The league is organised by Battersea Chess Club at its regular home venue of Battersea Labour Club, which has a spacious events hall that last night included a staffed bar.
This year the league has been extended by a week to nine weeks, meaning each division is all-play-all, with teams of four and a time limit of 60 minutes with a 30-second increment.
I was on board two last night in the 150-average division for The Dogs Of Battersea against The Hackney Hungry (teams are encouraged, not always successfully, to come up with humorous names).
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| White offered a draw as I was thinking about my 22nd move in Jeff Leung (167) - Spanton (171) |
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Black has the superior minor piece (a rook usually cooperates better with a bishop than with a knight) and the more centralised king, but I felt these advantages were slightly more than cancelled out by Black's multiple pawn weaknesses. Nevertheless, bearing in mind my glass-half-empty attitude to draws and the fact that as per normal I was well ahead on the clock, I decided to play on. My main analysis engines, Komodo9 and Stockfish10, agree White is about half a pawn ahead.
22...Rd8
Activating the rook and impeding the development of White's king seemed obvious to me, but the engines prefer to grab kingside space with 22...h5.
23.Ne3 h5 24.b4?!
I expected 24.Ra4 Rd7 25.Ra6 Rc7, when Black's rook is passively tied down.
The text is part of a plan to activate White's pawn-majority (and to stop Black playing ...c5), but the main effect is to make Black's a pawn virtually unreachable by White's pieces.
24...Bf7?!
I was torn between this and the almost certainly superior 24...g5, which has the merit of restricting White's rook.
25.c4?
Continuing with his plan, but the move is a mistake. In the post-mortem JL favoured 25.Rf4+, which more-or-less forces the black king to retreat to f7. Also good is 25.Nc4, one point being that 25...Bxc4 26.Rxc4 leaves Black on the worse side of a rook-and-pawn ending.
25...Rd3?!
The engines much prefer 25...e5, preventing White's rook using the f4 square, with ...Rd3 likely to come later.
26.Nc2?
In the postmortem we looked at 26.a4 Ra3, when JL's suggestion of 27.b5!? seemed dangerous for Black, but the engines reckon Black is fine after 27...Be8. However, this is academic as the engines meet 26.a4 with 26...g5, controlling the f4 square before going after White's vulnerable queenside. All of which suggests that, again, Rf4+ was White's best, which the engines indeed agree is close to dead equal (but with plenty of play in the position).
26...Rc3?
By now ...e5, or ...g5, was essential to maintain Black's advantage.
27.Rf4+
At last one of the players makes a good move. The game should now be drawn.
27...Kg7
Not 27...Ke6?? 28.Kd2.
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| White has a simple draw, and another one that also sets a trap |
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28.Kd2?
JL hoped to get his knight to c5 with his king attacking my queenside pawns, but it does not work.
28.Re4 was good enough for a simple draw, while 28.c5! also draws while setting a trap, ie 28...Bb3? 29.Kb2! Rxc2+ 30.Kxb3 Rxh2? (30...Rc1 keeps the game going, but Black's pawn weaknesses will probably tell in the long run) 31.b5 and wins.
28...Rxc4 29.Rxc4 Bxc4 30.Kc3 Bd5 31.h4
On 31.Kd4 I intended 31...Kf6, when 32.Kc5 can be met by 32...Ke5, and 32.b5 by, among others, 32...Bb3 33.Na1 Ba4.
The game finished:
31...Kf6 32.Ne3 Ke5 33.Kd3 Kd6 34.g4 hxg4 35.Nxg4 Be6 36.Nf2 Ke5 37.Ke3 Bf5 38.Nd1 Ke5 39.Nb2 Bb1 40.Na4 Kc4 41.Nc5 a5 42.Nb7 axb4 43.Na5+ Kb5 0-1
My updated Battersea statistics for 2018-19
Event...Colour...Grade...Opponent's Grade...Result
CLL........B..........167...….........196...............…D
LL...…….B...…...167...………..159...………….D
CLL...…..B...…...167...………..161...………….W
CLL...…..B...…...167...………..190...………….D
LL...…….W...…..167...………..161...….………W
CLL...…..W...…..167...………..148...………….D
CLL...…..W...…..167...………..165...………….W
CLL...…..W...…..167...………..160...………….D
CLL...…..W...…..167...………..159...………….D
LL...…….B...…...167...………..168...………….D
LL...…….W...…..171...………..159...………….W
CLL...…..B...…...171...………..198...……….….L
CLL...…..B...…...171...………..169...…………..L
CLL...…..B...…...171...………..196...…………..L
LL...…….B...…...171...………..182...…………..D
CLL...…..W...…..171...………..189...…………..L
LL...…….B...…...171...………..178...…………..L
CLL...…..B...…...171...………..164...…………..D
LL...…….B...…...171...………..188...………….W
CLL...…..B...…...171...………..200...…………..L
LL...…….B...…...171...………..169...…………..L
CLL...…..W...…..171...………..186...…………..D
CLL...…..B...…...171...………..153...…………..D
LL...……W...…...171...………..188...…………..L
LL...……W...…...171...………..159...…………..L
LL...……W...…...171...………..153...…………..L
CLL...…..B...…...171...…….….172...……….....D
LL............B.........171................139..................W
LL...….….B...…..171...…….….214...……....….L
LL...……..B...…..171...………..173...……….….L
LL...…….W...…..171...………..166...…………..L
SL...……..B...…..171...………..167...…………..W
Overall this season for Battersea I have scored +7=12-13 for a grading performance of 164.
In season 2017-18 I scored +10=8-9 for a grading performance of 175.
CLL - Central London League; LL - London League; SL - Summer League
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