After a gap of five years (with the exception of an online version in 2021), the National Club Championships were revived at the fine venue of the Canham Turner Conference Centre, Cottingham Road, Hull University over the weekend of 20th – 22nd October. It was played as a five-round Swiss with teams of four (but squads of up to six allowed) with three sections: an Open, and two sections for teams with an average rating of under 2000 and under 1700.
The venue has hosted a number of previous national events, and the team from Hull had run the successful online National Club Championships in 2021, so it seemed a logical choice to ask them to revitalise the event for 2023.
Everything was all set up and ready to go when storm Babet intervened. Trains from Kings Cross were cancelled until the Saturday, and travelling conditions across the Midlands were terrible. This resulted in two teams not being able to get to Hull at all, one not able to play until the Saturday morning, and a number of teams playing on the Friday evening with two or three players. This didn’t unwind totally until the Saturday afternoon, the conditions having resulted in a number of triangular matches as the arbiter team, led by IA Adrian Elwin and supported by FAs Tom Evans and Richard Buxton, sought to ensure the maximum number of games for all players. Due to the storm the original entry of just under 90 players was reduced by 10. Some players (and teams) made heroic efforts to get to Hull to play.
There were a significant number of local teams, and over 40 local players took part in the event. All the sections were keenly contested, and nothing was certain until the end of the final round on the Sunday. The last games to be finished determined the winners and runners-up in the Open and U1700 sections. Such was the uncertainty that the team from Beverley, who were runners-up in the U2000 section, left thinking they had not been successful. There were some tense scenes on Sunday evening waiting for all the games to be finished, the calculations as to positions being made all the more complicated by the triangular sessions on the Friday evening and Saturday morning.
The Open section was especially close. The two leaders, 3Cs and Heffalump Hunters, were tied going into the last round; their match result in round 5 being a 2-2 draw, 3Cs were declared winners on tie break. In the U2000 and U1700 sections there were clear winners, but the runner-up slots in both were also decided on tie-break. Special mention should be made of Ron Kemp, aged 87 with a rating of 1356, who scored 2 out of 3 for Victoria Dock, helping them to a title win in the U1700 section.
A special mention should also be made of the She Plays to Win B team, who scored six match points playing with only three players.
Local sponsorship provided new trophies for all winners and runners-up as well as banners, pens and scoresheets to give the event a more ‘personalised’ flavour. The ECF would like to thank the Hull and East Riding Chess Association, VHEY (Visit Hull and East Yorkshire) and other sources of local support for their sponsorship, which enabled the event to take place.
The majority of games were played on live boards, and the final round benefited from live commentary by GM Peter Wells and WIM Natasha Regan. All the games can be replayed, and you can revisit the live commentary, plus see all the cross tables on the National Club Championships website, here:
https://www.englishchess.org.uk/ecf-national-club-championships-2023/
There are a number of photographs from the event on the website, but more may be found, courtesy of Brendan O’Gorman, here:
https://brendanogorman.smugmug.com/Chess/2023/National-Club-Championship-2023
The title winners and runners-up who shared the prize money of £1,500 were (winners’ names first):
Open: 3Cs and Heffalump Hunters (on tie-break, each team scoring six match points)
U2000: Hull 2 (winners on seven match points) and Beverley Patzers
U1700: Victoria Dock (winners on eight match points) and Hull Chess Club 3
Peter Wells kindly annotated the game below from the event.
Sterck, Arno – Ashton, Adam
ECF National Club 2023 Round 5 – Heffalump Hunters vs 3Cs
1.Nf3 d5 2.e3 Nf6 3.b3 Bg4 4.Bb2 Nbd7 5.d4 e6 6.Nbd2 Be7 7.Bd3 c5 8.0–0 0–0 9.Qe1!?
The downside of the relatively aggressive move of the bishop to d3 is that the pin on the f3-knight is quite annoying, and it is easy to understand why White is keen to side-step this. Still, I can’t help finding this a bit artificial, and it does leave me wondering whether the set-up could be tweaked at an earlier stage.
9…Rc8
Nothing wrong with this of course, but my engine mentions the possibility of 9...cxd4 10.exd4 Bf5!? so that after 11.Bxf5 exf5 Black has a nice grip on the e4-square. I partly like this because it is a throwback to the way I used to handle the black side of the Exchange Caro-Kann in my youth (on at least one occasion to the consternation of my Bundesliga team-mates), but this does look like a very appealing version of the plan too. If you were ever going to believe in this structure, this might be the moment!
10.Ne5
10...Nxe5?!
I guess Adam wanted to take immediately, to ensure that White would be denied the option of f4 and taking with the f-pawn. Nonetheless, since Black’s bishop should be headed for g6 anyhow, I quite liked 10…Bh5, even without the engine’s intriguing insight that 11 f4 cxd4 12 cxd4 Nxe5 13 fxe5 Ng4!? 14 h3 Nh6 leaves the knight well placed if it can later head to f5 following an exchange of light-squared bishops.
11.dxe5 Nd7 12.h3 Bh5 13.e4 Qb6?!
