Mixed Fortunes

There were mixed fortunes for the Club in our LRCA matches this week. 

Ashby 3 were 3-1 winners at Market Harborough 3 on Tuesday. Dominic was first to finish with a draw on board 4. The engine showed his opponent as being +5 but, for reasons best known to himself, he offered the draw and Dom bit his hand off !! Les put us in the lead with a straightforward win on board 3, where he was all over his opponent like a cheap suit. Next to finish was Tom on board 1. He went into an endgame with King and 3 Pawns against King and 4 Pawns and looked destined to lose. Fortunately for him, his opponent was distracted by Tom's lone Queen side pawn, giving Tom time to get over to the King side and start gobbling  pawns. The end result was Tom having a King and an unstoppable Pawn, giving him what, a few minutes earlier, had looked an unlkely win. Steve was the last to finish on board 2 when his opponent offered the draw, which he accepted, overlooking the fact that he was able to win a piece on his next move !!

Ashby 2 remain without a win following a tough match at Braunstone last night, where their board 5 outrated our board 1 and, unsurprisingly, we went down by 4-1. Thanks to Team Captain, Larry Hayden for the following report;

"I was sitting there dreamily on board 3 in a warm room, the exchange and a pawn up in an endgame, no problems.....thinking that I would soon be marking 1-0 to me on the scoresheet....against an 1810...when my opponent , apologising profusely , informed me that I had just lost on time !?  Last time I looked, I had about 7 minutes left...........then failed to look again !

Chris also lost on time against an 1826.......just as he was mounting a promising attack.

Les accepted a draw offer from a 1768, when he was a pawn up,  as we had lost the match and there were opposite coloured bishops.

Andrew ground down a 2035 on board 1 and had to accept a draw.

James, in his first Div 2 match , did well and had a  plus against a  1779....but lost by blundering away a piece to a fork......missing a zwischenzug check.

Oh well, we'll just have to beat Ashby 1 on 6th Feb !!"

 

Ashby 1 Continue Promotion Push

Ashby 1 started 2025 the way they finished 2024 - with a 4-1 win against one of their closest challengers, Anstey 2. Tom Dove has kindly submitted the following match report:

"Ashby 1 continued their relentless push for promotion with a convincing win over fellow promotion hopefuls Anstey 2.

Tom was the first to finish, heroically fighting of IM Robert Taylor, and agreeing a draw in a dead position, after an an exhilirating display of dazzling chess from both players.

Next to finish was Andrew, trapping John Robinson's Queen and graciously accepting his opponent's immediate resignation.

Richard managed to salvage a draw from a difficult position, after a series of accurate moves left Rob Mitchell unable to see any way to progress.

Controversy reigned on board 4. Patrick, facing 7 year old Ted Ronald, found himself the exchange and 3 pawns down by move 15 and staring down the barrel of a forced mate in 4. Intending to pick up his Queen and start the final sequence, Ted violently sneezed, causing his hand to lightly brush his King. Patrick ruthlessly enforced the touch-move rule, which left Ted's King only one legal square, walking stright into a Royal fork. Visibly shaken and a Queen down, Ted's resistance was short lived and his mother quickly took the distraught and sobbing child home.

Gheorghe punished his opponent's slow opening play, leaving Matt Connor too many problems to solve with precious little time on the clock. A lovely Knight manouevre saw a glue factory nag transform into a rampant stallion, dominating the board. An unstoppable mate threat ended the game."

A couple of the above descriptions are tongue in cheek. I'll leave you to guess which ones !!

On a serious note, it would be nice if the Captains of all of our teams could produce a match report for publication on the website.

Ashby 4 Kick Off 2025 With A Loss

Ashby 4 weere beaten 2.5 - 1.5 by Wigston 5 in their opening match of 2025. Team Captain, Ric Dawson, set an example that the others were unable to follow, with a win on board 4. James Foster, playing off his new rating of 1568, was thrown in at the deep end on board 1 but managed a draw against an opponent rated 158 points higher.

2025 U1450 Championship

The draw for the 1st Round of the 2025 U1450 Club Championship has now been made and can be viewed here, or from the link at the side of this page. All games are to be completed by the 27th February. Anybody who is unable to play their game wll be scored as a default for this round.

Shropshire Congress

Les Fancourt finished joint 10th out of 52 entries in the Intermediate Section of this weekend's Shropshire Congress, with a score of 3/5. After scoring 2.5/3 from his opening games, Sunday proved to be slightly disappointing, with just a draw from his two games. Nonrtheless, he scored over 50% and his performance rating for the tournament was over 1600, so well done to him.

2025 U1450 Championship

The 2025 U1450 Championship will be held as a 6 round Swiss format competition this year. You will have 2 months to complete each round. Neil is just waiting on the final list of players who will be taking part and the draw for the 1st round will then be published. Hopefully this will be in the next couple of days. You will then have until Thursday 27th February to play your first match. We be keeping to a strict timetable this year and if anybody is unable to play a match in the 2 months allocated they will, unfortunately, be scored as a default.

Darren & Doris On The Move

Doris & Darren Pearce have announced that they will be moving to Scotland in February, so they will be leaving the Club. Other commitments will prevent then from attendng the Club in January so, unfortunately, we have to say goodbye to them. I'm sure that we all wish them the very best and hope that they will be moving near enough to a Club so that they can continue to play.

January Rating List

The 'Live' January Rating List has now been published and can be viewed here, or from the link at the top of this page. I am not showing Rapidplay ratings in this list, although I can if there is a demand for it.

The January list contains all of your LRCA games (both league matches and individual competitions), the Ashby Club Championship, the Ashby U1450 Championship, any County matches in which you may participate and any Congresses or other tournaments in which you may participate.

As far as I am aware, only Les and Steve are currently playing County matches for Staffordshire.