Welsh Chess Union -v- Ulster Chess Union

Earlier this year Andrew Hennessay of the Welsh Chess Union contacted Bernard McCaughey of the North Belfast Chess Club with a view to the Welsh taking on an Ulster team in a friendly match. Bernard immediately rose to the challenge and with the agreement of the Ulster Chess Union started to organise things from the Ulster end. As this was a new venture, details were deliberately left flexible, but the basic idea was to have at least 10 boards of 2000+ rated players and up to 10 additional boards. Both teams were permitted to include a few guest players.

Bernard used as the nucleus of his team his own club, North Belfast, the 2001 Ulster League and Cup champions. There was also a strong response from Ulster players now living in England. With two guest players from the Middlesex area, produced by Paul McKeown (formerly of Downpatrick and now the captain of the 4NCL Division 2 team Athaneum) the Ulster Chess Union was able to field a team of 15 capable of giving the Welsh a good contest. At short notice our team had to borrow a Welshman David Robinson after a late withdrawal.

Unfortunately three of the Ulster players missed their flight from Dublin and so missed the first round. In the spirit of a friendly match the Welsh did not claim these games by default but the Ulster team still went down to a 7.5 to 4.5 defeat in Round 1 on Saturday 27th October.

In Round 2 on the Sunday the Ulster team now had its full complement of players and with a particularly strong performance on the top boards, won Round 2 by 8.5 points to 6.5 - an excellent performance considering that our players were out-rated on 11 out of the 15 Boards. Overall Wales won by 14.0 to 13.0.

The good news is that everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and that a return match in Belfast next year is a real possibility. There is also talk of a triangular match (the third team being suggested is Scotland) at the same venue next year, but that is still very much at the idea stage.

An event like this does not run itself. There are many people to thank. This is how Tom Clarke expressed his thanks in an e-mail received by the Editor:

David Houston comfortably equalised out of the opening but then a mistake on his 25th move gave him some difficulties before eventually securing a draw.

Zeidler speculatively sacrifices a piece on move 8 but Houston calmly deals with everything thrown at him.

In this game my central pawns marched through with devastating power and forced the win of a piece for two pawns. Sadly it was marred by a time trouble blunder by my opponent but as Peter conceded after the game the end was nigh soon.

First played in M. Heidenfeld -v- T. Clarke, 0-1, Irish Championship 1996.

I honestly believe that 8.exf6 is a mistake because of 9...Qa5. Certainly previous theory shows that after 9...Qxg3 White has a very comfortable position and Black could do well to draw. However 9...Qa5 gives Black a vital tempo and forces White to consider various problems:-

1. It indirectly attacks c3 if White decides to take the poisoned pawn on g7.

2. Black can 0-0 safely after any defensive move by White e.g. 10.Bd2.

3. The immediate threat of losing a pawn by cxd4 and or Ne4 hitting f2, c3 and the White Queen on g3.

4. Black's easy advantage in development and last and by no means least...

5. Black's option to either open up the position with e6-e5 or close it with c5-c4.

Here is my own personal contribution on Board 8. Having drawn on the Saturday with the Black pieces (Slav Defence, 25 moves) I was keen to get stuck in to the star Welsh junior on the Sunday. Unfortunately I had been drinking the last of the Heronston Hotel's reserves of whisky (no 'e') minatures with Stephen Scannell, Tony Parker and Stephen Morgan until past 4 in the morning and the game was due to start at 8:30 in the morning. Jim Stevenson woke me up 4 times, the last time causing me to leap out of bed, jump under the shower and then, in a fit of ingratitude and inaccuracy, accuse him of stealing my toothpaste. Arriving 5 minutes late for the game I played 1.e4 (I wanted to get on with the game, therefore not 1.b3 or 1.d4 that some may falsely accuse me of having played at some time in the past). Then I went to breakfast. Replete, I returned to discover that my young opponent had played the obvious blunder 1...e6 (which I notice Tom Clarke claims to be a strong move !!!?). Deciding that my opponent had dramatically weakened his black square's I proceeded accordingly...

Obviously 11 ...Ng4 "threatening" 12...Ne3 was ineffective, my response being 12.Bb2, "Feel free!" Having played this Black compounded this inaccuracy with ...h5 and ...g6, seemingly with the aim of bolstering the Knight. Unfortunately, all these moves achieved were to weaken Black's Kingside Black squares (a common target for White to attack in the French Defence, particularly in the Winawer).

White had various plans to exploit Black's weaknesses, including the possibility of playing c4 on numerous occasions before it was played. I decided nevertheless to aim for Ba3 in order to hinder Black from castling or to beam down into the centre and towards his King. After this the game played itself fairly automatically.

I was convinced that I must be close to winning when I hit upon the plan of playing Nf3-d2-e4-f6 (or d6), particularly in combination with Bd3-e4xb7 removing one of the last defence for the Black squares

One moment of interest, which both players missed during the games, was that 29.g4 was a blunder allowing Black to draw instantly if he had played 30... Bc6!!