If you've watched high level chess and wondered 'Why do they draw all the time?' this next game of a high calibre shows why- My opponent in an Internet Chess Club Team event proves just why players draw so often as he takes no risks at all even when he has an advantage- his name Olivermx is a handle as people often dont give their real names on the ICC but play under pseudomins. The game is below:-

I have placed below in the box, two games, Martin Gawnes anihlation of myself(Alan Llewellyn) in a Cumbrian Online Rapidplay, Martin is a long time member of both Barrow and Ulverston clubs, here he gives me a lesson or two, him as white then black...

The Online County County Championships continued with Cumbria again winning their match, this time with 14 payers, so I got a game for the county and duely wo after only 3 minutes(of the over 2 hours possible) and eight moves, the moves where I was Black, David Cleak vs Alan Llewellyn, were 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4 c6 3.e3 g5!! 4.Bg3! [ive caught out a number of strong players with this if 4.Bxg5?? Qa5+ 5.c3 then 5...Qxg5]4...h5 5.h3 Ne4 6.Bh2 Qa5+ 7.c3 Qf5 8.Bxb8?? a terrible blunder, 8...Qxf2#. we won 7.5-6.5 in the end so it was close but they outgraded us by a bit

The Online County Championships between Englands county teams starte its qualifying rounds with a glitch in the computer system which brought the competition to an abrupt halt on the 13th June 2020 but after working out what went wrong Cumbrias match with somerset will be replayed on 1st August after a number of our players lost ie David Wright and Holden Davis who admitedly was playing Jack Rudd the somerset International Master on board 1 but neither game will count because of the disruption.

The 2nd round was held on the 20th June 2020 and many of Cumbrias players played for the ECF Marauders team due to the fact we had too many players against Hampshir, one of those was Martin Gawne who won his game It was quite remarkable that we actually went and won the match 10 - 2, a usefull start as we are in the Open section. A tougher prospect is in stall for the 4th July, in the shape of Worcestershire. A game is given below from my effort for ECF Marauders- after analysing the game on Chess.coms website I found i had a 92.3% accuracy rating which is good enough for any grandmaster. The game is very instructive as my opponent plays in an old fashioned coffee house style as if the Russian school of developing pieces had never happened, andI play in my Ultra Dynamic way which is about mainly developing with an attack and leaving full deveopment until the game direction is clear.

On the final day of Hampstead, I finished on 2.5/5 after losing to two up and coming juniors in the final two games.

On the 4th of June 2020 I (Alan Llewellyn) entered the Chess England Online Blitz Tournament and I finished joint 3rd in the open. beating a 1850 fide and drawing against a master level player. While on the 6th and 7th I entered the Hampstead Online Congress, in the under 1700 and under 135 ecf- after the first day, i am on 2.5/3 points in 2nd on my own. Below is some details and a game.

On the 2nd of June 2020 I (Alan Llewellyn) entered the Muswell Hill Rapidplay Online and finished 3rd (with 3/5) winning money. The deciding match of the tournament went against me, narrowly, the deciding momment is below but first there is a quick win from the first round just below.

This is a position from the Muswell Hill Rapidplay Round 1 on the 2/6/2020 between Alan Llewellyn and David Morgan I play the crippling 13.Nxf7!! he replied 13...Qxf7?? 14.Bh5 and the Queen is lost, probably best is 13...exf5 as 13...Kxf7?? 14.fxe6+ Kxe6 15.Bg4+ and if 13...Rh7 14.Bh5 creates too many threats against the trapped king for example 14...Rxf7 15 fxe6 Qxe6 16.Bxf7+ Qxf7 17.Rxf7 etc.

I couldn"t believe my luck here when I as white played the strong favourite Oliver Finnegan in the Muswell Hill Rapidplay on the same date as above round 5. He played the disasterous 28...e4?? and I was ready to get a winning advantage with the cunning reply 29.Rf4! you see now i am threating to play 30.Rh4# and there isnt much my opponent can do about it except ship material 29...g5 is probably the best way to do it but he plays 29...Be6? instead after 30.Rxe4!(renewing the threat of mate on Rh4) g5 31.Bxe6 d3 now if i had played the obvious move here I would have won namely the ultrasafe 32.Kf2 but instead I tried to be clever and thought 32.Bf5?? was winning outright because I thought I was renewing the mate threat this time with Re8# so I thought the Rook had to swap off but no he played the crushing 32...d2!! now if 33.Rd4 then 33...Re1+ 34.Kf2 d1=Q quite remarkeably defends the key d8 square from Rd8# mate and defends the Rook on e1 so I lose what I did play was 33.Rxe7 but after 33...d1=Q+ 34.Kf2 Qd2+ 35.Re2 Qf4+ black is well ahead and winning.

