Thames Valley Knockout final played at Harrow High School, Harrow on Thursday 19 June
It felt a little strange to play a major chess match on the longest and hottest day of the year so far, with several players in shorts and complaints that the air conditioning was too effective. But two strong teams, albeit missing the prodigious Bodhana Sivanandan on the Harrow side and the infectious Peter Lalic on ours, contested a tense match containing some high-quality chess. Kingston had a rating advantage on all boards except board 1.
First to finish was Will Taylor, with Black on board 6 against Jagdeep Dhemrait. In a Four Knights Opening, White had played Nc3 and Bc4, allowing a classic Nxe4 idea, ready to fork with d5 if White plays Nxe4. Instead White played Bxf7+ to dislodge the black king before recapturing on e4. In my youth, that was regarded as unclear, but modern computer assessments suggest the two bishops outweigh the loss of castling. Will seemed to have an edge for much of the game, based on more centralised major pieces, but his attempts at a winning attack were frustrated by back-row mate threats and a shortage of time, so a draw made sense.
The game on board 2 between Manmay Chopra and David Maycock (pictured above) quickly exploded.
Our other Black game, Ash Stewart on board 4 v Nigel Alldritt, went less well. Ash’s pawn structure was seriously damaged in the early middle game. He got some activity for it, but after the queens were exchanged it was soon clear that the ending was hopeless.
On board 1, two FMs were in combat. To this spectator’s eye it was not quite clear that Supratit Banerjee’s kingside attack would outweigh the queenside initiative of Tanmay Chopra, but Supratit is familiar with the line and was confident that he had it all in hand. He was never worse, and after a less-than-obvious error by Black he outplayed his opponent, proving that the division of Black’s army – with his king’s rook unable to assist the battle on the queenside – was crucial.
2.5-1.5 up and with board count in our favour, things looked good. John Hawksworth on board 5 had not been able to break through against Harrow captain Nevil Chan, but in the major piece ending he seemed to have a space advantage. He found afterwards that the computer assessment was level – no breakthrough was available. And the downside of the space advantage was that his pawns were a little more extended. Nevil found a tactic, winning a pawn and coming down to a rook ending in which he controlled the only open file, so one pawn soon became two, which was fatal.
So the score was level at 2.5-2.5 and it was all up to Peter Large on board 3 against Steven Coles. Peter had allowed his c-pawns to be doubled, but in compensation had pressure down the half-open b-file against Black’s queenside-castled king, which looked promising even with the queens off. He “mislaid” the pawn on c3, and then temporarily sacrificed a rook, exploiting the position of the black king to win the material back and come down to an ending with rook and knight v rook and bishop, with one extra pawn but with his passed a pawn harder to defend than Black’s passed d-pawn.
With both players very short of time, the decisive phase of the game was not recorded, which was probably just as well for those of a nervous disposition. Peter had thought we were winning board 5 so could try to win this game without risk to the overall result, and he turned down at least one draw by repetition. But from being a little better, his position deteriorated to be level and then probably losing.
However, to deal with the white a-pawn the black king had gone over to the queenside and was therefore out of reach when the game crystallised to rook and one pawn each on the kingside. Even though Peter’s pawn was the h-pawn, he managed to place his rook behind his king on the g-file, and the black rook could not stop the pawn unaided, forcing Black to resign.
A 3.5-2.5 win for Kingston gave us our seventh trophy of the season, although given the difference in ratings the closeness of the match also reflects well on the home side.
Peter Andrews, acting Kingston TVKO captain
