First 2022/23 Match

The first match of the 2022/23 season on Tuesday 11th Oct starred the Taunton Knights against visitors Yeovil.

The gradings suggested that Taunton would win 2 ½ to 1 ½ but you will have to read on to discover the actual result.

Ioannis on Board 1 unexpectedly lost following a slight miscalculation (blunder?), whilst Richard on Board 2 duly won against his lower graded opponent. Even though you outrank your opponent you still have to play well to win. Well done, Richard.

On Board 4 Mike Ward was easily beaten by an opponent who outgraded him quite significantly so no real shame in losing that one Mike.

On Board 3, Phil who was playing with the Black pieces made a poor start but recovered to finish in an end game with a Rook and Bishop versus White’s Rook.

At one point there seemed to be loads of pawns but the next time I looked they had all gone. I thought this was going to be a draw and we would lose but he played very well and his opponent resigned before an inevitable mate.

2-2 was the final result. Well done everyone. It is great to be back playing OTB matches against other clubs.

And good luck to our Bishops who visit Weston Super Mare on Thursday.

Beware decommissioned oil rigs!

Friendly Matches

We have played two friendly matches recently, one against Sedgemoor and one against Wellington.

When we visited Sedgemoor last, we suffered an ignominious defeat 5 1/2 to 1/2.

When they came to us on the 5th April we beat them 5-0. Perhaps it was our posh wooden match sets that unnerved them, or maybe we just played better.

Especially well done to Louis Wainwright representing Taunton for the first time. A solid victory over Sedgemoor’s Ryan.

The result at Wellington was not as good. We lost 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 ; that is 1 loss and 3 draws.

Perhaps in current times though, results are less important than the opportunity to play over the board chess against unknown opponents.

Anyway thanks to all who took part. Niall, Ioannis, Chris, Stan, Richard, Arnold, Phil, Frey and Louis.

 

David Graham v Merlin Saunders

[pgn]
[Event “Club Championship”]
[Site “Taunton”]
[Date “2022/2/1″]
[Round “?”]
[White “David “]
[Black “Merlin”]
[Result “1-0″]
[ECO “D00″]
[Opening “Queen’s pawn, Mason Variation “]

1.d4 d5 2.Bf4 Nf6 3.e3 Bf5 4.Nf3 e6 5.Nbd2 Bd6 6.Bg3 O-O 7.Nb3 Ne4 8.Bxd6 Qxd6
9.Be2 Nd7 10.O-O c5 11.Nh4 Bg6 12.c3 c4 13.Nd2 Ndf6 14.f4 b5 15.Bf3 Nxd2 16.
Qxd2 Bd3 17.Rf2 Ne4 18.Bxe4 dxe4 19.g3 f5 20.Qd1 g6 21.Rg2 b4 22.Qd2 a5 23.g4
bxc3 24.bxc3 Qa3 25.gxf5 exf5 26.h3 Kf7 27.Kh2 Rg8 28.Rag1 Rab8 29.Qc1 Qxc1
30.Rxc1 Rb6 31.Rcg1 Rgb8 32.Nxf5 gxf5 33.Rg7+ Ke6 34.Rxh7 Rb2+ 35.Kh1 Rb1 36.
h4 Rxg1+ 37.Kxg1 Rg8+ 38.Kf2 Kf6 39.Rh5 Rb8 40.Rg5 Rb2+ 41.Kg3 Rxa2 42.h5 Ra1
43.Kh2 Be2 44.h6 Rb1 {Bf3 wins} 45.h7 Rb8 46.Rg8 Rxg8 47.hxg8=Q Ke7 48.d5 Bh5
49.Qg5+ {Black Resigns} 1-0 [/pgn]

Match versus Sedgemoor 17th Nov

Ok. So this was our second friendly match. We had had to postpone the match twice owing to non-availability of players but finally agreed on a mutually convenient date and Sedgemoor were good enough to visit us.

Joshua Acibar, in his first match for the club. played, as usual, at lightning speed but unfortunately also lost at lightning speed.

Niall won a protracted and fairly close game thanks to a superior pawn count.

Richard won, fortuitously I thought, in a close game when his opponent, playing too quickly, was obliged to continue a move having touched his piece, a rook. Richard was able to fork the King and Rook leaving him a bishop up.

Fernando lost a close game agin showing the advantage of a superior number of pawns.

Arnold, playuing against a much higher rated player fought for and got a draw in a position I thought was lost. Well done Arno;d.

Mike’s game I didn’t see much of and he lost graciously.

Well done Sedgemoor. 3½ v 2½

Wellington Friendly

On Tuesday 12thOct Wellington came over with a 6 man team for a friendly match,there being no official league matches until at least Christmas. Taunton fortunately has a large enough area for us to accommodate a normal club night with a match. I’m curious as to why we continue to call these ‘friendly’ as I did not notice any lack of competetiveness, the last game not finishing until 10.30pm.

Kym, the Wellington Captain and I had tried to ensure a fairly evenly graded pairings, though as it turned out their No 1, Alex was considerably stronger than ours. To be fair Taunton’s top 3 players have not got an official ELO grading, so the placings were a bit arbitrary.

The results were as follows:

Alex Conway (Wellington) beat Richard Hailstone

John Jeremiah lost to Giannis Papaoikonomou

Robert Harris drew with Niall Homer

Ollie Sells lost to David Graham

Rupert Sells lost to Steve Smith

Eric Wall beat Nathanael Tretheway

Final result therefore was Wellington 2.5 – Taunton 3.5

I think most people enjoyed the ‘Over The Board’ experience, so we will be planning some more.

