Exeter Juniors 1-3 Exeter School 22nd May 2015
default 0-1 Leif HAFSTAD
Ethan HWANG 1-0 Henry COLEMAN
Felix WATTS 0-1 Redmond COLEMAN
Ned RICHARDS 0-1 Nick ARMSTRONG
In a close match, where many of the players relied for support on a
mysterious brown elixir, the visiting team had an early boost when the
home team top board didn’t arrive.
It looked as though the home team was going to score a rapid equaliser
when a mate-in-one appeared on board 3, but the opportunity passed by.
The material balance wobbled several times before Redmond found a
back-rank mate later in the game.
Some excellent aggressive play from both sides on board 4 was also
brought to a close when Nick spotted a snap mate.
In the best game of the match, Henry tripled down the e-file, pinning
down all of Black’s pieces. Ethan then sent his Queen off in search of
counterplay, but it became cut off from the e-file, whence White could
have delivered the fatal blow. But the Queen proved distracting
enough, and gradually Black unhooked the pin and exchanged off
into a Rook endgame. White then allowed a Rook exchange when Black had
a distant passed pawn, and the home team finally scored a point.
Games to follow.
Mr.B was always very good at producing a puzzle for us each week. Today’s puzzle comes from Mr.Lees — many thanks!
You’re Black, and you can checkmate White in two moves (you move, White moves, then you play checkmate).
HINTS: select the text below the numbers
1.
[White doesn’t have many moves]
2.
[If you can play …Na6xBc7 it’s checkmate]
3.
[Can you force White to put their Bishop on c7? (yes!)]
SOLUTION: reveal by clicking the [ > ] button.
Welcome to Elliott
We had an unusual game where the Black King charged up the board to e1! This is called a ‘King march’ if the player chooses to do it, or a ‘King hunt’ if the King is chased there.
One of the most famous King hunts was this one:
A close match ended in a 1-3 defeat for the youngsters. As so often in
chess, it wouldn’t have taken much to reverse the score!
The juniors, unusually, fielded a team which had a majority of girls.
{1. A well-fought game: White got some attacking ideas muddled and lost a piece,
but pressure won the exchange leaving an exciting RvNN endgame.}
{2. A carefully-played game ended in a draw, but both sides missed good
chances to go ahead.}
{3. Black was allowed to launch a tactic to win a piece early on, after which White was not allowed much fun.}
{4. Black grabbed a Rook but then seemed to run out of ideas; White then
had an idea and Black missed it!}
UPDATE: Taylor’s game added
{White avoided an early Queen swap, which might have been a nuisance, but it
was a move leading out of the frying pan into the fire.}
{Black improvised in the opening and while trying to sort out the position
wasted a lot of the time that should be used to develop and get castled.
White crashed through the middle to win.}
See also: http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/making-it-you-go-along
{An early mistake by Black left White needing only to avoid an accident to win}
{Black wasn’t playing badly but overlooked a few simple threats by White to go
a Rook, a Knight and a few Pawns behind. White should have won easily enough
after that but somehow lost hold of both the Rook and the Knight and then
chose not to swap off the Queens. A draw was a generous outcome!}
Pengxiao Zhu took part in the British Online Chess Championships in August, winning the U10 Blitz trophy and a Performance Prize for the U10 Rapidplay competition.
Many congratulations to Pengxiao from everyone at Devon Junior Chess!
