Hereford tournament

Last weekend I managed to win only the second chess tournament of my career, after Kilkenny in 2005, though it was a fairly minor achievement since there were only 7 players in the Minor section, and I managed to score 5/5 but only actually had two good wins.


Hereford is evidently a lucky chess town for me though since I have had my two best results of the season there - last August I managed a 4.5/6 in a fairly strong tournament.


This time the event was being staged in the Green Dragon hotel, an old inn right in the centre of town. It was one of the Castle Chess events organised by an enterprising individual called Tony Corfe.


Friday 23rd April

I took the Friday off work - my plan was to drive down first thing in the morning. There was a bit of a scare the night before when I couldn't get my fuel cap off, so couldn't fuel the car. Not having any internet access at the moment meant a quick call to Michelle who was able to look it up on google and save the day.


I didn't manage to get going as early as I wanted - in the end I left at about 08h30 and got to Great Malvern by 11h00. My plan was to fit in a walk for a few hours - in a couple of months I am going to attempt the "Malvern Marathon", a 26-mile walk along the hills, so its good to get a little training. I had a pint in the Malvern Hills Hotel and then walked for two hours - up to the top of the British Camp, an iron age hill fort, and then along the ridge through woods and past quarries to Midsummer Hill which is a bronze age fortification. The climbs were quite stiff and the views were good. It was a pleasant, sunny day so the walk was enjoyable.


I returned to the Hotel in time for a roast pork sandwich and then drove to Kington where I was staying in a bed and breakfast place I had stayed at a few weeks earlier when in the area walking bits of Offa's Dyke.


In the evening I drove to the nearby village of Eardisland to meet Peter who was an old RAF friend of my Father's, who used to be a museum curator in London but moved out to rural Herefordshire upon retirement. He is 80 now but still very energetic.


He is also an ex-club chess player - played for years in the civil service league, though he only plays casually now. He lives in a cottage by the river that runs through the pretty village. His place has no TV, an open fire, and there are piles of books everywhere - lots of books on chess, nature and history. He also has a very impressive wine cellar and collection of malt whiskies.


He laid on a splendid dinner of smoked salmon, lamb cutlets and vegetables, and raspberries with yoghurt. We talked about family history, and chess. Sadly, I wasn't able to sample more than a couple of glasses of wine from his cellar, but he did crack out a very good chateauneuf du pape.


Went back to the B&B and went to bed straight away.


Saturday 24th April

dawned bright and sunny although I wasn't around to witness it, since I didn't get up until gone 7am. I had a nice breakfast of cereals, fruit and toast with home-made marmalade, and a pleasant chat to the two ladies who run the place. Then I drove into Hereford. Eventually found somewhere to park without having to pay too much for the privelige, and walked to the venue. I got there just in time though there was no sign of Colin yet. My parents were also, coincidentally, in Hereford visiting a friend, and they were going to come along and say hello. This was to be their first-ever visit to a chess tournament, which made it rather unfortunate that it was about the smallest tournament I've ever played in, with only 40 players across all three sections.


Game 1 - rematch against Ashwin
There were only 7 players in our section, and I was less than overjoyed to see that in round 1, I had been drawn against the young Indian boy with whom I had drawn the Saturday night game in Nottingham the week before. I had had slightly the better of that game, but playing children is always hard work and so I didn't relish the prospect of a rematch.

The early part of what turned out to be another close battle was rather disturbed by the fact that I was trying to work out where Colin was, and then when he did turn up I was waiting for my parents' visit. They arrived when I was half-way through playing Ashwin, so I popped in and out to talk to them and their friend Jean. They seemed fairly interested in their first chess tournament anyway.

I should mention that the game was being played in a very nice function room in the pleasant Green Dragon hotel, a very nice and civilised venue.

My parents headed off. The game against Ashwin went on a very long time, but eventually in the endgame he made a mistake, getting his Rook boxed in with pawns, and I was able to exchange into a winning King and Pawn ending.

Colin won his game too, rather more easily, also against a junior.

I talked to the organiser and asked that Colin and I not be drawn against one another if possible. It is a bit difficult in such a small section, but I hate playing my friends and Colin feels the same.

Game 2 - drawn against Colin
We went out to the pub for a bite of lunch - and came back to find that we'd been drawn against each other!

Prior to the game there was a "players' review" where you could talk to the organiser about the format of the tournament and suggest ideas for future events. He said that he had made a loss on this event and would probably not be holding another of them.

After this, I went and told him that Colin and I had agreed a draw without playing, because we are friends and we never play each other. However, he wouldn't allow us to agree a draw without playing - he said there was a new chess rule which said that pre-arranged draws had to be marked as zero for both players, and that it was necessary to play 30 "meaningful" moves in all games. He came up to Colin's room to discuss it since Colin was up there.

Colin was even more reluctant to play than I was, but he controller, whilst being reasonable and understanding was adamant that we had to play one another. The problem wasn't helped by the fact that the section was so small - only 7 players - so it was always going to be hard for us to avoid playing one another.

Anyway, we reluctantly agreed to play. Neither of us was remotely up for it. We both know how chess games can destroy friendships and we both value our friendship far more than any chess game. The game began and it became evident that Colin wasn't remotely up for it. He made wild, sacrificial moves. I turned down his sacrifices, and we soon got into a wild and strange position with pieces hanging all over the board. It became hard not to giggle. I had to keep turning laughs into coughs, and at one point went and got a brandy. Colin seemed determined to give his pieces away, and eventually after a while he just knocked his King over. Clearly he hadn't been at all enthusiastic about playing and I could take absolutely no pleasure in this "win". But at least we hadn't fallen out over it as we would have if we had played a serious game.

