March 11th saw the NLC ‘A Team’ braving the dangers of darkest South Kensington to play the Chelsea Arts Club. Our mission: to survive as chess players of fortune and maybe get some points to drag us from the foot of the Hamilton Russell table.
Captain Chamberlain sat this match out, so Miss Widger made her Hamilton Russell debut on Board 6 and Young Master Jacobs was promoted to Board 4 following Mister Widdicombe’s failed double piece sacrifice in the last match.
Acting skipper Mister Whiteley won the toss and was about to choose white on odd boards when Doctor Kirby had an idea (does happen sometimes). Doctor K knew full well that he’d be lucky to get anything from Fide Master and Bermuda Number 1 Richard Black. He also knew that CAC board 2 Izzie Thomas is lethal with the white pieces (playing a d4, Nf3, e3 system with a rapid K-Side attack). So why not take black on odd boards to give Mister Whiteley a chance and give white to Young Master Jacobs and Miss Widger.
The NLC won the match 4-2, with victories with white on Boards 2,4 and 6. Mister Giffin QC MA (Oxon) on Board 3 calmly saw the NLC home to our first Hamilton Russell victory of the season. We love it when a plan comes together!
Board 1
Doctor Kirby’s strategic sense sadly deserted him at the board. Richard Black played a Caro-Kann advance variation (3 e5) and made things sharp. Unlike the match vs Nigel White a few weeks ago, the Doctor couldn’t complete his development. Despite a resolute defence, the opponent’s attack eventually crashed through. Doctor Kirby was last seen muttering darkly about ‘learning some new theory’ as Batsford Chess Openings 2 (1989) isn’t quite doing it.’
Board 2
Mister Whiteley played an English opening against Izzie Thomas. Eventually the centre opened up and Mister Whitely managed to get footholds in the opponent’s position. After a win of two rooks for the Queen, Mister Whiteley managed to establish a back-rank pin which netted more material. A great victory against a top player.
Said the NLC Captain-for-the-night: “I’m not sure our chess reporter had arrived when we tossed for colour, but I won. I’m 2 out of 2 for coin tosses this year, sadly not matched by my results on the chess board. I asked Nick what he wanted and he said words to the effect of Izzie Thomas doesn’t like black so I’ll take black on board 1 so you can go at him with white on Board 2. Therefore I sat down to play a super motivated Izzie who was clearly determined to smash me off the board. In fact Izzie had an off day and made several mistakes. My play was far from perfect but as you’ll see I was well up and I just played conservatively to win”.
Board 3
Mister Giffin QC MA (Oxon) played the dangerous Joe Coles on Board 3 in a Grunfeld opening. Black managed to get on top through some thematic well-timed blows at the white centre. However, our legal star lost some of his advantage in the ending.
It was tense stuff at the end of Mister Giffin QC MA (Oxon)’s match. The last to finish, with the score sitting at 2-3 in the Libs favour, the QC had to see it home for the NLC. A draw or a win would do it, but time was running low (as is the pattern with Mister Giffin QC MA (Oxon) these days). Here’s how it brought the points home for the Libs:
Board 4
Young Master Jacobs was promoted to Board 4 where he faced the wily Mike Ratcliffe as white. It was a French defence advance variation (3 e5) where white played the hypermodern 4 Nf3 instead of the more usual 4 c3. Our trainee Nimzovitch managed to get on top during the middle game and kept the advantage into the endgame. A king charge was about to mop up pawns when the opponent resigned.
Nearly Board 6
Mister Widdicombe was on Board 5 playing a King’s Indian set-up against the opponent’s English opening (if only he’d read the last match report, he might have benefited from Mister Whiteley’s guidance). After last week’s effort Mister Widdicombe decided to play more conservatively, so conservatively in fact that he didn’t get into the opponent’s half of the board. Mister Widdicombe has been working from home and has sported a new Samson-like beard in an attempt to follow Young Master Jacob’s lead. Sadly it didn’t provide the necessary playing strength and he went down to defeat. The annoying thing was that right up to the last move Mister Widdicombe had defended well and the game was in fact even. But an hour of soaking up punches leads to mistakes, and that 26…Qf7 was the end.
Much more of this and Mister Widdicombe will achieve his long-held ambition of playing on Board 6.
Board 6
Miss Widger made her Hamilton Russell debut on Board 6 against Marc Wolff. She didn’t mess about. Miss Widger took the initiative and had some wicked threats on the Q-Side after the opponent made the slightly unwise decision to castle that way. Like a cat with a mouse in its paw she toyed with her opponent for the last 8 moves before finally choosing to land the blow.
First HR game, first win. You can’t say fairer than that.
Dinner
And so to dinner. At the Chelsea Arts Club that means their rather good a la carte menu. Everyone enjoyed themselves and Mister Whiteley had the strange experience for an NLC captain of delivering a victory speech. No rhetorical flights of fancy here (unlike our last victory at the Chelsea Arts Club). Maybe we’re not so surprised at winning any more.
