Gothenburg 2005 Round 5 Two years ago at the last European Team Championship in Plovdiv, I remember writing of "the Worst Day in Welsh Chess History" when we had just lost 4-0 to Cyprus. That Cypriot side was admittedly a lot stronger than this one with the 2600 GM Kotronius on top board, but even still it was a humiliating defeat and several of us have had that memory hanging over us ever since then.
Well today we duly restored our individual (and hopefully some national) pride by almost reversing the result and virtually ensuring that we won't come last for the first time in 4 of these competitions. 5.20 39 Wales 3½ - ½ 40 Cyprus 1 FM Jones Richard 2325 ½ : ½ Antoniou Antonis 2198 2 FM James David 2213 1 : 0 Kassinopoullos Doros 2094 3 Kett Tim 2192 1 : 0 Kyriakidis Thrasos 2144 4 Spice Alan 2175 1 : 0 Klerides Paris 2224 Richard had already decided (pre-tournament) to shift from the King's Gambit to the Ruy Lopez. When his opponent played the Berlin Defence then he clearly wasn't on quite as familiar territory as usual and took quite a lot of time - working really hard - to try to sweat out a sufficient advantage. His opponent defended well though and although Richard won a pawn, it was poor, doubled one and he had no advantage in activity either. With Q, R opp. colour bishops and less time it was sensible to take the draw.
David notched his first win of the tourney in a tense and exciting Sicilian Najdorf. His opponent - who David had expected to be the grinding sort - quickly trotted out the Bg5/f4/Qf3/0-0-0 line which is making a comeback at the highest levels these days. David was subjected to a strong attack and had to defend nervelessly. He got his own Q-side counterplay going quickly, pushing White's Kts around, and then coolly castled K-side just before his centre caved in. In the ensuing melee he was pretty much in control although there was one last curious incident. At one stage he accidentally knocked his king over and then replaced it on the wrong square ! Since this was actually a worse square than the proper one it was a good thing that an eagle-eyed spectator (i.e. John Trev) spotted this and informed the arbiter who quickly corrected the situation.
My game was a slow-build-up in a quieter line of the Vienna (3.g3) than I usually play. After only 15 moves not much had been taken and we were both drifting short of time as the pressure in the centre built up. He was under more pressure to either clarify the position or commit his king and as the clock ticked down he lost patience and lashed out with an unsound piece sac. I probably made heavier weather of the ending than necessary but got there in the end.
Alan's was another exciting game in the Classical French line he's had so much experience of. His opponent had clearly prepared hard and a tense and fairly even middle game resulted. The minor pieces came off one by one until only Q's and R's remained with neither king completely safe. White continued his attack with Rg5 and then g4 only to get it trapped with ...f6 ! After negotiating a couple of last tactics Alan was home and dry and now moves into positive territory with 2½/4. He's the only one of us now still in with a chance of a norm though he will need at least one more win.
For tonight though it's all about the team performance and we'll be pooling our resources to see if we can scrape together enough for a round at the outrageously expensive hotel bar. There's some sort of mid-tournament party on and we going to take advantage of the good timing by hanging around and waiting for people from the good teams to ask how we did. We can then reply casually "oh, we won fairly easily" as though that was an everyday sort of occurence - not one that happens once a decade !! | 
