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Witney 2 vs. Didcot 1
1 Girdlestone,
Paul (193) ½-½ Olehnovics, Andrejs
(190)
2 Bourne,
Johnathan (174) ½-½ Gough, Nicholas
L (179)
3 Asenov,
Pavel (170) ½-½
Crockart, Scott (176)
4 Searle,
Howard AJ (154) ½-½ McInnes, Graham
(177)
5 Gentry, Alan
(142) ½-½
Cooper, Bernard D (156)
6 O'Byrne,
Daniel (143) 1-0
Sheridan, Martin (142)
(ave
grade 163)
3½-2½ (ave grade 170)
Match played on 07 Apr.
Unbelievable, after 3 years
as runners-up, Witney 2 finally came first in
division 2. But what a tense evening for all
concerned.
Everyone got off to a good
start and all games were evenly balanced. Paul
was first to finish on board 1, with a position
still dynamic and with many possibilities of
either improving or choosing the wrong course,
both players agreed a draw. Johnathan also drew
after the enterprising King’s Gambit led to
equality. Thank you to those two for shoring up
that end of the team.
Pavel, with the black pieces
against a strong player, showed his maturity as
he had gained a slight edge, but discretion
ruled and his game also ended in a draw. Then
Alan, who had allowed a lasting pin, managed to
swap off into a Queen and pawn ending and found
a perpetual. Five games finished and all draws.
The tension mounted.
So it was all on Danny’s
game. He had a definite plus with a supported
passed pawn and a big space advantage, but could
he pull it off as time was slipping by?
Thankfully, Danny marched his King onto g7 as
his opponent was reduced to repeating moves and
the game was won. Our opponents were generous in
defeat after such a close result and they hid
their disappointment. Well done to the 2nd team,
we have deserved a chance to play at the next
level. Time will tell how we manage, but thanks
to all who have contributed to this great
season.
- Alan.
Wantage 1 vs. Witney 2
1 Bush, Martin
L (159) 0-1
Bourne, Johnathan (174)
2 Piggott,
Roly (152) ½-½
Searle, Howard AJ (154)
3 Langham, Rod
E (147) 1-0
Weston, Richard (149)
4 Hemmings,
Peter (139) ½-½ Gentry,
Alan (142)
5 Spalding,
George H (131) 0-1 O'Byrne, Daniel (143)
6 Barker,
Richard (112) 0-1
Edwards, Derek F (142)
(ave
grade 140)
2-4 (ave grade 151)
Match played on 18 Mar.
So it was back to the league
the following evening away at Wantage. The first
to finish was Danny who won a piece against
George causing immediate resignation. Then Derek
won comfortably against his much lower graded
opponent. Alan, playing the Lowenthall variation
for the first time, reached equality early on,
and never quite got anything more, so agreed the
draw. Richard on his return from damper regions,
had a good position but frittered it away, to
lose rather disappointingly. Howard strived hard
to win but had to accept a draw, to make the
match score 3-2 in our favour. So it was all on
Johnathan’s game. Johnathan had the better of
Martin throughout the game and won the point and
so Witney 2 go into the final 2 matches in close
second place behind Didcot.
Well done team! Alan.
Witney 2 vs. Oxford City 1
1 Girdlestone, Paul (193) 0-1 McKenna,
Jason (192)
2 Asenov, Pavel (170)
½-½ Hayward,
Philip (187)
3 Searle, Howard AJ (154) 0-1 Brown,
Matthew (182)
4 Gentry, Alan
(142) ½-½ Rajangam,
Karlmarx (178)
5 Moss, Patrick (151)
½-½ Schilling,
Christian (-)
6 O'Byrne, Daniel (143) 0-1 Dixon, Leif
(153)
(ave grade 159)
1½-4½ (ave grade 178)
away win
Match played on 17 Mar.
Well we tried. Perhaps we were a bit unlucky
as, according to Derek, with 10 minutes to go we
looked like winning on 3 boards, enough to take
us through. Paul was 2 pawns up and Pavel 1 up
while Alan had a strong attack going on.
However, Paul lost queen for rook and lost;
Pavel ended in a draw and so did Alan after a
time scramble. Danny and Howard both managed to
lose from promising positions while Patrick had
to fight for his draw. A good cup run ended in
the semi-final as last year.
Witney 2 vs. Cowley 3
1 Asenov,
Pavel (170) ½-½
Chapman, Andrew (148)
2 Searle,
Howard AJ (154) ½-½ Viscu, Catalin (141)
3 Gentry, Alan
(142) ½-½
Mate, Maria (141)
4 Moss,
Patrick (151) 1-0
Idle, Oscar (141)
5 O'Byrne,
Daniel (143) 1-0 Keeling,
David (141)
6 Edwards,
Derek F (142) 1-0 Stanley, William
(Bill) (125)
(ave
grade 150)
4½-1½ (ave grade 140)
Match played on 03 Mar.
