Sundry Fixtures 2024-25

SUN

Mark Murrell on “Breaking News”:

Sea, sand, sunshine and a fine away day performance particularly by Voldi and the band.  A cluster of wins in lower boards and crucial middle order holds.  All club match play at its best. Yes, we won.

Webmaster reports:

The Hastings line-up was somewhat stronger than the last meeting in 2022 (we couldn’t find a date in 2023). By comparison with this year, in 2022 Ian Calvert was on Board 2, Paul Kelly on 3, Mark Brougham on 5… In come John Sugden on 2, Bernard Cafferty on 4 and Adrian Pickersgill on 5. The top four did well, holding Hastings to three draws and David Spearman’s fine win. Davi produced a fine result to hold Bernard Cafferty. Older members will remember Cafferty in his heyday. He holds the title Fide Master, had a rating in the range 217-224 (the old system in those days had grading “groups”, Bernard Cafferty at his best being grade 2b which was 217-224.) Apart from being a fine player, he produced a number of books: Spassky’s 100 best games, Tal’s 100 Best Games, and translations from Russian: Botvinnik’s Best Games 1947-1970 and The 1971 Candidates matches. Here’s his Wikipedia entry. Now at the age of 90 – though you’d guess he was a man in his 70s – he rarely plays, for instance just one game in 2024 before today, six in 2023, etc. John Sugden in his day was a 200+ player. As he reminded me just before the match started, he and I shared 1st place in the Paignton Premier in 1982, but that’s another story.

A glance at the score sheet shows that we shared the top six boards, while the bottom three gave us a two point lead, which was cut to two with their win on Board 9. More results were traded with Boards 12 and 7 for Hastings and the point by Puzant who won with a muderous attack. So Wanstead held a slender one point lead, at 7-6, with the last two games in play on Boards 8 and 10. A half would ensure Wanstead could not lose, one point from these two would make a famous victory.

Ben was two pawns down with White having a passed b-pawn, plus two to one on the K-side; each side also having Q and R. It seemed clear that this would be a point for Hastings, so it would be down to Puzant Junior with a double-edged R and minor piece position. Ben’s chances of saving his game appeared to improve when unaccountably, White failed to get his rook behind the passed pawn and allowed Ben to achieve this with his rook. The pawn soon fell. Both kings were exposed to checks from the big guns roaming the board and the players had to take account of defensive requirements while trying to engineer a decisive stroke. Ben did well to reduce White’s winning chances and the exchange of queens brought about a R & P ending which was a theoretical draw. This was still a draw when the rooks came off and the half was agreed taking. Wanstead thereby reached security at 7½-6½, with Puzant Junior now seeming a banker for half a point with the position having suddenly clarified to an opposite bishops ending, two pawns each. PJ had a pair of monster passed pawns on the sixth rank while White also had a pair of pawns on opposite sides of the board and controlled by Puzant Junior’s bishop. So, seemingly a draw, which was turned inexplicably on its head when the Hastings man (skip Marc Bryant) gave up both his pawns. While, as he later said, they were “useless” for the purposes of being able to force a winning position, they were at least keeping Puzant Junior’s bishop and king honest, as they had to be patrolled. With those pawns gone, Black was able to manoeuvre with both king and bishop to bring about a situation where he could advance a pawn to queen, winning the match by an unlikely-looking two point margin.