The One That Got Away (Twice)

Couldn’t resist the Katy Perry reference 🙂

Both our teams had great results yesterday in the 2020 Event.

2020 now has a website (https://www.2020chess.com) and pairings online (https://results.oxfordchess.co.uk/2020chess#standings – some cool visualisations too).
It is going to be talked about on BBC Radio at around 1645 today (Saturday 11th April) at this link :
https://www.bbc.co.uk/schedules/p00fzl6f

The A team beat the now-familiar Chess Carolinas 7-1 (from North and South Carolina, USA) (BA B had beat them 6.5-3.5). We outrated them heavily on all boards. They had promised six players but only fielded four. Theo and Julius graciously agreed to sit out.

The games can be found here:
https://www.chess.com/club/matches/live/bon-accord-a/7903

See if you can spot my blunder in the first game – no cheating until you think you know the answer! (I am black)
https://www.chess.com/live/game/4704137236

The B team had a similarly successful night (hence the cheesy title), winning 9-1 against”D’Ascanio Vintage!”. They are a team composed of players from universities in Pisa, Trieste (a beautiful place where I played a lovely tournament in 2017 – “FE 19 Citta’ di Trieste”, stay at https://www.booking.com/hotel/it/art-amp-brerakfast-atelier.en-gb.html if you get the chance! ) and Ancona.

Detailed results (and the games) can be found here:

https://www.chess.com/club/matches/live/bon-accord-b/8013

Richard’s piece sac is worth looking at here:
https://www.chess.com/live/game/4704154470

On Monday the A and B team both face stiff challenges.

The A team is again (in a competition with 66 teams) paired against the formidable Tiger Sharks A (>=2 IMs, average rating around 2300). We ran them a very close second last time (https://bonaccordchess.wordpress.com/2020/03/30/bon-accord-a-4-5-tiger-sharks-5-5-bon-accord-b-6-5-chess-carolinas/)

and hope to do better this time.

The B team has also got a tough opponent, and again an intercontinental match – Endgame New Mexico who have a National Master and an FM and a number of players above 2000.

Bon Accord Debut in 4NCL

The 4NCL event is being held online this year.

Bon Accord has an A team in the top division and a B team in division

The A team had a tough match against one of the top teams in Britain, Wood Green who had a Grandmaster on board two!

At one stage it was looking like the result might be 3-1 us. Julius went straight through an off-form Adam Taylor with an admittedly dubious exchange sac and was the first to finish. Euan was slightly better out of the opening as white against “ButterflyQueen” (IM Jovanka Houska) but got ground down. I (Hamish) was +4 in a tricky endgame against GM Daniel Fernandez and Murad was winning.
Unfortunately both our opponents proved resourceful:

Bon Accord A 2180 Wood Green 2408
w FM Abdulla, Murad 2287 0 – 1 FM Harvey, Marcus R 2440
b FM Olson, Hamish 2246 0 – 1 GM Fernandez,Daniel Howard 2466
w Gray, Euan 2098 0 – 1 IM Houska, Jovanka 2381
b Schwartz, Julius 2090 1 – 0 IM Taylor, Adam C 2347

1 – 3
Full results here:
http://www.4nclresults.co.uk/2019-20/online/1/1/export/

Division 1 games will be available here http://www.4ncl.co.uk/replay/online/div1/round1.htm

(link broken Friday 2100 but I expect it will be fixed soon)

Bon Accord B had a smoother start and could have had more (in particular Richard was a lot better the whole game). They are definitely looking to be in contention to be promoted.

Catford Cosmonauts 3 1580 Bon Accord B 1856
w Orpwood, Steven 1742 0 – 1 Koroglou, Viktor 2028
b Oyvat, Cem 1667 ½ – ½ Jennings, Richard 1872
w Foreman, Anthony 1532 ½ – ½ Vasiliadis, Theo 1820
b Marchettini, Cristiano 1382 0 – 1 Brennan, J Ross 1706

1 – 3

Full results here:
http://www.4nclresults.co.uk/2019-20/online/1/4/export/

Bon Accord A 10.5 – 1.5 Leeds University Bon Accord B 3.5 – 10.5 Manchester University B

Bon Accord A beat Leeds University 10.5-1.5.

I got completely out-prepared by my (2100 FIDE) opponent, Robert Starley, in the first game but won with a nice pseudo-queen sacrifice in the second game (https://www.chess.com/live/game/4687299869). Julius was lucky to escape with a draw after chucking a piece in the first game but won nicely in the second. Everyone else won both games.

Full results can be seen here:

https://www.chess.com/club/matches/live/bon-accord-a/7471

Bon Accord B lost to Manchester B. There were some technical difficulties getting set up on chess.com but these will get resolved with practice. Thank you to Alisdair for agreeing to be B team captain.

