in some lines. So I took time out to strengthen my kingside defences.
23…Bf5 24.Re1 g6 25.Bf4 Nxf4
I was happy to exchange off the bishop now that he couldn’t recapture with a pawn.
26.Qxf4 Bd6 27.Qe3 Qc7!
With the awkward threat of …Bf4 winning the exchange. At this point the engine evaluates the position as –1.20 in Black’s favour. But now my opponent blunders – again trying to be too active when his pieces aren’t ready for it.
28.Nxa6?? bxa6 29.Bxa6
Hoping to recoup the sacrificed material through the dual threat of Bxc8 and b5.
29…Bf4 30.Qc3 Bxc1 31.Rxc1 Nxd4!
My opponent clearly hadn’t seen this thematic tactical counterblow, which wins a piece and the game. Stockfish actually prefers 31…Qf4, also winning material and maintaining the tension in the position, but I think the move played is clearer and simpler.
32.Qxc7
He has no choice since 32.Nxd4 Qxc3 and 32.Qxd4 Qxc1+ both lose immediately.
32…Nxf3+ 33.Kg2 Rxc7 34.Rxc7 Be4
Now I’m a piece up in the ending. White has connected passed a- and b-pawns but they’re not dangerous.
35.Kg3 Ra8 36.Kf4?!
I was expecting 36.Rc8+ Rxc8 37.Bxc8, but I just transfer the king to the queenside and it’s an easy win.
36…Rxa6 37.Kxe4 Rxa3 38.b5 Nxh4 39.b6 Rb3 40.b7 Kg7 41.Kd4 Nf5+ 42.Kc4
One last mistake, but it’s all over anyway.
42…Rxb7 0–1
He resigned since 43.Rxb7 allows the fork with 43…Nd6+. I was pleased with the way I had played the game, even more so when the later engine analysis put my centipawn loss (as they call it) at just 0.07 with no blunders or mistakes and only four inaccuracies. That’s as close to perfection as I’ve ever come at the chess board.
So I made them pay for turning down the Grandmaster Draw offer. What was happening elsewhere? Our captain lost on time on board 7 in a complicated middlegame position. On other boards, it was draw after draw, reflecting the evenly-matched ratings. Most satisfying was Jagdip’s draw on board 5. He couldn’t find the venue and arrived almost 60 minutes late, leaving him just 15 minutes plus the increment for the entire game. He played quickly and eventually reached a rook, knight and pawn ending. He actually missed a couple of wins in time trouble, but had no difficulty notching up the half-point. So we drew the match 4–4, a good result against a team still hoping for promotion to Division 1.
In the Eastman match, the Hung Pawns fielded a very strong player on top board. We lost that one but won on board 2, also drawing the match with the final score 2–2.
What would have happened if I’d succeeded in getting an early draw in the Division 2 match, and travelled to Hammersmith where I would have faced a much lower-rated player on board 3? We would probably have won the Eastman match and narrowly lost the Division 2 match. But the Division 2 match actually mattered in terms of league position, whereas the Eastman match didn’t – we were always going to finish second in the Eastman, behind one very strong team and ahead of five others who don’t seem to be taking this competition seriously. It’s rather like the chess equivalent of the old League Cup in football. No one really cares. In the end it was right for me to stay in East London and do my best for the 2nds.