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Fifteen hopefuls turned up on
Monday 17 January 2011 to take on Grandmaster
Peter Wells. Although numbers were down on last
year this did not detract from the exciting play
on show, and there was a good mixture of playing
strength with representation from all three
Witney teams together with a few players outside
the club. There was also representation from the
junior section of the club in the form of Joseph
and Jake who both displayed good play but
succumbed to the Grandmaster.
After a succession of wins by
Peter, he dropped his first half point to his
strongest opponent in the shape of Mark Hannon
from Witney 1. Mark played the Slav and, after
catching Peter in a line he was less well
acquainted with, held a small material advantage
in return for Peter's lead in development.
Although Mark was able to hang onto his extra
pawn, several pieces were exchanged and as the
game headed towards an ending with bishops of
opposite colours Peter asked Mark if he was
playing for a win! This tacit draw offer caused
much general amusement. A draw was agreed
shortly after.
[game]
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Buoyed with his success Mark
accepted Peter's invitation to play another
game, a decision that he regretted soon into the
opening, as his position deteriorated move after
move as Peter increased the pressure. Mark
sacrificed material to try and unlock his
position but Peter accepted the material while
still keeping control of the position. Mark had
no choice but to resign. Mark had clearly
forgotten Hackett's First Law "Never go back for
a second helping" (as seen in Dave's craven but
realistic refusal to play Peter again after
beating him in last year's simul).
[game]
Without doubt the best
performance of the evening came from Gareth
Stevens of Cumnor Chess Club. Playing against a
sharp line in the 2. f4 line of the Sicilian
Defence, Gareth was always on the back foot but
managed to find an ingenious saving defence
which thwarted Peter just when he thought he had
a forced mate and which forced the game into a
rook and pawns ending. Gareth, although still a
pawn down, showed tremendous technique in
advancing his king as Peter pushed his passed
pawn and generated enough counter-chances to
exchange down to a R + RP v R endgame. Although
the position was a technical draw, Peter could
have tortured Gareth for several more moves in
an attempt to win, but magnanimously offered a
draw in recognition of his sterling performance.
This concluded a very
successful evening with Peter only dropping two
half points and in many cases playing two games
and winning both of them. Our thanks to Peter
who made it such an enjoyable evening who
positively bounded around the boards despite
apparently having a knee problem, and whose
friendliness towards his opponents and
willingness to allow players to play second
games and to pass if they were not ready to move
was greatly appreciated by everyone.
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