Tuesday 4 November 2008

Guildford Chess Club

Due to the unraveling of my travel plans, I got to spend another night in Guildford, so I spent the evening at the Guildford Chess Club. The chess club meets in the Guildford Institute, which it has done for over 100 years. There is even a brass plaque at the door commemorating this fact.
Last night the club was mainly involved in matches, so I did a lot of spectating, although I did get about half a dozen games in. The top match was between Guildford and Surbiton, where Guildford top board, IM Nigel Povah, was held to a draw by his opponent.
Further down I watched an interesting ending, which ended in an agreed draw at the diagrammed position. The big question immediately after the game was who was actually winning. Some cursory analysis lead to the conclusion that White is better, but Black can just hold on. I then tried some deeper analysis at about 5am (UK time), where I think that White is better, but if Black plays exactly, then it is still a draw. The lines I looked at go something like ....

Endgame
Guildford CC 11.2008

1.Kb6 Bc7+ 2.Ka6 Bd8 [ 2...Bf4 3.Kxa5 Kd6 ( 3...Kc7 4.Ka6 Be3 ( 4...Kb8 5.b6 Bd6 6.Kb5+-) 5.a5 Bd4 6.b6+ Kc6 7.Ka7 Bc5 8.Ka8 Bxb6 9.axb6 Kxb6 10.Kb8 Kc5 11.Kc7 Kxc4 12.Kd6+-; 4.Kb6 Be3+ 5.Ka6 Kc5 6.b6 Kxc4 7.b7 Bf4 8.Ka7 Kb4 9.b8Q+ Bxb8+ 10.Kxb8 Kxa4 11.Kc7+-] 3.c5 Be7 4.c6+ [ 4.Kb6 Bf8 5.c6+ Kc8 6.Kxa5 Kc7 7.b6+ Kxc6 8.Ka6 Bc5 9.a5=] 4...Kc7 5.Kxa5 Bd6 6.Ka6 Be5 [ 6...Bc5 7.a5 Bd4 8.b6+ Kxc6 9.Ka7 Be3 10.Ka8 Bxb6 11.axb6 Kxb6 12.Kb8+-] 7.b6+ Kxc6 8.a5 Bb8 9.h4 By getting White to play this move, Black no longer loses the 'pawn chases' as he can capture on g4, rather than losing time by going to g3. 9...Bd6 10.Ka7 Bc5 11.Ka8 Bxb6 12.axb6 Kxb6 13.Kb8 Kc6 14.Kc8 Kd6 15.Kd8 Ke5 16.Ke7 h5 17.gxh5 Kxf5 18.Kf7 Kg4 19.Kxg7 Kxh5 20.Kxf6 Kxh4 =

After the games were finished the club members then all headed of to the local, for a pint of lager and a happy post mortem. All very civilized.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A pint of bitter sounds even better!