Saturday 19 November 2016

A real squeaker

Australia has just finished a CC match against Wales, and the winning margin could not have been any smaller. The match was played over 34 boards, and Australia eked out a 34.5-33.5 win. Wales was stronger on the top 13 boards (+8=18-0) but it was the lower boards that made the difference. While my own effort was poor (losing both of my games), a number of 2-0 match results edged Australia in front.
Here is one of the wins for Australia, where  Steve McNamara launches a nice kingside attack with 12.e5. Black tries to keep his king safe, but a marauding queen is too much and the point goes to the Australians.

McNamara,Steve (1843) - Meara,Paul (1708)
AUS-WLS 2015 ICCF, 01.10.2015

1 comment:

Ollie said...

Hi Shaun, I have a rules inquiry.

Is there a reason why Section 4 (The Act of Moving the Pieces) is under BASIC RULES OF PLAY (1-5) rather than COMPETITION RULES (6-12)? It just feels to me more like a competition rule, than something "basic", like the purpose of the game (1), the initial position (2), the movement of pieces (3), or the completion of the game (5, though repetition and 50-move are referenced later). In particular, in line with the subject of your post(!), obviously correspondence chess (or Internet chess) doesn't have this "basic" rule, so why is it here?

Thanks!