London League 2023-24 – Division 2

LL1

Played Wed 29 May 2024, at SMH

The unusual number of drawn games – seven out of eight with the single outright result going the “right” way (last seen, to our recollection, in a London League match against Woodbridge) – deserves explanation.

The match was late starting as the London League official who would normally have opened up the venue did not show. It turned out that he had diaried all the fixtures in the original fixture list, but had not updated with changed dates. (This fixture had originally been arranged for 11 October 2023, but was postponed due to a tube strike that day.) So, on the rearranged date of 29 May 2024, the two teams turned up, but no LL official to open up. The players congregtated in the courtyard outside – fortunately the weather was good – while Keith made numerous phone calls to the League Secretary, among others, to ascertain whether we could gain access to the room and the equipment. Eventually, a key appeared with a caretaker attached to it. So we had access to the premises, but there was still the equipment which is stored in a locked cupboard in a locked store room in another part of the premises. That too, appeared accessible and the equipment was available so the match could take place, albeit with a late start – by now it was gone 7.00 pm whereas the normal start time was 6.30 pm.

Because of the late start, the normal session length of 3½ hours – exit by 10.00 pm – could not be accomplished with the normal rate of play (all in 75 + 15 seconds per move), so a modified rate of play was agreed of all in 60 + 15 seconds per move. The problem with this experience is that whereas players arrive for the official start time ready to play, after hanging around for 45 minutes not knowing whether the match is going to happen or not, talking among themselves about this and that, the readiness to play evapourates. It’s a bit like a match starting (at the proper time) but an opponent is late. The player waiting for an opponent cannot maintain concentration and readiness to play for long, whereas the opponent who eventually appears is keyed up and is better prepared (albeit with time on the clock) and it is not uncommon for the player who was there at the start to be totally off his game and lose. In the present case, both teams were in the state of the player whose opponent arrives late: none of us were actually ready to play any more. The more so with the match having no import for either side (neither promotion nor relegation candidates). In consequence, several games were agreed drawn in short order – your Webmaster was offered a draw on move 4, which he delcined as “too early”, only to return the offer six moves later.

The only outright result was on Board 2, where Partha, with White, defeated Robin Haldane. If Partha had Black, when he might have played the French, we might have seen the Haldane invention known as the “Hack Attack”: 1 e4 e6; 2 d4 d5; 3 Nc3 Nf6; 4 e5 Nfd7; 5 Qh5!? The Hack Attack. This position is evaluated by Stockfish 16.5 as slightly better for Black. But White isn’t worried about positional evalualtions; White is looking for a sharp K-side attack. An example of pitfalls Black might fall into is 5 …c5; 6 Nf3 cxd4; 7 Nxd4 Nc6? 8 Nxe6, etc. Anyway, Partha had White and none of this happened.