Sheffield Nomads Chess Club

Captain's Corner

Stuart admitted he had been comprehensively outplayed: nothing spectacular just very good chess, gaining ground and controlling important squares. Andrew attacked ambitiously, but his pieces were only just looking after each other, one wrong move and it all collapsed spectacularly with the loss of lots of material. Ian misjudged the outcome of a series of exchanges leaving his opponent with unstoppable passed pawns. Phil and Kev to follow. My opponent dropped a pawn in the opening. I was able to pick up a couple more, including a menace on h3, and three unchallenged connected passed pawns was enough. For once.

Captain's Corner

At the behest of Mr Bailey, I've stepped into Kevin's not inconsiderable shoes to offer my views on our first round match in the Richardson.

So... after last season's shenanigans (there seems to still be a possibility that we never actually did get knocked out of last season's Plate competition) Nomads II were keen to make amends this year and put together a decent cup run. Darnall & Handsworth represented an interesting challenge - but not for SatNav as I arrived only 2-3 minutes late and we got underway well before 7.45pm.

My game rocketed along at a fair old pace, and as we reached the time control after 35 minutes, I was a full piece up having pinned Derek's knight to his king during a bout of piece exchanges. A couple of moves later and I claimed the first point of the evening as Derek resigned rather than see his pawns fall one-by-one. An early finish - which gave me ample opportunity to take in the sights on the other boards.

On 1, Stuart appeared to have a pretty even position - his pawn structure was more solid than Geoff's but there were no immediate threats. On 3, Ian seemed to have the upper hand, space wise, and was beginning to generate some play on the queenside. On 4, Phil had sacrificed a bishop on h6, which had been declined, but his bishop remained en prise as he looked to totally wreck his opponent's kingside. On 5, Kevin had wrecked his own kingside (deliberately) in order to open a file and was looking to expose his opponent's king. And on 6, Paul had managed to get a pawn on h6 (afterwards, we established that he had managed this after move 4, as he endeavoured to win the game through pawn moves alone).

Gradually over the ensuing 45 minutes or so, Phil, Paul, Kevin and Ian turned their advantages into wins as each breached their respective opponent's defences. Phil was up first, deciding against offering an entire rook in exchange for bishops on g6 and h6 (it looked playable, at least, when we analysed afterwards) and instead gradually whittling away the black defences before sweeping in and winning a queen with a nasty discovered check, bringing instant resignation (and me interjecting to point out he had had a rather attractive 2 move checkmate available as an alternative). Phil is now on 3 wins out of 3 for the season.

Paul was next to finish, as his relentless harrying of his opponent's kingside won him an exchange, then an outright piece, then the game as he delivered a neat little checkmate deep inside enemy territory. Meanwhile, Kev had castled long (though to be fair, it was virtually forced and he did play Kc7 as soon as possible) and generated a nasty looking series of threats against both king and queen, culminating in a discovered check that was good enough to pick up the point.

Shortly afterwards, Ian brought home point number 5, as almost immediately after the time control his space advantage told as he first breached the queenside, then forked his opponent and picked up a piece, leading to instant resignation and a perfect 5-0 scoreline.

Stuart, meanwhile, was deep in thought on board 1 in a position that appeared to be relatively simple (Q+R+R+Ps each) but was actually deceptively complicated as both he and his opponent tried to generate play. However, the rest of us spent the next 30 minutes running through each of our games, and as the sound of mutual back-patting resounded around the room we left Stuart to his own devices. The position eventually simplified as the mating threats receded; Stuart looked to trap one of Geoff's rooks but actually lost a pawn instead, and a draw was agreed shortly afterwards.

So overall, a convincing first round win for Nomads II and with strength in depth (board 1 and board 6 were separated by only 13 grading points) we should look to make further progress in this competition when the next round takes place in November.