Crowthorne went into Weekend four of the 4NCL season, played over 13-14 April, with a weakened team because of holidays and clashes with other events. The first team was missing Ken and Richard, and unfortunately it was not possible to raise a second for the weekend – the 4NCL was notified well in advance of this so that Crowthorne 2 was not included in the pairings. We expect to reinstate the second team for the final weekend (4-6 May).

Fears that Crowthorne 1 would lose top place in Div 4 were unfounded, as the Saturday game saw them beat their closest rivals, Watford 1. It seems that Watford also had problems getting their strongest team out, and in the event Crowthorne outgraded them. Paul Cooksey, Peter Tart and John Upham won their games, with Harvey Duckers, Mark Cross and Colin Purdon (somehow) drawing theirs:

In the Sunday Game, round 8, Crowthorne was paired against Wessex B … and were again successful! Paul and Peter both made it 2/2 for the weekend, with Harvey also winning. Colin drew, and Mark and John lost to substantially higher-rated opponents:

This leaves Crowthorne with a healthy lead at the top of Division 4, but with a number of teams still able to overtake us in the three rounds of the final weekend:

Full results tables etc can be found at the 4NCL web site

Andrew Kirby had a nice win for Crowthorne 2 on Saturday game, in the match against All Anands on Deck. He played the active Scandinavian Defence, and produced a fine temporary pawn sacrifice in order to activate his pieces:

Many thanks to Ken Coates, the Crowthorne 4NCL squad captain, for providing the following report on this season’s weekend 3.

With 6 rounds completed and 5 remaining Crowthorne 1 head the table following 2 wins at the weekend.
On Saturday Crowthorne eased to a 4½-1½ win against Warwickshire Select 2 setting up a top of the table clash with Ashfield 1.
Round 5 had seen Ashfield 1 beat Watford 1 leaving Ashfield as the only team on maximum points.
Paul had to jet off on the Sunday to work in the USA this week and despite losing him and being out graded we eventually won a closely contested match.

Richard won and nicely controlled game by gaining a positional edge early on but needed care and patience to convert for the win.
My game proved a complex struggle in which both players thought they held the advantage but my opponent played a few “sub optimal” moves under time pressure and his position collapsed.
Colin’s opponent sacrificed a piece unsoundly leaving Colin to convert two knights and several pawns against a bishop and less pawns.
Harvey’s game was a close struggle and difficult for me to assess what was going on (like most of Harvey’s games it feels) but he emerged with advantage and was able to convert the ending.
Peter, first  to finish, had a solid game for once and was never worse as any point perhaps having a slight advantage until a draw was agreed after almost 4 hours.
Despite being heavily out graded Mark might even have been better at points in his game and was unfortunate to eventually lose a long game.

The top of the division 4 South table now looks like:

The full table can be found on the 4NCL web site.

The second team drew their Saturday match when their opponents defaulted bottom board but could so easily have won as James had a very good position but ended up losing.
Andrew had a good win efficiently catching his opponent’s king in the centre of the board.
John drew a competitive game which promised the full point for much of the match.
Christine won by default and because the other team did not declare the default in advance they were penalised a further point. Effectively Christine won 2 points for the team!!
Mark and Scott went down to much stronger opponents.

The Sunday saw Crowthorne 2 lose to a significantly stronger team – “Throw in the Tal”. However I must mention Kim Shek’s result:

To concede almost 500 points and draw is a phenomenal achievement and with the black pieces!!

The next weekend is 13-14 April in Daventry again and sees Crowthorne 1 heading the division with Crowthorne 2 comfortably mid table.

In addition to Richard’s game seen in the previous post, there were a number of interesting games and positions from the recent 4NCL weekend. Here are two examples, starting with Panos’ nice combinational win with the Black pieces in Round 4:

Also in Round 4, Harvey (with Black) found a nice finish:

Rounds 3 and 4 of the 4NCL took place over the weekend of 12-13 January in Bedford, with the two Crowthorne teams in action in Division 4s.

Crowthorne 1 got off to a shaky start, drawing 3-3 against Throw in the Tal despite outgrading them by an average of 180 Elo (around 25 ECF) per board. In some games the results could have gone either way, and the final result by no means flattered Throw in the Tal. It was better news for Crowthorne 1 in the second game of the weekend, beating All Anands on Deck by 4.5-1.5, hence gaining clear third place on 7 points (out of 8) behind Ashfield 1 and Watford 1.

Crowthorne 2 fared even better, winning both matches against Barnet Knights 3 4-2 on Saturday and Rook & Roll 4.5-1.5 on Sunday despite being outgraded in the latter match. These results mean that they jump 9 places to 23rd (out of 38).

Richard Webb’s Saturday game had an amusing finish – Richard was Black against David Ireland:

The complete division 4 South cross-table can be found on the 4NCL web site here – just click the items in the cross-table to see the individual match results.

Crowthorne’s 4NCL team had mixed results in this weekend’s (24-25 March) matches in Division 4 South.

We started well on Saturday, beating Oxford 3 with a score of 4-2, but came a cropper on Sunday, managing to lose 3.3-2.5 to Iceni 2 – despite outgrading them by an average of 224 points (Elo, about 30 ECF). Well played by the Iceni team, who all seemed to find the right moves at the critical points.

I hope to post one or more games from the weekend in due course.

Despite this setback, Crowthorne are still well in the promotion battle, lying in 3rd= position and only two match points behind the leaders (Iceni 2!). The final weekend over the Bank Holiday weekend 5-7 May will be interesting!

This season, Crowthorne entered a team in the 4NCL (4 Nations Chess League), our first entry into this competition.

With weekend three just finished, we are just over halfway through the season. Crowthorne is vying for promotion and we are currently well-placed with 10 match points, just one point behind the leaders Oxford 3 and CSC 2. The 4NCL gives an excellent opportunity for juniors to play “serious” chess, and James Love and/or Andrew Kirby have played every weekend when available. Our star performer to date is Peter Tart, with a remarkable 5.5/6!

Here is the Division 4 South table after Weekend Three – just click the match in the crosstable to see the individual results.