Leeds Rose Forgrove Chess Club

Below are reports on the Yorkshire under 160 county chess matches that I was fortunate enough to take part in. These reports are the straight knockout matches after we qualified from the preliminaries.

Nottinghamshire 6 - 10 Yorkshire

The semi-final of the county championships and the Yorkshire u160 side were high on confidence after their mauling of Kent in the quarter-finals. This time Nottinghamshire were the opposition and this meant a journey down to Kirkby-In-Ashfield which wasn't too bad. Unfortunately, we were without our prolific juniors but still had high hopes of making it into the final. Early on this match had the suggestion that it was going to be a tight affair. Both Peter and Paul (but not Mary) halved their games. I managed to garner our first win of the day after my opponent fell into a little tactic, dropping a piece and after that his position went downhill quickly. However, Notts hit back when our usually reliable Captain Jones was crushed by his opponent after seemingly having the advantage out of the opening. Nick then couldn't force a win in a rook v bishop ending as his opponent cleverly set up a strong defensive formation. It was time for Yorkshire to get 'Randy'! As Donahue outplayed his opponent in an ending giving us the lead. Paul Howden followed this in with a fine win and then Khalid nurtured his ending where he had a bishop and pawns against his opponents' pawns. Harry then managed to penetrate his opponents defences in a closed position and Alan stuffed his opponent. We were five up with five boards left. The bottom boards all looked good for us and when the match score was alerted to them the required draws came in. This was a fine effort by the Yorkshire boys, triumphing in the end by 11 - 5. All roads now point to the final in July and an old score to settle. The last time the u160's (was actually classed as u150's at the time) made it there we lost in the final. Come July we hope that we will be lifting that trophy high!

Kent 5 v Yorkshire 11

So, after receiving a serious wake-up call against Lancashire, the Yorkshire U160 team took their bruised and battered egos down to the Open University at Milton Keynes to face Kent. It was a long old drive for a chess match, but then that I guess was the punishment for losing to Lancashire in the preliminaries! Well, the drama started early as big Gaz Corcoran took ill at the eleventh hour, leaving us one short. After some desperate phoning around and an abrupt turn around on the motorway, captain Rupert Jones drove back to pick up a last minute replacement as an old Rose Forgrove member came to the rescue - Paul Salisbury. All of which meant that Rupert's car load would be turning up late. I was given some instructions on the phone from Rupert regarding the toss. Unfortunately, (being simple) I completely misunderstood the captain's directions. Rupert wanted me to lose the toss (i.e. if I won it then choose Black on the odd numbered boards). Instead I took the normal decision to go with White on top board. The clocks were started and the games were underway. When Rupert's group finally arrived, the captain looked at me with some bemusement and was not best pleased. However, as the days events unfolded my dunce-like decision turned out to be a stroke of genius! Possibly the best chess move I have ever made. Anyway, I was one of the first to finish as I ended up unable to penetrate my opponents defences (yes...I am talking about chess) and a draw was agreed. Typically, our juniors raced through their games and with similarly typical results. Two vital wins from Harry and Sean and we were off to a flyer. Then Erdem, after a fair bit of arguing with his opponent over scoresheets, forced his opponent to resign in a king and pawn ending. Jonathan had a seriously squeaky bum position in his game, facing a discovered check and what looked like a fierce attack. However, Johnny had 'swallowed' some of his opponents material and found a way to survive the onslaught and claim a win. Paul Johnson was mauling his young female opponent (in a chess sense, of course) and found a nice little tactic to force resignation. Khalid then overpowered his opponent and Yorkshire were 6 up! Kent hit back with wins on board 2 and 15. Then drama occured on board 1 as a desperate time scramble ended with Darwin's opponents flag falling. Both players were unsure if the time control had been made. After some lengthy reconstruction it was deemed that the time control had been made and a draw was agreed. Next Randy and Paul Howden both registered wins to see Yorkshire home and the rest of the games ended peaceably.
So, a confidence boosting 11 - 5 win and it appears that our team has still got it! (whatever it is). A quarter-final tie against Nottinghamshire awaited us and thankfully a shorter journey! Captain Jones was very happy but still refused to give me full credit for my phenomenal board-order decision, putting it down to pure luck! If he thinks that was lucky he should see some of my chess wins.

An inside view of the teams, venues and contacts of the various Leeds chess clubs and events that form the focus of the season

2010-11 Review

A Look at another successful season for Rose Forgrove Chess Club

	The LCA and YCA Trophies The silverware that counts; a look at the different trophies which fire the aspirations of our local clubs