Round 1 - NW Eagles v Witney & Swindon (Sat 23 Sept)

Report by Charlie Kennaugh

Today saw the beginning of the quest to achieve promotion back to Division 1 at the first attempt. In football, teams that are relegated often seem to either bounce straight back or wallow in the nether regions for years. With the Eagles being nothing if not unpredictable the prognosis at the beginning of the season must be considered unclear, though we know that on paper we count as one of the favourites to go up, a fact recognised by our seeded position. Witney & Swindon, our first round opponents, were just the sort of awkward team to meet in such an early round. Certainly not one of the favourites, they are solid enough most of the way down to cause an upset if we had an off-day. At one stage it didn't look as though we were going to be able to get much of a team out with stalwarts such as John Littlewood and John Merriman unavailable, but in the end a few reluctant people (including myself!) were prevailed upon and we managed to put out a respectable looking line-up, outgrading our opponents on all boards.

It was indeed our strength in depth that proved decisive with the bottom three boards winning very smooth games against outclassed opponents. Gary also did the business on top board, his positional understanding of his favoured 3.Bb5 Sicilian proving too strong in the end for his outgraded opponent. Brett on board 2 let a slight advantage slip in time pressure, but his half-point clinched the match for the Eagles. Glen played an extremely interesting game, winning a queen for two bishops and a pawn or two in a very sharp theoretical line. It looked as though it might be sufficient to win, but a rather confusing game eventually ended drawn. For a full commentary of this game click here. With the rest of the team having 'done the biz' the Wirral Warriors/Wallies (delete as appropriate) could get away with an off-day. My utterly dismal form continued. Not only have my tactics disappeared into thin air, but even my openings are beginning to crumble as I allowed my opponent to gain a very dominant position from what should have been a fairly innocuous opening. I can't remember any more exactly which German philosopher opined "lieber ein Ende mit Schrecken als ein Schrecken ohne Ende" but it certainly came to mind as my opponent sadistically refused to put me away cleanly, letting me limp on in a lost (but not quite resignable) Queen and Pawn endgame for what seemed like an eternity.

Dave Tebb, on the other hand, played a pretty good opening (contrary to the misguided opinions of one or two of his team-mates!), achieving a definite plus against a very solid black setup in the Maroczy Bind. However, on his own admission, Dave spent far too long on an opening he knows well considering moves of equal value and found himself nearly threequarters of an hour behind on the clock when the following critical position arose.

Tebb - Cooksey after black's 25th move

Dave, already somewhat short of time, took the bull by the horns here and played 26.e5!? (an interesting pawn sac, not without danger for black, but in the circumstances White could also have considered the less committal 26.b5) but after 26...dxe5 27.fxe5 Bxe5?! (Black should have played either on this or the previous move Nb6! forcing a pair of rooks off after which white probably has just enough compensation for the pawn) Dave disastrously varied from his original idea of 28.Nf3!, instead playing the superficially attractive 28.Rf1? after which white's attack petered out in time trouble: 28...Bf6 29.Bg5 Nb6 30.Bb3 Rxc2 31.Nxc2 Bxg5 32.Qxg5 e6 33.Ne3? Qxb4 34.Ng4 Qd4+ 35.Kh1 Ra1! 36.Nf6+ Kh8 0-1. Had he stuck to his original idea 28.Nf3! Dave would have had his opponent in some considerable trouble, e.g. 28...Bd6 29.Bh6 (Dave considers 29.Ng5!? even stronger since after 29...Be8 30.Rf1 black is practically forced to give up the exchange on c4 and white still has a strong kingside attack) 29...Qd8 (with the idea Qb6. 29...Qe8? loses immediately to 30.Qd4) with the position:

Tebb - Cooksey (line) after black's 29th move

30.Bxf7+! (The prophylactic 30.Kh1 may also be quite strong) 30...Kxf7 31.Qd5+ and now:

(i) 31...Be6 32.Ng5+ Ke8 33.Qxe6 Rxc2 34.Ne4! Be5 (only move) 35.Rf1! Qd4+ 36.Kh1 Kd8 (36...Bg7? 37.Qg8+ Kd7 38.Qxa8 Bxh6 39.Qxa4+) 37.Qg8+ Kc7 38.Qxa8 Qxb4 39.Bd2! with an incisive attack that black is unlikely to survive for very long.

(ii) 31...e6 32.Qxd6 Rxc2 (Black probably has to get the queens off with 32...Qb6+ 33.Qxb6 Nxb6 but white is still clearly better after 34.Rf2!) 33.Ne5+ Kg8 34.Nxd7 Rf2!? (with the idea 35.Kxf2 Qh4+; 34...Re2 loses to 35.Rf1 Nb6 36.Qf4 with Nxb6 to follow)

Tebb - Cooksey (line) after black's 34rd move

35.Rf1!! (A great example of how a beautiful move can also be so effective) 35...Rxf1+ 36.Kxf1 Nc5 (only move) 37.bxc5 Ra1+ 38.Ke2 Ra2+ 39.Kd3 Ra3+ 40.Kc2 Ra2+ 41.Kb3 Ra3+ (41...Re2 loses to 42.Nf6+! as does 41...Rf2) 42.Kxa3 Qa5+ 43.Kb3 Qb5+ 44.Kc3 and black will soon run out of checks.

Summary

A comfortable enough win in the end despite potential banana skins. Some of us, however, are going to have to play rather better when we meet the tougher teams in the division in later rounds.