Somerset Division 2: Frome vs Norton Radstock

Exactly one year ago I participated in the season's opening Division 2 match featuring Frome at home facing a weaker Norton Radstock team. To shamelessly plagiarise from an esteemed co-author it was déjà vu all over again. Needless to say the outcome was much the same as before. It seems quite clear that it's all just a little bit of history repeating.

The Frome team have swapped their boards 1 and 2 this year, owing to Chris's remarkable 18 point grading drop. The other big news is my shocking defection to the Trowbridge team. I'm sure Dave Weston is breathing a sigh of relief. Time will tell if this results in the Somerset trophy spending more time in sunny Wiltshire. Anyway, as a consequence Kevin and John moved up to boards 3 and 4 this time around.

For the visiting team boards 2 and 3 swapped places and their boards 4 and 5 swapped with entirely different people. Thus the scene was set for another unpredictable chess league offering. Norton Radstock are known for playing above expectations on occasion. They only narrowly lost the fixture last year and that was against a stronger Frome side.

Board 6 was first to finish. John Nicholls won against a Scandinavian Defence with an early outing for Black's queen. John decided to swap this off causing some damage to his own pawn formation. However the decision turned out to be a wise one, with White gaining a nice lead in development as compensation.

Chris was next to taste victory, winning a piece and the game. You can review this for yourself using the PGN viewer below. Note that Chris is an exponent of the Petroff Defence and is obviously comfortable taking either side.

Paul Humphreys proved that his defeat of Chris Purry last year was no fluke with an impressive attacking display, causing Gerry Jepps to think so hard that he forgot his queen was attacked. This was duly captured by a bemused Mr Humphreys thus causing immediate resignation. So Frome's lead was cut from 2-0 to 2-1.

Kevin had an interesting game, playing aggressively with Black against White's solid set-up. The opening and middlegame passed by without incident and the game turned into a battle of White's queen and pawn versus Black's rook, knight and bishop. Both players seemed to be uncomfortable with the unusual material imbalance. Kevin eventually broke his opponent and converted to a winning B+2P vs. 3P ending. He then proceeded to snatch a half-point from the jaws of victory having completely forgotten about the "wrong-coloured bishop" drawing idea. Kevin took this change in fortunes graciously, remarking that earlier in the game he had offered to split the point. When queried about this refusal of a draw, it transpired that Geoff Cooper had actually failed to hear the offer!

John Fisher, who had somehow gained a bishop early on, finished his game around this time to win Frome the match. Finally Geoff Berryman converted an opposite coloured bishop ending with apparent ease to wrap things up.

Frome	4½-1½	Norton Radstock
Jepps, Gerry	0-1	Humphreys, Paul
Purry, Chris	1-0	Cook, Stephen G
Paine, Kevin	½-½	Cooper, Geoff G
Fisher, John	1-0	Carrick, Peter
Berryman, Geoff	1-0	Grist, Ivor
Nicholls, John	1-0	Cooper, Catherine

Clarke vs Jerolim 1954

I found this remarkable game in my copy of 202 Surprising Checkmates by Fred Wilson and Bruce Alberston. If you don't like the pgn4web viewer below then you can play through the game on chesgames.com or NicBase.



The book contains many such unusual checkmating moves. Here's another example. Spot the tactic #2. Black to play and win.

Spot the tactic #1

A new theme of posts inspired by The Streatham & Brixton Chess Blog's Miss Easy Tactics! series.

In this position as White (to move) I somehow failed to spot a fairly obvious continuation. Can you do better?

Kamsky - Svidler, World Cup 2011

Kamsky,Gata (2741) - Svidler,Peter (2739) FIDE World Cup 2011

This game was contested today. What did Black play here?

Trowbridge Club Championship 2011-09-01

Club champion Louis gets off to a great start with this sparkling win against Roy in a main-line Winawer French. 13.Re1 was a brave gambit that paid off after 14...Rh7? This move defends against everything except the breakthrough sacrifice 14.e6!! preventing Black from consolidating with ...Be6. The finish is clinical. Louis is on a 172 ECF performance for this season.

Mark Leonard vs Roy Ludlow (2010.09.30)

Spot the tactic #0. White to play and win.

Move 28 will be played and you have 5 minutes left to reach the first time control (move 35). I had missed a number of ways to win up until this point, but I am very pleased to have found a nice continuation here.

Louis Burton vs Roy Ludlow (2010.09.09)

Just another ordinary day......

When we look at our chess opponents we obviously can't ever know what history lurks behind the frowns and smiles that emanate from our opponent throughout the course of a game. Last week I played in the 5 minute 'all play all' championships at the Brown Jack pub in Wroughton. The eventual winner was Peter Richmond with an excellent score of 12 wins, 2 draws and 0 losses. Most of Wiltshire's chess loving fraternity know how strong Peter is, so it came as no surprise, albeit one of his draws came against his wife Jane, talk about keeping it in the family!

In second place with 11 wins and 3 draws was a polite elderly gentleman by the name of Jim. In my game against Jim I blundered a pawn in a Reti opening, then another, before finally resigning in a bad position with over a 30 seconds left on my clock. Nothing remarkable here, but having spent several hours refreshing my knowledge of the 'ins' and 'outs' of this opening during the previous week I was disappointed that I couldn't seem to pose any valid threat or gain any 'momentum' throughout the game. I felt that he was particularly strong and was curious to know a bit more about him, and hence asked Peter who he was, - the answer came 'well if I told you he once played against Fischer and is featured in my 60 memorable games '.......Amazingly enough the previous evening with absolutely nothing else to do I had by chance picked up a book I had purchased from the stall at a local chess congress some years ago but never really studied in depth, - Learn from Bobby Fischer's Greatest Games by Eric Schiller, and instantly I thought maybe Jim = James? A story had stuck in my mind of a 'James Sherwin' who had played against Fischer over 50 years ago (February 1957 to be more accurate), and on a certain move the young James (albeit slightly older than his opponent) had moved a Rook with his little finger ('pinky') as if to 'emphasize the mystery of the move', as Fischer subsequently wrote. Sadly in that match the move proved to be a waste of a tempo, but the anecdote and Fischer's narrative were firmly etched in my mind. Fortunately, at the moment computers simply are not able to exercise such 'psychological tactics' otherwise we might be beaten by them even quicker!

Anyway on completion of my research sure enough the elderly, but mentally very agile gentleman I played against was indeed James Sherwin who moved from the USA some time ago and now resides near Bath, or so I am reliably informed. Obviously if I'd known this at the time of my match I wouldn't have been able to resist moving a piece with my small toe or left ear, but sadly I think I can safely say the result would have remained the same.

Fortunately as we are not obliged to write down all our moves in 5 minute encounters, and as I do not possess the mental faculties to recall all 14 games, I deemed it appropriate to include Sherwin's attempt to beat the up and coming World Champion - well 15 years later anyway.

FISCHER V SHERWIN.........THE FABLED PINKY AFFAIR - ALL THOSE YEARS AGO