Summer event: Mini Rapid Trompowsky Tournament

Yesterday the club held a themed blitz tournament where all the games started with the position arising after the moves
1.  d4    Nf6
2.  Bg5  Ne4

This took most players off the beaten track and into very varied and unknown territory, and as a result many interesting games ensued.

Twelve members participated, and the event was held as an all-play-all blitz. Richard Webb won with an impressive 10/11, with Derek Johnson in second place with 8.5 and Ken Coates and Harrvey Duckers sharing third with 8.

Summer talk: Chess Puzzles

Yesterday Richard Webb gave a very entertaining talk, going through a number of endgame puzzles. The puzzles were all spectacular, often humorous and, of course, difficult to solve.

As a taster, here is one of the puzzles that Richard presented, a 1922 composition by Kubbel. White to play and win. Expand the “Spoiler” below to see the solution:

Spoiler

The main line of the solution is:

1 Nc6 in order to meet 1…a2 with 2 Nb4+
1 ….Kxc6
2 Bf6 threatening Bxd4, controlling the queening square a1
2 …. Kd5 if 2 …Kc5 3 Be7+ wins the a3 pawn
3 d3!! a2
4 c4+ Kc5
5 Kb7 a1=Q
6 Be7 amazingly, this is checkmate!

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Summer Mini Blitz Tournament

As part of our summer events Crowthorne Chess Club held a blitz tournament in the club room on Wednesday 10th July. With 10 club members playing, it was an all-play-all with a time rate of 3 minutes + 2 seconds increment per move.
The results were recorded using state-of-the-art technology (a whiteboard – see the image below). Colin came first with 8 points, Richard was second with Daniel (the only junior playing) third with an impressive 6 points.

Many thanks to Kim for providing the video