Round 6 (Friday November 2nd)

Well I did mention the vagaries of the pairing system, and today we found ourselves up against Montenegro rather than 'one of the bottom 5 mini league teams'. One has to feel sorry for the players, after having won just 1 match out of 6, we have play a team of 4 GMs (!), and you know they will be going flat out to maximise their own individual scores. Nevertheless, the players fighting qualities cannot be faulted, they are certainly giving it their all.

Wales (38) 0.5 - 3.5 Montenegro (30)
1. Richard Jones FM 2327 (W) 0 - 1 N. Djukic GM 2528
2. Tim Kett 2257 0.5 B. Ivanovic GM 2434
3. Alan Spice 2170 0 - 1 D. Blagojevic GM 2513
4. John Trevelyan 2191 0 - 1 D. Kosic GM 2482

Games in the order they finished (without having analysed them)

Alan's game transposed from his 1.Nc3 into a Vienna Game, with Alan having a reasonable position after the opening. But GMs are GMs because they are very good at the basics of chess e.g. taking advantage of a pawn weakness, a better square, a favourable exchange etc., and this is essentially what happened in this game. Alan committed his pawn to a5, later to lose it, B got his knight well placed, and forced the Queens off with a back rank threat. Black then had a straightforward N + 6 v B +5, with his K and minor piece in dominant positions.

Richard's opponent played a Sicilian Taimanov, and refused ever to move his d pawn. Despite opposite side castling, the pieces were tedning to skirt round each other and steadily (see comments above) Black's pieces just became better, he won the exchange for a pawn in a 4 piece ending and forced the win when he was about to win more material.

Tim's opponent played a very slow Two Knights (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d3 Be7 5.0-0 0-0 6.a4) and by continuing in the same vein provoked Tim into (probably justifiably) an early ... d5. Black's position seemed to be holding up well, then White, after some thought, suddenly threw in a Nh5 gxh5 sac. White then proceeded Qg3+ Kf7 but there was nothing immediate so just subtly played b5 winning the N on c6 which couldn't move without allowing W a mating attack. Tim held it together very well, and in the end his pressure on g2 from a rook on g6 and the Q on c6, forced W to give up his Q for R + B. The position was delicately poised with W's 2 rooks and bishop in the vicinity of B's completely exposed K, and B's Q + R over on the queenside. At this point an unfortuanate incident nearly spoiled Tim's previous good work, as after W had played his 41st move, it was noticed that the clocks had not had 30 minutes added, with Tim just having 38 seconds of available time. Tim asked me who the controller was, I got him to intervene, but he initially said that one of the players could not have played 40 moves. Tim pointed out that both scoresheets had recorded W's 41st move, and eventually, after Tim and I alterately demanded the clock be stopped, the controller did so, and fetched a senior arbiter. Tim remembered something about the wrong clock ticking earlier in the game when not pressed hard enough by his opponent, and this may well have put the number of moves out of sync. All was resolved amicably, but the significance of this cannot be underestimated, for if Tim was forced to make another move within the 38 seconds, he says he may well have played a 'safer' move (Qd7) rather than the one played (Qxa3, completely away from the k-side action), and this may have cost him the game. As it was, B's passed 'a' pawn could have become a very significant factor, so W bailed out with a perpetual check. A cool head at the end, and a well fought game by Tim.

John could have been the first to finish, as in his favorite Old Indian, he uncharacteristically blundered his e pawn about move 10 (dxe5 dxe5, Nxe5 and B cannot reply N(d7)xe5 as it is pinned to Black queen on d8 by a R on d1. White should have gone on to win comfortably, but a combination of trying to force matters too quiuckly and tenacious defence by John, resulted in John managing to reach R + N + 3 against R + B + 2, but couldn't in the end save it.

So no disgrace in the overall result, a well contested match against a team who in the end showed their GM class.

That leaves us on 3 match points along with Belgium, Luxembourg and Scotland, with Cyprus and Monaco both on 1 match point. Surely the bottom 2 will play each other, and as Luxembourg and Scotland have already played each other, I would have thought we would play one of these, most likely our old enemy, Scotland. There again the pairing system may throw up something completely different, but whoever it is, the players are certainly still very much ready to give it their best shot. Watch this space tomorrow night for hopefully some more good news.


Stuart Hutchings
Captain, Wales