In the popular film the Luzhin Defence various positions are shown here is a synopsis on the chess shown in the film:-

The chess position they play for the final between Turati and Luzhin is already a winning position for Black (Luzhin), even though Black is down on material. By playing 1. Kg4 (as opposed to 1. Kf2) White walks into a forced checkmate with a rook sacrifice:

If White plays 1. Kf2 instead of 1. Kg4 this leads to a heavy material loss for White and an easy game for Black:

1. Kf2 Rxc3+
2. Ke1 Rxc1+

and Black is up by a rook.

In the film Luzhin's final moves were made by his fiancé. The tournament had been paused after Luzhin had a nervous breakdown which had been caused by extreme strain. On the same day he was going to get married he committed suicide by jumping from the hotel balcony. His fiancé later found a piece of paper inside his jacket where he had written down his intended final moves against Turati.

Luzhin vs. Unknown

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

Black to move

In Luzhin's previous game, on his way to the final, the film shows an inaccurate checkmating move. The scene shows White (Luzhin) play an apparently brilliant combination culminating in a queen sacrifice followed by Rd1-d8#.

However, White's rook on the d1 square is pinned against its king in the corner at h1 by Black's rook on c1, making the checkmate unplayable.

Nevertheless, Luzhin (White) is shown playing the illegal winning move to wild applause from the audience.

The sequence is as follows, Luzhin has just played his rook to e8 (check) although it is not clear if this was a capture or not. Play then continues:

1. ... Bf8
2. Rxf8+ Kxf8
3. Nf5+ Kg8
4. Qf8+ Kxf8
5. Rd8#

White's last move is illegal (see rules of chess).

In the film, the Black rook was erroneously placed on c1 instead of c2, where it was in the actual game this winning combination was played, making it legal, a famous win of Milan Vidmar over future world champion Max Euwe.

On the 28th May 2020 I entered the Chess England Blitz with a number of British Champions in theyre years and many top juniors and older ex-very strong players. I was leading after 5 of the 7 rounds with 4.5/5 and finished second to the young lad I drew with 5.5/7 score in the end. It was in the u1700 section, in the open section there was a grandmaster from Russia. The games are below:-

I (Alan Llewellyn) came 6th in the world famous Muswell Hill Rapidplay in the Open section with 3.5/6 drawing against the 160 grade champion. The level of play was tremendous but because I was playing juniors mainly but some of the top juniors in the country-my rapidplay knowledge and skill wa too mush for them. I was a 156 grade in rapidply after all. The games are below:-

I entered the Hampstead Congress and finished near last but the quality of the games was superb, and I did get one point through play, not a bye. I am entering again when it has a repeat billing on the weekend of the 6th and 7th of June 2020, when i should have been playing in the South Lakes Congress. Adam Raoof the organiser is very able and communicative and its just a great eperience all round playing with the conferencing system. The games from the tournament are here below:-

all issues with functionality have beeen addressed, now this site and my own chess site are all functional within any browser.

I, Alan Llewellyn, entered an online blitz tourney that used the tornelo system of video conference to keep an eye on cheats using a combination of camera and technology. It was called the Chess England Blitz and it had some strong club players in. I came 3rd on my own with 4.5/7 the games are below:-

I, Alan Llewellyn, entered the famous Golders Green Rapidplay Online event (due to covid it has moved to the excellent conference facility provided by Tornelo). It has sophisticated anti-cheating facilities and in the rapidplay i won 3/4 games with all the games given below, note i wasnt in the tourney proper but was providing filler games.. also note-I will be playing in the hampstead Online Congress on the 23rd may to 24th under the same system link here Hampstead Congress, Sat, 23rd May – Sun, 24th May | Tornelo . Although it takes a certain knowledge of computers to play under the tornelo system -it is still an excellent playing experience with video conferencing providing the human contact and sophisticated anti-cheating facilities which led to an alarm going off when i turned on a laptop running in the background AFTER the event had finished but i was still logged onto the system. Cheaters be aware you will be caught under this system. Like I said before it was nearly as good as entering an otb(over-the-board ie a physical event) and with only the entry fee to think about it was a cheap option.

