Report – 15 June 2012
Interclub Match vs Bullwinkle Chess Club
Tonight saw something different at the club with the visit of Club Bullwinkle on a typically cold mid-Winter night in The Gap (the temperature is alleged to drop five degrees when you cross Walton Bridge!). Bullwinkle had kindly offered two players to The Gap who had very loose connections to our club to play on the top two boards. Nik Stawski was a junior coach at The Gap, and the winner of The Gap Open in 1995.
Games on boards 1-3 and 6-10 were played with DGTs and set for 60 minutes plus 10 seconds. Due to a lack on DGTs, boards 4 and 5 played a flat one hour with analogue clocks (with the agreement of both players). The DGT on board 3 ran out of battery after 20 minutes and had to be substituted with an analogue clock.
Non-playing captains Jacob Edwards and Andrew Robinson supervised proceedings, and the night’s chess was played in a convivial atmosphere free of incident. Several of Bullwinkle’s players have not been playing regularly in competition, but still managed impressive performances and showed no sign of poor form.
Games started around 8:20pm and the first game to finish saw Martin Laizans resign early after going down a piece. The next four games to finish were also won by Bullwinkle players, on boards 3, 5, 6 and 9 – in each case Bullwinkle had a superiority for most of the game.
The first win for The Gap was notched by John Ryland who was in a perilous position, a couple of rooks down, and managed to pull of a great escape act and checkmate his opponent in the corner with his queen and knight (to the amusement of both players!). In an all-junior contest, Marcus Porter played well, but fell down due to impetuous play as is often the case with the longer time controls, with Harry Hughes significantly in front at the end. Andrew Mather played accurately in time trouble in the endgame to pull off a good victory against a strong opponent and score The Gap’s second win.
The top two boards were the last to finish, each going down to the wire. A helter skelter finish on Board 2 eventually fell the way of Nik Stawski, with both players under one minute at the end. (pgn file M Van Pelt – N Stawski)There were chances taken and missed on both sides and lot to analyse after the game. Board One also provided a high tension finish with Denis Ovcina shaking off the rust to obtain a good win in a high standard encounter with both players having chances.
The Gap and Bullwinkle agreed the night went extremely well, and aim to meet again later in the year. Hopefully the two electric heaters owned by the club won’t be needed then, however they came in very useful tonight and were appreciated by players on both teams!
Results:
|
Board |
Bullwinkle |
Rating |
Colour |
Score |
The Gap |
Rating |
Colour |
Score |
Rating Difference |
Time the game finished |
|
1 |
Bruce Williams |
2039 |
W |
0 |
Denis Ovcina |
2284 |
B |
1 |
-245 |
10:38 |
|
2 |
Michael Van Pelt |
1911 |
B |
0 |
Nik Stawski |
1968 |
W |
1 |
-57 |
10:41 |
|
3 |
Michael D'Arcy |
1632 |
W |
1 |
Ray Adams |
1409 |
B |
0 |
223 |
9:43 |
|
4 |
Ben McPhee |
1560 |
B |
1 |
Martin Laizans |
1390 |
W |
0 |
170 |
8:40 |
|
5 |
Halim Nataprawira |
1590 |
W |
1 |
Brian Willcock |
1302 |
B |
0 |
288 |
9:56 |
|
6 |
Karina Bell (Mowles) |
1573 |
B |
1 |
Jim Petrie |
1186 |
W |
0 |
387 |
9:10 |
|
7 |
Harry Hughes |
1408 |
W |
1 |
Marcus Porter |
1131 |
B |
0 |
277 |
10:08 |
|
8 |
Regina Edwards |
1280 |
B |
0 |
Andrew Mather |
965 |
W |
1 |
315 |
10:24 |
|
9 |
Michelle Phair |
unrated |
W |
1 |
Joseph Curtain |
unrated |
B |
0 |
|
9:30 |
|
10 |
Tony Hughes |
965 |
B |
0 |
John Ryland |
unrated |
W |
1 |
|
10:02 |
|
TOTAL |
6 |
TOTAL |
4 |
|
|
|||||
|
Average rating difference: |
169.75 |
|
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Link to The Gap CC’s interclub main page
For a trip down history lane, here are the reports (including links to photos) of The Gap’s two previous match-ups with Bullwinkle in 2006:
Quote of the night
“Do you think I over-estimated your thematic pawn storm?” – Ray Adams getting thematic in his after game analysis with Michael D’Arcy