David Graham

 

 

Bishops v Weston Knights

Happy New Year to one and all and especially to our gallant and brave team who ventured out last Thursday. David Graham lost a closely fought match with Malcolm Dinham having also lost to him in the previous match. Congratulations to Vic for once again beating Steve Miles, rated 30 points above him, Mike Ward drew and Chris Greenaway accepted his opponent’s offer of a draw to level the match at 2-2.

Afterwards he said he could have won, but we all say that don’t we? In this case though I think he could have. Anyway, I was pleased with a draw after our last outing to Weston ended in a 3-1 defeat against the Weston Bishops team  and a 1.5 to 2.5 defeat when the Weston Knights visited Taunton in September.

DG.

Bishops V Weston Bishops 7th November

Well, we got there eventually. There was a lot of traffic on the A370 into Weston; probably carnival traffic parking up for the next day we were told.

Arnold had kindly agreed to be our top board and he was evenly matched with Ollie Isaac. David (100) was playing Malcolm Dinham (106) so fairly even there too. Both Mike Ward and Vic were outgraded by 20 points or so (against John Parsons and A Keen) but I was quietly confident. Last year we came away with a victory against similar grades.

David finished first; an absolute disaster. How can anyone allow an h7 mate after 17 moves. Well you’re just going to have to guess because I’m too embarrassed to put the game up on the website.

Mike succumbed to a mass of pawns (and pieces) bearing down on his King which had nowhere to go but into danger.

Vic looked to have a reasonable chance and his opponent’s King was well exposed, but after Queens were exchanged he was playing with 2 Rooks against 2 Rooks and a Knight. And then that nasty Knight was threatening to fork Rooks and the King and he bravely capitulated.

Arnold finished last and it was an evenly and fiercely fought contest. It eventually came down to a Rook and pawn ending, an isolated white pawn on a5 which black had to defend with his Rook allowing Arnold to win a pawn on the other side of the board and leaving him, eventually, with King and Pawn against King. No slipping up and allowing a stalemate and Black resigned. Well played, Arnold.

A disappointing 3-1 loss. Damp squibs and other firework metaphors are wholly inappropriate. Hope springs eternal though, so we’re back in December against Wellington.

 

David v Ernie Fields

[pgn]
[Event “Taunton Bishops v Wells”]
[Site “Taunton”]
[Date “2019.10.29”]
[Round “NA”]
[White “David Graham”]
[Black “Ernie Fields”]
[Result “Draw”]
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Bf4 Bg7 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Qc2 Bf5 7.Qb3 b6 8.Ne5 dxc4 9.
Qxc4 Be6 10.Qd3 Bf5 11.e4 Bc8 12.Be2 Ba6 13.Qd2 Bxe2 14.Kxe2 Nh5 15.Rhd1 Bxe5
16.Bxe5 Nc6 17.Bg3 Nxg3+ 18.hxg3 Qd7 19.Rh1 Qxd4 20.Qh6 Qg7 21.Qxg7+ Kxg7 22.
Nb5 Rac8 23.Rac1 a6 24.Rxc6 axb5 25.Rhc1 Rfd8 26.Rxc7 Rxc7 27.Rxc7 Ra8 28.a3
e6 29.Rb7 Ra4 30.f3 b4 31.Rxb6 bxa3 32.bxa3 Rxa3 33.Rb2 Ra1 34.f4 Ra3 35.Kf2
h5 36.Re2 {Draw agreed} *
[/pgn]

Bishops v Wells

Wells had postponed our original scheduled meeting as they had a few players off sick. They emailed me details of their likely team but when they turned up on Tuesday last the composition of their team was different. Conspiracy theorists suspected an attempt to make us field a weaker team but I had already decided on the team anyway. I innocently believed their excuse.

A full house at the club with a new junior meant that we started a little late as I had to call for silence.

Off we went. I think Mike Ward finished first, falling to a Knight smothered mate in the corner. Surely he’s old  and ugly enough not to fall prey to that sort of checkmate, I hear you say. Sadly no. 0-1.

Phil finished next and lost reasonably quickly. His believable excuse was that he had been having exhaust problems on his car and was thinking more about the return journey to Minehead than the really important matter at hand. 0-2.

David was next to finish playing White. His queen got chased round a bit, his King got out of position and didn’t castle. Queens were exchanged, and rooks, and pawns. With 4 pawns and a rook each left, a draw was agreed. Well done David for not losing on time this week. 1/2 – 2 1/2.

Jerry, playing black and I think he said an advanced French, seemed to be a bit cramped but with Rooks bearing down on the King side with White’s King well advanced. After the King retreated to safety neither player seemed to be able to or want to risk making a breakthrough and potentially weakening their position so a draw was agreed. 1-3.

A fair result but a bit disappointing. I think we could have done better. Maybe next time.

 

Knights v Bishops

The first of the matches between the two Taunton teams took place on Tuesday 22nd Oct. As usual the Knights outgraded the Bishops but the Bishops were quietly confident, a bit like Wales against South Africa in the Rugby world cup. And so it was.

The only win from the Bishops was Jerry against Chris. Phil seemed to be alright against Arnold but more pawns won the day. Vic McAndrew played a blinder against Martyn (grades 78 v 119) but unfortunately Martyn wriggled his way out of defeat with a (sneaky) perpetual check.

David was in a strong position against Stan but didn’t pick the right moves to force a win. And then lost on time (again).

So the Knights won 2.5 to 1.5. Well done and may your luck run out for our next match.

DG