Simultaneous display - Saturday 27th October

FIDE Master Steve Giddins is set to give a simultaneous display at Snodland United Church on Saturday 27th October, 2.45pm start. Steve will play up to 20 opponents, if you would like to play, please e-mail david_lettington@hotmail.com . There is a fee of three pounds to play. Spaces are limited, so get in early!

Anand set to become new World Champion

Vishy Anand takes a one point lead into the final round of the World Chess Championship. His only challenger is Boris Gelfand, who needs to win in the final round against tail-ender Alexander Morozevich, whilst hoping that Vishy loses to Hungarian Peter Leko. Anand fought extremely hard against Alexander Grischuk (picture left) in round 13 to hold a draw in a rook and pawn endgame that it looked like he might lose.

John extends B-league lead, David tops A-league

John Morgan scored a second consecutive win to extend his league in the B-league. David Lettington managed a win with the black pieces in a tense game with Bob Fenn (shown below). David Nicholls won his first game in the A-league against Neil Miners.

In the game below, David gets an advantage after 21. Nd3, which drops a pawn after the exchanges. Bob probably should have played 21. dxc6 before putting the knight on d3. However, Bob then played very aggressively and built huge pressure down the g-file. David played too passively and allowed Bob back into the game. Both players were quite short of time as the last few moves were played and Bob's attack couldn't quite break through. Instead of 44. Qh3, Bob could have forced a draw with 44. Bxh7 Kxh7 45. Rxg7+ Rxg7 46. Qh3+ Kg8 47. Qe6+ which forces a draw by repetition. A very exciting game.

John leads B-league

John Morgan (right) scored a win over Luke Chapman to take an early lead in the B-league, with 1.5 out of 2.

Games this week were as follows:

A-league:
Dean Thompson 0-1 Matt Bunn

B-league:
Luke Chapman 0-1 John Morgan
Malcolm Stokes 1-0 Arjun Toor
Tim Gazes 0-1 Ben Stokes
Jason Boyes 0-1 Neil Miners

Results from Crowborough Rapidplay

Three Snodland players competed in the Crowborough Rapidplay tournament on Sunday 23rd September. Games were limited to 30 minutes per player for the whole game, making a maximum of one hour's play per game; with six games in the day. Matt Bunn scored 3 out of 6, employing lots of experimental opening play against higher graded opponents. Bob Fenn scored an excellent win in the first round, forking his opponent's King and Queen. David Lettington scored 3.5 out of 6, including a win against a much higher graded opponent, which is given below.

White's twelfth move, e4, is a mistake, he seems to have missed the possibility of Ba6 after the exchanges. It is necessary to play 12.cxb5 or Re1 to maintain an equal game.

World Championship Results

After 3 rounds, the World Chess Championship is led jointly by Vladimir Kramnik and Viswanathan Anand, who played a tense game against each other in the third round.

Kramnik seems to be the in form player, playing a speculative knight sacrifice to create complications and beat Alexander Morozevich in round 2. Kramnik then seemed to have a slim chance of beating Anand with the black pieces after going a pawn up. However, Anand defended extremely well and managed to hold the draw.

Kramnik - Morozevich from round 2 is given below. White's 8th move is a novelty, but it's his 13th move, exd5!!, that simply allows his knight to be taken and steers the game into very complicated and unbalanced lines. Although Morozevich could possibly have saved a draw with 21...Qd5, it was nevertheless an impressive win from Kramnik.

FM Steve Giddins to give simul

Fide Master Steve Giddins has agreed to give a simultaneous display at the club at 2.45pm on Saturday 27th October. More details to follow.

Game results - 12th September 2007

There were some exciting games played this week, to kick off the new season.

Nick Allen and Matt Bunn were involved in the longest tussle of the evening, which came down to a tense Queen and pawn endgame with Matt a pawn up. Matt managed to convert his advantage into a win after a good fight from Nick.

Arjun Toor and John Morgan played a good game where John seemed to have a clear advantage but he slightly misread the position and Arjun managed to achieve a stalemate and so the game was drawn.

Matt Gazes tried and interesting idea in the opening against David Lettington, where he had open attacking lines towards but the black King, although this left him with two sets of doubled pawns.