Match summary from Patrick
who finished early.
Danny finished first - not
for the first time, the game was over quite
quickly and I'm not sure anyone other than the
two players saw what happened - but Danny won!
1-0. Next to finish was Howard, with a draw. I
gather from post-match analysis that his
opponent may have blundered a piece, but was
then able to generate sufficient threats with Q,
R, and B on Howard's castled King to prompt a
draw. There certainly appeared to be some severe
risks that would have needed careful navigation
to avoid the mate. 1½-½. Next was Patrick,
whose opponent made an unfortunate blunder in
the opening, from which he was never able to
recover despite a valiant effort. We were
therefore 2.5 to 0.5 ahead after about 90
minutes.
However, anyone who watches
Witney 2 matches regularly needs nerves of steel
and a strong disposition, and so it was again
here. Pavel was a pawn down and parrying various
threats. Alan didn't look very comfortable in
his game, and Derek was also a pawn down for no
obvious compensation. The prospect of an upset
was on the cards. However, Derek's opponent
allowed Derek's Queen to invade just when he was
building up some nice pressure, and the only
option to avoid mate was for Bill to jettison
his own Q - 3½-½. With the match unexpectedly
safe, it was possible to have a relaxing custard
cream and a coffee without too much tension, and
enjoy the remaining two matches. Alan deployed a
Knight sac to generate threats, confident he
could recover the material at least. The
audience were not so sure. Alan believed he may
have missed a mate in 2 - a game for the
website, perhaps ? - but he was duly able to
recover the piece and the game moved to the
final phase. Once again, the need to reset the
far-from-intuitive digital clocks arose, due to
an illegal move - but happily battle was
ultimately concluded in a draw. 4-1.
After some
vigorous 'sssshushing' from nearby Witney 1,
involved in their own battles with the clocks,
attention moved to our last game. Pavel and his
opponent were both using up every last second,
with the theme throughout being threats from
White and brave defence by Black. Both clocks
ran out of time and the game was drawn -
probably a fair conclusion after an enthralling
game. 4½-1½.
Two Match Reports
We suffered our first defeat
at Didcot when we had a bad night with 3
individual losses. Only Howard won to maintain
his great run this season. We will play Didcot
at home later in the season and must hope for
better things. Last night was a good performance
against 3rd place Cumnor. Sadly for Dan, they
defaulted on B5, so the Bell gained a few
pounds! Mark was first to win as he outplayed
the rare London system, good to have him back.
Howard had to overcome
pressure down the e file but after exchanges of
Queens and a pair of Rooks he won a pawn and
with Bishop v Knight played a super endgame to
bring us a point. Derek had pressure all the
game against Steve and had 2 extra connected
outside pawns which would have won, before his
opponent tried for counterplay and went the
exchange down and then completely blew it. Pavel
and Gareth spent most of the night manoeuvrings
in a blocked position and eventually agreed a
draw. Richard had an overwhelming position but
missed the win in a bit of time trouble, and
accepted a draw offer from Mark with just a few
seconds left on the clock. So we won 5-1 and go
top again. Next match is FWS Semi-Final at Home
to City 1 on 24th February. Well done everyone,
Alan.
1 Crockart,
Scott (173) ECF 1-0
Asenov, Pavel (147) ECF
2 Cooper,
Bernard D (157)
1-0 Gentry, Alan (152) ECF
3 Robins,
Andrew S (157) ECF 0-1 Searle,
Howard AJ (147) ECF
4 Jacobs,
Robert B (126) ECF 1-0 Moss,
Patrick (154) ECF
5 Harkins, Sam
(136) ECF
½-½ O'Byrne, Daniel (143) ECF
6 Reynolds,
Gary (119) ECF ½-½
Edwards, Derek F (142) ECF
4-2
Match played on 22 Jan.
Witney 2 vs. Cumnor 1
1 Hannon, Mark
(179) ECF
1-0 Terrington, Simon (-)
2 Asenov,
Pavel (170) ECF
½-½ Stevens, Gareth (142)
3 Searle,
Howard AJ (154) ECF 1-0 Glenn, Liam
(141) ECF
4 Weston,
Richard (149) ECF ½-½
Sayers, Mark (138) ECF
5 O'Byrne,
Daniel (143) ECF 1-0 _default
(-)
6 Edwards,
Derek F (142) ECF 1-0 Bennett,
Steven (109) ECF
5-1
Match played on 03 Feb.