The detailed results can be found below:
https://www.chess.com/club/matches/live/bon-accord-b/7496

Ross’s game, converting the advantage of the bishop pair into a promising rook endgame and eventual win can be found here:

https://www.chess.com/live/game/4687348808

Bon Accord A 3.5 – Tiger Sharks B 8.5

On Friday 4th April,Bon Accord A were a bit unlucky to be paired with another ridiculously strong team in the final round of the first two weeks of the 2020 event. We were convincingly beaten 8.5-3.5 by Tiger Sharks B(!)

Murad Abdulla 0.5-1.5 “Mark K” “Czech IM who is friends with some of our players”
Hamish Olson 1-1 IM Ritvars Riemanis 2414
Andrew Green 1-1 FM Hendrik Hoffman 2250
Euan Gray 0-2 Bao Dong 2227
Viktor Koroglou 0-2 Hugh Murphy 203 (~2210)
Theodoros Vasiliadis 1-1 Oliver Cod

Bon Accord B had their debut agains a South African side in a friendly match on Thursday 3rd April and were just pipped 5.5-4.5:

https://www.chess.com/club/matches/live/bon-accord-b/7355

Bon Accord A 11 – Mushrooms 3

Bon Accord A beat the Mushrooms 11-3 this evening:

1.Murad Abdulla 2-0 Simon Wilks (2068)
2.Hamish Olson 2-0 Peter Sullivan (189)[~2070]
3.Julius Schwartz 1-1 Luis Ortiz Sanchez (1899)
4.Euan Gray 1.5-0.5 Craig Kennedy (1884)
5.Viktor Koroglou 2-0 Neil Davies (1763)
6.Theodorous Vasiliadis 1-1 Richard Nash (165)[~1830]
7.Nihad Abdullazada 1.5-0.5 Matt Hortin (1778)
11-3

You can find Nihad’s nice endgame grind here:
https://lichess.org/MuwCowRb

I (Hamish) had a fun attacking game:

https://lichess.org/je2q3t6C

Bon Accord A 4.5 Tiger Sharks 5.5, Bon Accord B 6.5 Chess Carolinas 3.5

After 3 Rounds Bon Accord A was in joint lead with one other team, the formidable Tiger Sharks (a.k.a. Grantham Sharks in the 4NCL).
With IMs on the top three boards and 2200s on the bottom 2 they were never going to be a pushover and so it proved.

After the first set of five games things were looking pretty tasty for us at 3.5-1.5 for the good guys with some great upsets:

1.FM Murad Abdulla (black) 1-0 IM Ameet Ghasi (2485)
2.FM Hamish Olson (white) 1-0 IM Thomas Rendle (2367)
3.Julius Schwartz 0-1 IM Peter Roberson (2436)
4.Euan Gray 0.5-0.5 James Holland (2220)
5.Theodorous Vasiliadis 1-0 Bao Dong (2226)

Unfortunately the second set of results was a lot more one sided the other way:

1.FM Murad Abdulla(white) 0.5-0.5 IM Ameet Ghasi (2485)
2.FM Hamish Olson (black) 0.5-0.5 IM Thomas Rendle (2367)
3.Julius Schwartz 0-1 IM Peter Roberson (2436)
4.Euan Gray 0-1 James Holland (2220)
5.Theodorous Vasiliadis 0-1 Bao Dong (2226)

So the Sharks beat us 5.5-4.5 and are in outright first with two rounds to go.

Bon Accord B had their debut against the Chess Carolinas, a US team that has a mixture of players from North and South Carolina:

1.Richard Jennings 1-1 Henry Hasman
2.Ross Brennan 0-2 Ezra Etzel
3.Nihad Abdullazada 2-0 Eugene Mack
4.Vagif Ramazanov 2-0 Raghu Arramreddy
5.Michael McRoberts 1.5-0.5 Sushma Dasari (1634)

Not a bad debut – 6.5-3.5 victory.
On Wednesday 7pm the A team will play the “Mushrooms”
On Thursday 7pm the B team will be playing against Eton!

You can see my win against IM Thomas Rendle here : https://lichess.org/DKe18bTf

He started drifting in the queenless middlegame around move 20, giving me a better pawn structure (d-pawn influences centre more than his a-pawn) which initially he had enough activity for but that fizzled out. In the second game he was better but allowed a perpetual.

Theo’s back-and-forth win against Bao Dong can be viewed here: https://lichess.org/yMlpQa8b

He had a strong attack with some fine active/positional play in very typical Theo style, but then let things slip a bit only to bounce back at the end.

Bon Accord Beat London School of Economics 8.5-5.5

In the third round of the 2020 competition BA beat LSE 8.5-5.5 and now are likely to be playing co-leaders Tiger Sharks A (I believe Adam is playing for Tiger Sharks B) in the fourth round.

 

1.Murad Abdulla 1-1 Abhinav Bathula

2 Hamish Olson 0 -2 Thomas Goldie

3.Julius Schwartz 0.5 – 1.5 Aaneel Shalman

4.Euan Gray 1.5-0.5 Matthie Bennet

5.Richard Jennings 2-0 Aadil Khan

6.Ross Brennan 1.5-0.5 Mateusz Masiak

7.Nihad Abdulla 2-0 Tom Dawtrey

BA 8.5 – LSE 5.5