Below is my round 5 of 6 rounds of the T84 Internet Chess Club Team 45 45 League. It is a league arranged into different divisions (I am in the under 1500 division). I am in the Gibson section of the League- the winner of Gibson and the 2 best of the second teams in all of the sections go through to a final along with the winners of the other 3 sections. I am in the team Fischer Kings and my opponent was in RedDeMate D team. He was lowly rated and I come out best but i almost throw away the win at the end not noticing my opponent had defended against my final attack. Luckily for me neither did my opponent realise he had defended because he blunders badly his last move. I will post tommorrow night with whether the team won i am first to play. Note i was banned from my last game for dissent but am forgiven now. We were outgraded badly and lost 3 - 1 against The Red Knights.

Below is a game well known from the height of the cold war between the western giant Bobby Fischer and the Riga Magician Mikhail Tal. Both went on to become World Champions and both are in my top 3 of all time with Garry Kasparov as well.

The game below has a spectacular ending play it right through, i wont spoil the result, the team was RedDeMate D we played and our team Fischer Kings drew the match 2 - 2. This was round 3 if you remember I won my game in round 2 and i did say the result because at the tie i didnt know it but it was a win for the Fischer Kings vs The Red Knights as our board 1 drew our board 2 lost, I won on board 3 and the game was awarded to our board 4 by default, so we won 2.5-1.5, we are doing well in this competition at the half way stage of the preliminaries.

I will explain one particular game in the tournament (mentionned below which was online) today 18th April(saturday)- i was playing Bill Hardwick and he played the London system and the game went 1 d4 Nf6 2 Bf4 c6 3 e3 g5!? 4 Bxg5?? Qa5+ 5 Nc3 Qxg5 so I was a bishop up after 5 moves and went a further piece up a few moves later when Bill hung a piece, now i was thinking this was going well for me when will he resign. Then i hung my queen for nothing, and thought i was going to lose probably then he hung the exchange so material was pretty even, then i hung a bishop but after i pinned his Queen to his King i won his queen back for a rook, so after all this i had a won endgame with a Bishop and 3 pawns vs 4 pawns, i then proceeded to fluff the endgame and he got a Queen won my bishop and it looked all over as he got a second queen but then when i was about to resign his flag dropped(electronically) and because i still had material left that could possibly win i won. All in 5 minutes each, hence to disasters on both sides.

This was particularly an unusual game for me in whats called Blitz play usually one mistake is all it takes. I went on to get a podium finish with a range of the stronger cumbrian players playing in the tournament making up 14 players in total. I came third and another barrow player played Robert Jones and finished with 16 points in 5th place. An ex player Dave Siddal did but he finished mid table despite him being an incredibly strong player over the board(ie physical chess). I won 8 games and lost 3 in the hour given with games near continuous and got 26 points, 2nd was neil jones with 8 wins and 1 loss(29 points), he whopped me in our game when i played the wrong openning move in a prepared line and got checkmated in 8 moves. I also lost 2 games vs the winner and organiser Paul Kelly, in the first we reached a drawn endgame but ater he offered me a draw i foolishly didnt accept and played for a win, a number of idiotic moves, by me, and great moves by him later i resigned totally lost. In the second loss to him i basically went into a long continuation and basically came out the other end a piece down and that was enough for him. Paul got 11 wins and was undefeated on 41 points.

A copy of an email sent out from the online cumbria chess club on the www.Chess.com site for a tournament to be held on saturday 18th April is given below:-

Saturday Morning 1 Hour Dash Tournament

Saturday 18th April - 11am - 12noon

Time Limit 5min

Arena Chess Tournament -

In an Arena, as soon as one game ends, you may opt to be paired again immediately, simply by tapping “Next Game.” You can join an Arena after it begins, and leave before it’s over — and then come back and play in it again, if you want to! However, please note, when an Arena is over, it’s OVER: All games end immediately when the Arena timer reaches 0:00. Then, when the dust settles, all that matters is who has the most points.

