Warrington chess - a new regular and exclusive column (From Warrington Guardian)

Warrington chess - a new regular and exclusive column

9:08am Thursday 26th November 2009

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IT may come as a surprise to those Warrington residents who are not already part of the world of competitive chess that you are living in one of the most active chess playing areas in the country!

It goes without notice for the most part, meetings take place throughout the year in various back rooms across Warrington.

Local teams representing Culcheth, Padgate, Penketh, Warrington Central and Winwick do weekly battle with each other for three solid silent hours each week. Along with these clubs a few miles further afield are Atherton, Formby, Northwich, Ormskirk, Runcorn, Skelmersdale, St Helens and Wigan Knights.

There is also a club specifically for juniors in Grappenhall Junior Chess Club.

These clubs as a whole make up the highly special Warrington and district chess league.

It is not unusual for a town the size of Warrington to have a chess club, or indeed for that town's club to be part of a larger county league.

However Warrington to my knowledge is almost unique in the fact that it possesses not one but six separate chess clubs in the town itself!

Chess in Warrington began over one hundred years ago when the initial Warrington Chess Club was founded, and the earliest engraving on the Silver King Trophy is dated 1889 when a Frank Dunne won the trophy. However it was not until the year 1947 when the league itself was formed.

The league itself is made up of four divisions and the matches that take place are highly competitive.

I myself am fortunate to represent Padgate Chess Club which historically has struggled in the lower divisions, however currently we have two league teams, an A team in division two.

Narrowly missing out on promotion to the top flight which would have been the first time in the clubs history last year.

We also have a B team that currently sits joint top of division three after winning division four last season.

Results from the league are now being printed in the Guardian itself each week, this additional column shall feature an annotated game from the league itself that you can play through with a board at home.

I shall also give in depth details of the events and circumstances of the matches themselves.

This week's game I feature one of my own games that comes from the recent match between Padgate A and Winwick B.

Winwick won what was a close match 2.5-3.5 despite this (below) my own win on board five:

Cook, Mark v McCarthy, Damian

WDCL DIV 2

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5 3.h3 an unusual reply to the Budapest gambit, there are several ways of declining the gambit d5 being most common. However none of which are particularly impressive. 3...exd4 4.Qxd4 Nc6 5.Qd1 Bc5 6.Nc3 d6 7.e3 Qe7?! Up to this point I had been doing fairly well for myself. White has wasted time in the opening and allowed me to gain a lead in development. I was tempted to play Qe7 to immediately try and catch white's king in the middle however better was 0–0 followed by Re8 8.Nd5 Nxd5 A very reluctant capture as after this white obtains an uncomfortable space advantage with the pawn on d5 9.cxd5 Nd4!? Taking advantage of the fact white cannot recapture due to the pin, however Ne5 was probably safer as here the black Knight becomes dangerously short of safe squares. 10.Bd3 0–0 11.Kf1! A crafty little move that forces the knight to move, whilst also taking the white monarch off the file of the black queen 11...Nf5 12.Qc2 Qf6 A duel purpose move, whilst defending the knight on f5 I am also now threatening Bxe3, then if fxe3 Nxe3 winning whites queen! 13.Nf3 But a simple developing move puts pay to all blacks tricks 13...h6 14.Bd2 Nh4 15.Bc3 Qe7 16.Re1 f5 White's pieces are dangerously placed however black's attack also has potential. With f5 I am aiming to open the f8 rook's to target the white King 17.Qa4 Nxf3 18.gxf3 Qe8? An immediate f4 was better 19.Rg1!! A great move which I had totally overlooked! White offers to sacrifice his Queen, but it is laced with poison for if black takes with Qxa4 then he is caught in a windmill from White's Bishop and Rook.19...,Qxa4 20.Rxg7+,Kh8 and black whole army will be swallowed up! 19...g5 desperation! But there is nothing better with 20.Qh4 black should be lost now but white begins to falter at the crucial moment! 20.Qc2?? White misses his chance and suddenly black is able to apply allot of pressure of his own 20...Qh5 21.Rg3 Qh4 22.b4 Bb6 Bxb4 is also possible but by this point we both had minutes left on our clocks and I felt that the Bishop poised allot of threats on this diagonal 23.a3 Re8? With us both in immense time trouble I am looking at the threat Bxe3, fxe3, Rxe3, Rxe3, Qxg3 winning the rook. Ba1 is still hugely powerful for white but it is very complicated for him to calculate in the seconds he has left, can he afford to ignore my attack? 24.Qd2?? The final blunder and I gratefully sink my teeth right in. Feeling relieved after I had been living on the edge of defeat all game 24...f4 25.Bh7+ One final throw of the dice for white, if I capture the bishop I am checkmated in seven moves! 25...Kf8 26.Rg1 Bxh3+ 27.Ke2 fxe3 28.fxe3 Bxe3 White's flag falls at this point, which means he loses on time. However black will now obtain an overwhelming material advantage in any case. 0–1

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