Ploughing Through

In the early hours of the morning a few days before this match Phil and I decided we should wear suits. The rationale was loosely along the lines that most of the Knights came straight from work and we didn't want to be under dressed. We failed to pull this off. The younger Kraken's footwear left something to be desired as trainers weren't entirely the image we were going for and apparently my tie made me look like a Labour Party canvasser. New DK recruit Mr Raoof joined us in the bar for a prematch nerve settler, eager to hear the news but we were unable to provide him with details of our scoop at the time.

With two tough fixtures to come in the shape of Wood Green and Cavendish, there were to be no cheap draws from our end as we needed to exploit the home advantage. It was after more than two hours of play before results started coming in. Sophie's neat win was the first.

We stormed to an early 4-0 lead and managed to convert it to a 7-4 win with board 2 adjourned. So DK2 are off the mark with a convincing result over our similar strength opposition. 

	DRUNKEN KNIGHTS 2	ECF		ECF	RICHMOND
1	Carsten Pedersen	191	0 - 1	215	IM Gavin Wall
2	Richard Black	193	0 - 1	196	Thomas Nixon
3	Adam Raoof	188	1 - 0	192	Michael Healey
4	Sophie Tidman	187	1 - 0	194	Chetan Deva
5	Dom Goodwin	185	1 - 0	192	Martin Benjamin
6	Chris Russell	187	½ - ½	176	Robert Heaton
7	Phil Makepeace	185	1 - 0	174	Franciscos Domingos
8	Aidan Rawlinson	178	½ - ½	178	Julien Shepley
9	Nevil Chan	176	0 - 1	175	James McCarthy
10	Neville Blackie	180	1 - 0	174	Michael Smart
11	Peter Ackley	180	½ - ½	164	John Burke
12	Doug Bennett	171	½ - ½	147	Abraham Neviazsky
		Ave 183	7 - 5	Ave 181

My effort was a classic case of how to turn a better position into a worse one, an underrated skill in the chess world. Annotations are based upon the game's post-mortem which, naturally, we conducted back at the bar.

Chris Russell (187) - (176) Robert Heaton

1. e4 c6 2. Nf3 g6 3. d4 Bg7 4. Be2 d6 5. a4 Nf6 6. Nc3 Nbd7?

After 6. … 0-0 7. 0-0 We have reached a mainline classical pirc but this move is too slow.

7. e5!

It begins!

7... dxe5 8. dxe5 Nd5!

Both 8. … Nh5 9. g4 and 8. … Ng4 9. e6! fxe6 10. Ng5 leave black completely ruined.

9. Nxd5 cxd5 10. Qxd5 Nxe5

The point of black's 8^th move.

11. Qxd8+

11. Bb5+ Nd7 12. 0-0 lacks pace as after 12… a6 black will untangle.

11… Kxd8 12. 0-0 Nxf3+ 13. Bxf3 Kc7

It's all looking rather good for me here but I cleverly fail to capitalise over the next few moves.

14. Re1 Re8 15. Ra3 Bd7 16. Bd5

An attempt to gain a tempo on the f7 pawn but it's more than happy to move eventually.

16... e6 17. Bf4+ e5 18. Be3 f5 19. Rc3+ 

So I've managed to isolate the Queenside pawns as black has no sensible alternative to his next.


19... Bc6

But here I rather miss the target as 20. b4! leaves black in all manner of difficulties. A potential continuation 20… Red8 21. Bxc6 bxc6 22. b5 Rd6 just about holds the fort for the time being but white has all the chances.

20. g3? Rad8! 


The a7 pawn is left to be gobbled but black can win one back. 


21. Bxc6 bxc6 22. a5 Rd5 23. Ra3 Bf8! 


Continuing to harass the Rook.


24. Ra4 a6

I was really beginning to dislike my position around here, it's all gone rather passive.

25. Re2 Rb5 26. c3 Rb3 27. Rd2 c5 28. Kf1 Kc6 29. Ra2? 

A square so poor I almost choked on my own vomit after leaving it there. Had vague ideas of freeing up the d2 Rook but it's rather sluggish. 

29... Bd6 30. f3 Bc7

We'd agreed to the quickplay finish pre-match and so reached the time control here. Black has all the play and the a5 pawn is looking rather loose. The kingside starts rolling too over the next few moves.

31. Ke2 f4 32. Bf2 h5 33. Ra4 g5 34. Kd1 Reb8 35. Kc1 Rb5 36. Re2

This makes things a little awkward for black with tricks like 36. … Re8? 37. gxf4 gxf4 38. Rxf4 and combined with Rob's time trouble I figured it was a decent time to toss out the draw offer which was accepted

½ – ½