Since that game didn't take very long, we had a good 3 hour break before the next game, so I took Colin up to Great Malvern where I am going to be walking the marathon in a few weeks. We took a rather circuitous route but got there all right, and parked near the top, then walked up to the Worcestershire Beacon which is the highest point of the hills. Colin claimed to be unfit but seemed to have no problems tackling quite a steep hill. The views from the top are spectacular. We made it back in time for round 3. We had been going to take a bye on the Saturday night, but since game 2 had been such a wash-out, Colin wanted to play the Saturday game.

Game 3 - another flukey undeserved victory
I was drawn against a chap rated 77, but he played much better than that. The game proceeded for some 20 moves into a very stodgy, locked position. I was trying to break things open, and, as I often do, made a mistake trying to drum up some activity. I went a pawn down and got into a fairly bad position to boot.

At least I carried on fighting and trying to make it hard for him. The game went on and on, into the ending. Colin drew his game and most of the games around us finished too - eventually we were the last board still playing, and my position was still rubbish despite the consumption of two beers. I gloomily confronted the prospect of defeat.

The only glimmer of hope was that he was moving very slowly and still taking a long time over his moves even though he was running critically short of time. I was low on time too, but I think I was more pragmatic in my use of the clock than he was.

Eventually he had about 1 minute left and I had about 2, and we had exchanged down to what was a completely won ending for him. The arbiter was watching the game - but he still moved too slolwy, and eventually his flag fell - I had won a totally unjustified victory on time.

The chap seemed a bit dazed, and he wasn't even sure of what the result was. I felt pretty bad. I was on 3/3 but since the last two won games were both totally undeserved it didn't feel like cause for celebration.

Colin was hungry but all the Indian restaurants had closed by this point. We ended up going to a rather dubious Chinese take-away with some eat-in plastic tables. I had a hot and sour soup and a vegetable curry - Colin blew his £5 a day budget by spending £15 on about twice as much food as he could cope with, which he felt bad about later, though I did point out that it was still only half what we'd normally have spent getting an Indian meal.

We were pretty tired, so went back to the hotel and turned in without further ado.

Sunday 25th April

Game 4 - a better result
Breakfast was included in the package, so we stocked up before the first round began.

In game 4, I finally played quite well again. I was playing the chap Colin had drawn with the previous night, a very friendly and pleasant man from Northern Ireland. He had complimented Colin profusely in his play in their game, and had even bought me and him beers!

He played his own system as White against the Shveshnikov, which to be honest I didn't particularly rate because it left him a pawn down and with a horrible pawn structure including isolated and doubled d-pawns. The system depended on me grabbing a second pawn, giving him lots of activity, but I could simply avoid that by declining to take the second pawn - I was happy being a pawn up and just concentrated on development.

Applying these simple principles (which admittedly I've often failed to do in the past) stood me in good stead and his weak pawns left me a nice target to aim at. I just kept things tight and eventually the game proved quite easy to win from there. Once again, he was very generous and magnanimous after the game.

Colin won his game as well. I now had won the tournament - I was on 4/4 and the next best score, including Colin's, was 2.5.

Since there were only 7 in the section, someone had to have a full point bye in each round and in the final round it had to be either me or Colin since everyone else had had a bye. Colin was keen to play his last round, and I was perfectly happy not to, since I had already won the event.

So I sat out the last round, and Colin played the bloke I'd struggled to beat on time the previous night - and he beat him also, after looking like he was losing. We concluded that that bloke is very good at getting into good positions, but lacked the pragmatic mindset just to finish games off.

Meantime I had a nice walk around the Cathedral and mooched around the tournament hall.

Eventually, it was all over and we attended the final prize-giving. It was nice to win a tournament after so long, but it has to be said that it was a fairly minor achievement since I'd only really played well in 2 games. A fairly low-key ending to the tournament. We said our goodbyes and I headed off on the long and weary drive home. First I went to my Sister's place in Oxfordshire to have dinner and say hello, then on to East Midlands airport to meet Michelle who was coming to visit, then finally on home at 1am.

Wednesday 28th April

Victory for Netherton B
Our B team, which I play for, had got to the final of the handicap knock-out, quite a good result even with the handicapping system, and we were to play mighty Huddersfield.

I had been tired all week after the exertions of Sunday, and on Wednesday morning had dropped Michelle back off at East Midlands after her flying visit (necessitated by my planned visit to Berlin the previous weekend being cancelled due to volcanic ash). I had to raise myself for the final, being played at Huddersfield.

With the handicap, we only needed 3/6 to win the match, and it started very well for us with good quick wins for Jonathan Morton on board 5 and Craig Thompson on board 2 against a much higher-rated player. Once we got another draw, I knew we only needed half a point to lift the trophy, so I promptly offered my opponent a draw.

My game had been fairly dreary and low-key on board 6, but I was at least slightly ahead - a pawn up in a Knight and Pawn ending. Given the match situation, maybe my opponent should have played on, but he took the draw and so we won the cup.

This weekend my final tournament of the season is taking place in Halifax. As I write on Friday afternoon, my participation is in doubt since I have a bit of a cold and am not really feeling up for it after so much chess. Russell Goodfellow is coming up to play in it, so I might just attend in the capacity of a spectator.