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| Hull & District Chess Association in the I.M. Brown Shield | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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HULL & DISTRICT CHESS ASSOCIATION IN ‘THE I. M. BROWN SHIELD’. PART 3. HARROGATE ‘B’ v HULL & DISTRICT CHESS ASSOCIATION. The first away fixture of the season saw John Cooper and David Stothard making their first appearances for Hull and District and your reporter having to earn his corn rather than taking a point by default. I wished to attend part of the Braille Chess Tournament taking place at the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate that weekend, so booked in with my partner and also provided transport to the venue – Apley Grange – for Chris Ross who took a bye in the Braille event to play for York R.I. ‘A’ against Harrogate ‘A’. Despite missing several of our stronger players, Hull and District benefited from a significant grading advantage on every board. This gradually reflected itself in the most of the games:-
On top board Graham Wilson’s decision to develop his dark square bishop at h4 in a Caro Kann Advanced Variation looked dubious a few moves later when John Cooper’s knight landed on d6. The game ended with Wilson being checkmated on move 30. (1) Cooper, J. G. - Wilson, G. [B12] David Stephenson faced a queen pawn system in which white fianchettoed both bishops. The opening up of the queenside via pawn exchanges followed by a knight arriving at d3 favoured black who won a piece at move 24 and Chris Miller resigned soon afterwards. Should Colin Burt have allowed John Thackray to establish a pawn centre at d4 and e4 early in the game? I believe that white was allowed far too much freedom to develop and the deployment of black’s queen to h5 via a5 soon left the lady short of squares. Her loss for rook and bishop was the beginning of the end. Black was allowed no respite, resigning on move 31 when facing further material loss. (3) Thackray, J. - Burt, C. [B27] Stuart Johnson responded aggressively with 10. … g4 when faced with the French Defence on board 4. His decision to allow the exchange of black’s problem child white squared bishop cannot be correct and a knight sacrifice on g6 was refuted by 19. … Kf7. Mills developed a counterattack which culminated in checkmate on move 33. (4) Johnson, S. - Mills, D. G. [C02] David Stothard opted for a Queen’s Gambit, inflicting on his opponent an isolated queen pawn. After a series of exchanges and lengthy manoeuvring the contest ended soon after David Harasym won a piece. Richard Callis’ use of the Queen’s Gambit, Chigorin Variation gained him the early advantage of a pawn against his namesake. He countered white’s kingside attack with play in the centre until his opponent overlooked a knight fork at move 31. (6) Callis, C. - Callis, R. O. [D02] On board 8 Richard Tate and Alec Grice manoeuvred pieces for over 30 moves without any exchanges. At this point they agreed a draw. A 6-2 away victory made for an enjoyable weekend, watching the Braille Chess Congress at the Old Swan Hotel and relaxing with my partner over a few drinks at the local Wetherspoons pub. A few days later results on the Chessnuts website indicated that our next opponents – Huddersfield – had also maintained a 100% record. How would the teams fare when facing each other on 26th November 2011?
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