Shrewsbury B team’s tough start to the season continued against Newport B.  It looked finely balanced on paper.  On board 1, Ile was Black against Chris Lewis which started with a Modern opening but, as usual with Ile’s games, quickly found its own path.  My own game on board 2, with White against Danny Griffiths, saw another Modern but this quickly settled on the path of a more conventional Pirc.  Board 3 saw Ian with the Black pieces playing his favourite French defence against Stuart Ross and the game looked complex and sharp.  Norman, on board 4, had White against Chris Paul.  Norman opened with 1.c4 followed by an early…

Shrewsbury B faced a tough challenge in their opening game of the season vs Church Stretton A.  Church Stretton reformed as a club in the close season and I’m sure we all wish them well.  We were somewhat weakened by a change of rota which made Ile unavailable; indeed we started the evening unsure if we might have to default a board as I’d had an issue with my email and was unsure whether to expect Heath or not.  We started with just four boards with Tony on board 4.  Fifteen minutes later, Ivor arrived whom I had thought unavailable.  After some discussion, during which I offered to default the…

This season there don’t seem to be any easy looking matches on offer in the first division.  Our first two matches held the potential to offer us something, but both Priorslee Lions A and Wellington A can pack a punch on their night. Indeed, Wellington had already won their first match against Telford A by the margin of 4½ – ½. Priorslee Lions David Everington had the toughest task, playing on our board 1 for both matches.  David said after the Priorslee match that Adrian Zdanowski deserved to win, having won the last couple of encounters previously himself. On the bottom two boards, Matt Best and Mark Smith both seemed to…

The A team’s last fixture of the season was at Priorslee on Monday 27th March.  As this occurred after the last B Team’s match, we could afford to have a free run of all our players – subject to availability, of course.  On top board, David Everington faced Adrian Zdanowski, who essayed the Grünfeld against David’s 1.d4.  David played one of his pet lines, combining 4.Bf4 with 5.Qa4+.  Adrian failed to respond optimally and David was quickly pressing out of the opening.  In order to try relieving some of this pressure, Adrian gave up his Queen for a Rook and Knight, although he remained two Pawns down and had an…

Last Friday saw our penultimate fixture of the season take place against one of the division title contenders, Telepost A.  Last time we had just lost out to Newport A, Telepost’s chief rivals; a result that could easily have been reversed, had things just gone slightly better on the night.  Could we do better against Telepost? The first game of the evening to finish was board 5, Matthew Clark for Telepost versus Ivor Salter for Shrewsbury.  The game started with a Scandinavian, Matthew playing 3.Bb5+ and Ivor defending with 3…Nbd7, a line I also quite like (check out my annotations to Everington v Best in the Interesting Games section).  Ivor…

As one of the strongest teams in the Shropshire league, we knew that Newport A would provide Shrewsbury A with a stern test last Thursday.  However, we have often punched above our weight in the league and, without the relegation pressure of last season, we were determined to enjoy the chess and give the match our best shot.  Having used our “dual purpose” players exactly 4 times previously, we knew that any such players we played in this match would be ineligible for any remaining B team matches.  Good job we’re nearing the end of the season! We had the services of Ivor to bolster our numbers and, indeed, he…

Shrewsbury B team kept the pressure on their promotion rivals by beating Telepost B on Monday night. The evening got off to a chilly start in a room that felt colder to me than it was outside; definitely “coats on” conditions! Perhaps it was not so surprising then that the action included some fairly quick draws.  First to finish was Ile on board 2, who had Black against Keith Tabner.  The game began with the moves 1.d4 Nf6  2. c4  d5 which is quite unusual; a favourite of Frank Marshall, I believe.  A non-standard position arose, in which Ile had plenty of activity and a draw was agreed. Matters on…

Storm Doris did not deter the enthusiasm on a cold, wet night heading for Newport to play their juniors.   We knew they were only fielding four players; one junior had jetted off on a holiday in the sun (who could blame him?)  With one default, it was agreed that the two juniors, Heath and Zak, should play each other. Zak started and played the London and was met with the Dutch Defence that cut the use of the White square Bishop.  Heath won: two up.  On board three, Peter was having a tight game with Ed Xu. The right calculation in the middle game gave him a won position: three up.…

The last two A team fixtures were important, on the basis that a good showing would more or less guarantee our survival in the first division.  Of course, this was looking pretty likely anyway, as one relegation slot had been filled by Church Stretton’s demise and Newport B have been struggling this season, and look more than likely to occupy the other place at the bottom of the table. First of all, we had the away fixture against Oswestry A.  Oswestry are a tough team; we had held the draw at the home fixture, although Oswestry had been missing Brian Whyte on that occasion and I suspected that this would…

Shrewsbury B team had their work cut out against Telford A last Friday.  Although Telford were missing a couple of their stronger players in Mark Keady and Munroe Morrison, George Kolbusz was available, which he hadn’t been in the reverse fixture.  The evening began with some hilarity over whether or not Wellington A were already promoted or not.  Apparently not, strictly speaking, as they could in theory default points, or, as Dave Gostelow pointed out, there could be an earthquake! Anyway onto the chess!  In light of my recent performances and trying to take a rational view of my play, I have come to the conclusion that I am spending…