I always thought it would be dead easy to be an Italian poet; if you are Italian of course. I mean, everything rhymes already. However, it is maybe not so easy if you are an Italian poet writing in English. Mario, our newest team captain, does an excellent job in his recent match reports:
Cheddleton D v Crewe I
Towards the end game I made a blunder due to time pressure, thus wasting the advantage I had and became vulnerable… but I still managed to then corner the opponent and force a draw by perpetual check.
My opponent had still roughly half an hour left while I only had three minutes and, considering he was rating 120 more than me, drawing was my safest option.
Michael was down a piece when I first lurked by his board, but he retook the upper hand shortly after. And Peter had an elegant ending making his horse jump through the enemy pawns and eating them as if they were carrots.
We then won also our final battle, also known as the return journey: we had more speed cameras on that route than we had pieces on all our chessboard combined… luckily none flashed.
Crewe I then narrowly lost to Crewe H. The crucial game was the board one match between Tim Weston and Mario. Mario was looking very comfortable, but Tim unleashed a tactical storm and crashed through. As Mario describes it:
I mean, one thing is losing and another thing is losing while moving like an eel rolling on a razor edge.
Every chess player knows your pain, Mario.
This year there are just 5 teams in the NSDCA first division, and 3 of them are from Crewe Chess Club. A bad start for us, the A Team’s first match, against Holmes Chapel, has been cancelled twice already. Word on the street is that a new floor is being laid in their venue. The new floor has been specially designed, (possibly) with all the latest noise reduction technology, to help chess players concentrate the better. As you know, our St Mary’s venue already has brilliant, FIDE standard, flooring. Any potential new members are welcome to come and walk about on it a bit. We have not yet managed to get noise reduction technology fitted to the club secretary, but we are working on it.
Events took an even worse turn when Crewe A lost Crewe B. Or, the league got off to a great start when Crewe B beat Crewe A. Depends what side of the fence you sit on. My view is from the A Team side; not nice, like an unweeded garden that goes to seed, things rank and gross in nature posses it merely. Early on Harry lost a pawn to Dave L; maybe he could have got a draw, but he was outplayed in the ending too, and we were 1-0 down. I was “winning” after about 8 moves against Martin F, then staggered off a cliff in the tactical fog. Richard bagged a point on board 1 against Lee. I was confident Bart would win against Gee; he was an exchange up and was hogging all the space. Time waits for no Bart though, and with minutes left, he mucked things up.
Crewe B – 3: Crewe A -1.
Crewe A then had to play the reigning league champs, and deadly rivals, Alsager. Harry’s opponent went all in with a piece sac, but it did not work, Harry tidied up nicely to get us a point. Richard found it tough against Mr Blackburn, and had to resign. Bart got a useful draw on board 2. This meant I had to win my game. After playing the opening like a clown, I somehow finally managed to get to a winning position. Only problem was this had taken me ages and I was playing more on less on the incremeent. I was a bit mad at myself when I realised that suddenly I had given Alan, my opponent, a chance for perpetual check. I looked at him, he smiled and started to put his hand across the board, With a heavy heart I nodded and said “draw”. At this point he looked at me as though I had farted, and he quickly withdrew the hand. He clearly thought I was going to lose, somehow. Then, instead a going for the perpetual, he made the losing move himself. Not my best win ever, but it did mean we had won the match.
Early doors, but at the time of writing our 10 (yup, 10) league teams are still in it to win it.
Crewe B are the current league leaders.
Crewe D are killing it and are division 2 leaders.
Crewe F, are division 3 leaders.
Crewe H are ….go on,guess…… are division 4 leaders.
Stop press; Tim Weston has now won 7 out of 7 league games!