- Alan
A fine though very close
victory keeps the 2nd team in first place with a
3 point lead over the strong Didcot 1, who are
our next opponents in the league on Wednesday
22nd January(away). Danny arrived half an hour
late but discovered he was 27 minutes up on the
clock as black and his opponent was just
arriving too. Danny quickly won a pawn and later
had a supported rook on the 7th which decided
things in his favour.
A nice evening for him. Derek
then got a draw against his equally matched
opponent . So it was a good start. However,
Pavel was always looking second best as Mike
March created 2 passed pawns on the queen side
in a QGA/Catalan and after some tactics in which
the queens came off Pavel could not stop the
advancing pawns. A pity as this spoilt his 100%
record. Howard reaches a queen and pawn ending a
pawn down and though he had a winning time
advantage he accepted a draw, probably the right
thing to do. Alan finally got a good position
out of the Sicilian and gradually equalised and
gained a slight plus when Tony Lee, in time
pressure, made a mistake.
So it was 3-2 to us with
Richard still to finish. Neither player had
castled in his game and both had pushed pawns on
both sides of the board. Richard found a very
nice combination against John Yates’ more
exposed King to win the game and secure the 2
points for us.
1 March, Mike
(170) 1-0 Asenov, Pavel
(147)
2 Lee, Anthony
(173) 0-1 Gentry, Alan (152)
3 Smith, Roger
A ( ) ½-½ Searle, Howard AJ
(147)
4 Biswas, Karl
(147) 0-1 O'Byrne, Daniel
(143)
5 Yates, John
O (142) 0-1 Weston, Richard (157)
6 King, Simon
E (143) ½-½ Edwards, Derek F (143)
2-4
Match played on 06 Jan.
- Alan
Cumnor1 vs Witney 2
1 Gareth Stevens
(149) 0-1 Mike Truran (188)
2 Liam Glenn
(140) 0-1
Richard Weston (157)
3 Robin Carr
(126) 0-1
Howard Searle (147)
4 Robert Steel
(87) 0-1 Danny
O`Byrne (143
5 Marc Ives (UNG)
½-½ Derek Edwards (143)
6 Leonora Ives (UNG)
½-½ Paul Smith (UNG)
1-5
Match players on 31 Oct
With it being half-term,
Cumnor put out a weakened team. Eight year-old
Leonora gave Paul a huge fright as she gained a
hour time advantage and an overwhelming position
- passed pawns to deal with, a trapped rook and
a king exposed in the middle, along with a one
hour time advantage to his opponent were Paul`s
main problems but fortunately he managed to find
a perpetual check to avoid the defeat. There
were solid wins for Howard (following a strong
Q-side attack) and Danny on the middle boards
(although it took him a bit longer than the 20
min win the previous week!). Richard saw a
return to form with a nice win with the black
pieces - a typical performance that started with
1......a6 and 2.......b5 and with Richard not
bothering to castle throughout the game! Derek
had a strong position but chose not to exchange
2 pawns for a minor piece when the opportunity
arose because his king would be somewhat exposed
- it was the wrong decision as Marc was able to
mount a strong attack as a consequence and Derek
had to make the exchange sac to avoid disaster.
Fortunately, the draw was offered by Marc when
down to just 3 mins. Mike`s game was the last to
finish with Gareth having put up a good fight,
but in a difficult position his flag finally
dropped.
Thanks to Derek for report.
- Alan.
Witney 2 vs. City 2
1 Hannon, Mark
(181) 1-0
March, Mike (170)
2 Weston,
Richard (157) 0-1 Dixon, Leif
(153)
3 Gentry, Alan
(152) 0-1
Biswas, Karl (147)
4 Searle,
Howard AJ (147) ½-½ Yates, John O (142)
5 O'Byrne,
Daniel (143) 1-0 Godfrey,
David (140)
6 Edwards,
Derek F (143) 1-0 Brooke, Ian R
(109)
3½-2½
Match played on 21 Oct
With 5 players on a chess
hangover after the 1st Witney Chess Congress
over the previous weekend, we faced big rivals,
City2. Danny soon gave us a lift as he won after
20 minutes and retired to the “Bell,” not to
reappear. Richard was very aggressive but
eventually went down, continuing his run of bad
form. Howard and his opponent knew each other
from many games before and they ground out a
draw. Alan had some advantage but tried to
complicate things pushing for a win and blew it.
With time running out, Derek pulled off a nice
win to level the match score with board 1
remaining. Mark looked to have lost it, but he
had more time on the clock and complicated
things to cause Mike March to think and
eventually lose on time.
We count ourselves fortunate
to have won this one.
- Alan Gentry.
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