February 24, 2020
The fourth round of this FIDE rated club competition was at Forest Hall on Sunday with 6 teams of 5 players each fighting it out to be the North East’s premier team.
After every round I go round the winning players in the Fewster’s Shipmates team (an amalgam of Leam Lane and South Shields) and ask them if they’d like to contribute their annotated game for inclusion on the website and every time I get the over-modest reply “Meh! Not worth publishing”.
This time I extended the franchise and asked the player of the game of the round, a clinical 19 mover culminating in a queen sacrifice.
[pgn height=500 initialHalfmove=1 autoplayMode=none]
[Event “North East League”]
[Site “South Shields”]
[Date “2020.02.23”]
[Round “4”]
[White “Reynolds, Mark”]
[Black “Nandi, Robin”]
[Result “0-1”]
[ECO “C54”]
[WhiteElo “1902”]
[BlackElo “1892”]
- e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d3 Bc5 5. c3 d6 6. h3 {With a pawn on c3 stopping Nd4 I’m not sure Bg4 is a threat worth preventing} h6 7. b4 Bb6 8. a4 a5 9. b5 Ne7 10. Nbd2 {protecting e4 and so preparing d4} Ng6 11. g3 {Having prepared d4 now was the time to play d4. Castles would also have been sensible when Nf4 can again be met by d4. This just weakens the kingside unnecessarily} O-O 12. Bb3 {Jumping at phantoms. The best way to react to the threat of d5 would have been to play Ba3, developing a piece and delaying d5 by at least one move} d5 {Be rude not to} 13. O-O {Just blundering a pawn. Better would have been Ba3 again, to be followed up by Kf1 and Kg2 taking an extra move to castle by hand but keeping a key pawn} Bxh3 14. Re1 Ng4 {Sending in the boys} 15. d4 Qf6 {Now it’s the girl’s turn} 16. exd5 exd4 17. Ne4 Qf5 18. c4 {Surprisingly the engine thinks white is still just down a pawn (-1) until this move. Hanging on was} (18. cxd4 Rfe8 19. Bc2) 18… Rfe8 19. Nxd4 Rxe4 {White resigned. If white takes the queen the follow up would be} (19… Rxe4 20. Nxf5 Bxf2+ 21. Kh1 Rxe1+ 22. Qxe1 Bxe1) 0-1 [/pgn]
The backstory here was that several players who normally play in the league had gone to Bunratty to drink Guinness and maybe play some chess and consequently the Durham Bishops, Robin’s team, had turned up two players short. Robin’s quick win set the scene for an heroic 3 wins for an overall 3-2 victory keeping them in the hunt for first along with Newcastle Magpies and Fewster’s Shipmates.
Full details of the tournament here.
Note that a similar Sunday format FIDE rated individual tournament is planned for the spring with 2 rounds a day planned for the 19th April, 17th May and 14th June. This will be a Swiss with Open, Major and Minor sections. Details to follow later.