It is much harder to make sense of this, however. It is true that Black should avoid closing the centre, since 13…d4 14 f4 would give White a strong c4-square and a free hand on the kingside. However, supporting the d5-point with 13…Nb6!? makes more sense to me, while the thematic pawn sacrifice to secure c5 for the knight 13…c4!? appeals even more after 14.bxc4 Nc5 15.exd5 Nxd3 16.cxd3 exd5 with decent counterplay when the bishop arrives at the healthy post on g6.
14.c4
White could also consider releasing the tension in the centre immediately, since after 14.exd5!? exd5, 15 c4 and 15 Bf5 both pose Black some problems.
14...Bg6 15.Qe2 dxe4 16.Nxe4 Rcd8 17.Rad1 Nb8
18.Nf6+?
Knowing when to keep building the pressure and when to strike a (hopefully) decisive blow often constitutes one of the toughest judgement calls in chess, and I suspect no player in history has been immune from occasionally making the wrong choice in such situations. There is even a load of conflicting advice to point to: ‘strike while the iron is hot’ on the one hand, against the Soviet School’s near-adulation of patience and the avoidance of impetuous errors on the other. I sometimes have the words of the young Anatoly Karpov ringing in my ears at such moments, too. When asked about his strikingly solid and mature style, he replied in exemplary Soviet fashion: ‘Of course, sacrifice when it is correct; but bridges I do not burn – it’s not my style.’
In this case it is understandable that Black’s last move - withdrawal of a key defensive knight – might act as a prompt to look carefully at sacrificing, and it certainly caused us considerable excitement in the commentary when this move landed on the board. However, in the cold light of calculation White’s main idea is to land mate on g7, and his problem will be that Bf8 generally covers this threat and – should White try to sacrifice the exchange on d6 – Black will be able to recapture with the queen, which can be expected to replicate this function effectively. Moreover, White had a natural and patient ‘building’ move in 18 h4!, intending not just to dislodge the bishop from g6 but to apply immediate pressure to that square in the event that Black exchanges on e4 and will then be obliged to play …g6 to avoid mate. Ironically, if Black were to be greedy enough to reply 18…Bxh4?, then the idea from the game really comes into its own after 19.Qg4 Be7 20.Nf6+! gxf6 (20…Bxf6 survives longer, but it is none too appealing to play with a white pawn on g7 here!) 21. exf6 Bd6 22 Qh4 Kh8 23 Bxg6 fxg6 24 f7+ e5 25 Qf6#. Of course, none of this would have been forced, but Black’s resources would have been seriously challenged by this exercise of restraint. At the end of the day, the decision to sacrifice here just feels a bit too much like bridge-burning.
18...gxf6 19.exf6 Bd6 20.h4
We were expecting something like 20.Qe3, when the threat to invade on h6 leaves Black no choice, and after 20…Rfe8, perhaps 21.Bxg6 hxg6 22.h4 (22.Rxd6 Qxd6 doesn’t help, as I mentioned above.) 22...Bf8 23.h5, but Black can start liquidating with 23…Rxd1 24.Rxd1 Rd8 25.Re1 g5! 26.Qxg5+ Kh7, when the attack starts to run out of steam.
20.Bxg6 hxg6 21.Qg4!? may be the cleverest try, but Black even has a choice here. The ‘obvious’ 21...Rfe8 22.h4 Kh7 23.h5 Rg8 24.hxg6+ Rxg6 25.Qh5+ Kg8 just about holds together, as 26.Rd3 can be met with 26…Qc6! and an annoying counter-threat of mate on g2. Still, even 21…Bc7!? 22.Qh4 e5 works, by threatening to remove the pivotal f6 pawn. After 23.f4 Rxd1 24.Rxd1 Qe6 25.g4 Nd7 it is again becoming clear that White lacks the firepower to create further threats.
20...Bxd3 21.Rxd3 Kh8 22.Rfd1 Rg8 23.Qh5 Qc7 24.Bc1 Nc6 25.Bh6 Bf8!
Just in time to hold everything together.
26.Rxd8 Nxd8 27.Bxf8 Rxf8 28.Rd3 Rg8 29.Qd1 Nc6 30.Rd7 Qf4! 31.Rxf7 Ne5 32.Rxh7+
This time the investment of material looks like the only way to continue the struggle. White manages to amass as many as four pawns for the rook in the coming moves, but it is still hopeless. Once the f6-pawn is rounded up Black can push the e-pawn with relative impunity, safe in the knowledge that his opponent’s pawns are too far back for any position without queens to present serious technical challenges.
32…Kxh7 33.Qh5+ Qh6 34.Qxe5 Qg6 35.g3 Rf8 36.Qxc5 Qxf6 37.Qxa7 Rf7 38.Qe3 Qf3 39.Qd4 e5 40.Qd2 e4! 41.c5 e3!
Forcing a decisive liquidation to a winning ending, which Adam converts very proficiently.
42.Qxe3 Qxe3 43.fxe3 Rf3 44.Kg2 Rxe3 45.b4 Ra3 46.b5 Rxa2+ 47.Kf3 Rc2 48.c6 bxc6 49.bxc6 Rxc6
0–1