Summer League – Round One

Making his Captaincy debut, Charlie takes us through his Team’s Round I Results from this week!

The Summer League Round I shone upon us on 26th June. With temperatures at highs of 28 degrees, there was a warm air of certainty around the Labour Club, and after such an inspirational weekend of drinking, frolics, quiz games, and lazy afternoons with the Espion Dutch Crowd, it was hard not to feel like you were on your Summer break! “A working holidayGM Keith Arkell responded to me, as he gleefully shook the hand of a wide-eyed and big-smiling 6 year old fan who offered him a game of chess.

What a week we have had! Thank you again John for driving on and pushing through a great weekend [writeup to follow next week!]. It has been an absolute pleasure to join Hammersmith Chess Club, and what an honour to be asked to lead the Hammer Heads into the abyss that is the Summer League 2018.

To the team then! I was lucky enough to have my first team selection made up of Brexit, Clueless, and “the Suit“, with myself making up the team on Board 4. I couldn’t have asked for an easier start to this captaincy business.

I didn’t get to see much of the game on Board 1, but attach the game below for you all to peruse. Jeremy was in a bad position early on against a really exciting line (IMO!) by Black. But through grit, determination and of course a bit of help, Jeremy pulled through and delivered the first win for the team.

1-0 up, and on to Board 2, where Clueless seemed lost! But then I realised he often pulls that face to lull his opponent into a false sense of security. So with a presented opportunity of a tactic (see move 13), John found a discovered attack which could have led to recapturing his lost pawn. Instead of recapturing the pawn (see move 14), John decided to push his pawn instead. Leading to more positional play the game looked decidedly drawish as they shook hands.

One and a half up, and it looked like this captaincy was pretty easy!

When I looked over to board 3 I got to see Matteo deliver a lovely check with his Queen that gave him a rook for free. His opponent smiled gracefully, “well played”, and they shook hands.

Although the early positional plays are unclear to me (my weak point, I know), the tactical finish was beautiful! Matteo gave me a win, smiled, and disappeared in the blink of the eye. Well played sir, and thank you for turning out.

Thank you to all of you for playing, and anyone else who is interested in playing some Summer League chess for the U150’s section please drop me an email: charliesturt2000@yahoo.co.uk, and I will try my best to fit you in.

Onto the last game. I would like to add that, due to all the distractions we have had of late, it was hard for me to put on my game face, but when Harry Morgan sat down opposite me all I needed to do was remember what we @Hammersmith Chess say via WhatsApp… “It’s Hammer Time!!

So I was in no mood to take the draw offered on move 39, but to be honest I was in a terrible position, so who knows what goes through my head sometimes!!

However, just like Jeremy I too voted “to leave” and although it seems to some that we may have put ourselves in a worse position (see move 41), maybe like Harry, Europe will also blunder (see move 43) and we will come out stronger for it.

Charlie.

If that’s not enough…

Continuing the excellent web-form of last season, the Summer League is again putting every game online each week for your perusal and enjoyment!

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