A couple of weeks ago we hosted our first ever team rapidplay night at the Albion. The teams were as follows:
Reti Rovers – Carsten, Ken, Ljubomir
Capablanca Crushers – Marios, Kaan, Nadim
Lasker Legends – Thomas, Pavel, Nick
Alekhine Athletic – Jay, Dipender
Each player played one 15-minute rapidplay game against a player from each other team. It was a hard-fought affair.
Reti Rovers 3 – 0 Capablanca Crushers
Carsten 1 – 0 Marios
Ken 1 – 0 Kaan
Ljubomir 1 – 0 Nadim
Lasker Legends 0.5 – 2.5 Alekhine Athletic
Pavel 0 – 1 Jay
Nick 0 – 1 Dipender
Bye 1/2 – 1/2 Bye
Reti Rovers 1.5 – 1.5 Alekhine Athletic
Carsten 1 – 0 Jay
Ljubomir 0 – 1 Dipender
Bye 1/2 – 1/2 Bye
Capablanca Crushers 2.5 – 0.5 Lasker Legends
Marios 1 – 0 Pavel
Nadim 1 – 0 Nick
Bye 1/2 – 1/2 Bye
Reti Rovers 0 – 3 Lasker Legends
Carsten 0 – 1 Thomas
Ken 0 – 1 Pavel
Kaan 0 – 1 Nick
Capablanca Crushers 1 – 2 Alekhine Athletic
Marios 1 – 0 Jay
Kaan 0 – 1 Nick
Nadim 0 – 1 Dipender
Alekhine Athletic emerged victorious, with Jay and Dipender dropping just half a match point, winning a tasty chocolate bar and an exciting card game. Player of the tournament was Dipender, scoring three wins out of three.
| Ath | Rov | Leg | Cru | MP | GP | |
| Alekhine Athletic | x | 1.5 | 2.5 | 2 | 2.5 | 6 |
| Reti Rovers | 1.5 | x | 0 | 3 | 1.5 | 4.5 |
| Lasker Legends | 0.5 | 3 | x | 0.5 | 1 | 4 |
| Capablanca Crushers | 1 | 0 | 2.5 | x | 1 | 3.5 |
After the success of the first training session of the summer, Carsten hosted our second session on Monday. He spent two hours going through a game that I lost in the summer league a few weeks ago:
He had clearly put a lot of preparation in, and I think everyone, especially me, learnt a lot.
Key Ideas
- Avoid playing very theoretical openings (e.g. Najdorf Sicilian). Your opponent only has to learn one variation, whereas you have to prepare for many
- In closed positions, look at which pawn breaks will improve your position and how best to prepare them
- Any pawn that can not be defended by another pawn is, by definition, a weak pawn. Look for these weaknesses and try to exploit them
- Everyone misses tactics from time to time. This is not the time to panic. Collect yourself and play the position
The next training session of the summer will be hosted by our chairman Bajrush on 7th August.
Finally please note the upcoming Monday 24th July session, originally planned for Cafe Nero, has been moved to the Albion after a poor showing from the regulars last time. See our schedule for full details of the summer programme.
Adam
I don’t think I actually said to avoid theoretical openings. I pointed out that they can be impractical for busy/lacy amateurs, mostly to put context to why both of you in this game played “system chess” and essentially ignored what the opponent did for the first 8-9 moves.
Quite a difficult game to work with, but because it was so different from the usual fare, gave us an opportunity to focus on some different aspects of the game.
Finally, a plea for submissions for the next one.
That should of course have been lazy, not frilly amateurs!