REGISTRATIONS FOR THIS TOURNAMENT OPENS AT 10am SATURDAY 18th APRIL - Go to the following link to register:

www.chess.com/live#r=183752

The tournament is open to all members of the Cumbria Chess Association Online Chess Club. To request free membership go to:

https://www.chess.com/club/cumbria-chess-association

Regards,

John Kelly

A further note the the book I reviewed about a week ago or two called 'The Chess Scene' by Alan Ruffle, he has been kind enough to award a prize of a copy to a deserving beginner/novice at my club who needs advice to improve. I immediately thought of Dave Martin who I hope wont be offended by being described as a novice but who needs the advice in the book more than many probably due to his late take up of the game in older life. The book in question i have read now the copy i have for dave in order to give a better review- and i was engrossed by it-it is a fabulous book with a deceptively easy to read style full of anecdotes and instructive info that any level of player would enjoy but a novice would find extremely good or a novice chess teacher.

In this weeks game in the internet chess club we play the red knights(our team being The Fischer Kings) and although i will update you with a result in due time-i played first against chessnutdale (note these are handles not names of course) and i demolished my opponent with a ton of sacrifices in spectacular fashion-possibly one of my best ever games(see below):-

I will be talking on here about a team event on the internet chess club played online with a 45 45 time control. Cheating is picked up by the iccs anti-cheatig methods so it is generally a fair game. week 1 s game is given below. i play for the Fischer Kings team and played against RedDeMate C possible the strongest team in our section. We got whopped 3 - 1 our french player got the only win on board 1, we have an american on board 2 and me a welshman on board 3 while there is a Canadian on board 4. My opponent was american and has had a stronger rating in the past.

I was sent an email by a chess author who wanted me to plug his book-I haven't read it but it seems interesting explaining the chess scene in Britain from the perspective of a beginner and giving hints how to improve- its called 'The Chess Scene' by Alan Ruffle, and it can be bought on Amazon for 14.99 cover price.

March 26th- the candidates has been postponed as the Russians have implemented a flights ban into Russia and the players had to get home before it was implemented. Thats the reason given though it must be a kick in the teeth of the Frenchman, Maxime Vegier-Legrave, who had rather suspiciously, just yesterday, spoilt the apple cart with a win against the now joint leader Nepomniachtchi.

Round 7-Candidates 2020- 25th March- table a bit below:-

in a battle between MVL as white against Nepo, as black, what was really a potential two pointer becuase of the importance between Nepo in first and MVL in second a point behind, MVL actually won which left the compeition wide open again with MVL and Nepo sharing the lead on 4.5/7 with in joint third places Giri, Grischuk ending drawn with the games Ding-Alekseenko and Caruana-Wang also drawn., all of those are on 3.5/7 points apart from Ding and Alekseenko on 2.5/7 who must be barring upsets out of the running now. The MVL-Nepo game is given below:-

Round 6-Candidates 2020- 23rd March-note/rest day tomorrow(24th March)

Pos	Player	Pld	W	D	L	Pts	MVL	DIN	GIR	GRI	ALE	NEP	WAN	CAR
1	Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA)	7	2	5	0	4½	—	1	½	½	½	1	½	½
2	Ding Liren (CHN)	7	1	2	3	2½	0	—	½	½	½	0	0	1
3	Anish Giri (NED)	7	1	4	1	3½	½	½	—	½	1	0	½	½
4	Alexander Grischuk (RUS)	7	0	6	0	3½	½	½	½	—	½	½	½	½
5	Kirill Alekseenko (RUS)	7	0	4	2	2½	½	½	0	½	—	½	½	0
6	Ian Nepomniachtchi (RUS)	7	3	3	1	4½	0	1	1	½	½	—	1	½
7	Wang Hao (CHN)	7	1	4	1	3½	½	1	½	½	½	0	—	½
8	Fabiano Caruana (USA)	7	1	4	1	3½	½	0	½	½	1	½	½	—

This round was full of edgy games i would recomend you went of chess24.com or a similar site and went through them. In the games Nepo took a full one point lead (4.5/6) winning against Ding, who was black- the game hinged on a back row mate threat and was very exciting. In the end position it was hard for me to see why Ding resigned as it was hard for Nepo to extragate both his King and etra piece but he would hae been with a lubering King in that case anyway against a lone rook. In the other decisive game Giri finally got a win, he has only lost one but drawn the rest until now-it was as black against Alekseenko who had a torrid time at the hands of the Dutch player(Giri) in a long game reaching 98 moves(the average game lasts 40 moves). MVL in second place on 3.5 points(after this round) drew as black againt Wang while the titanic struggle between the old enemies (Russias Grischuk as white vs USAs Fabio as black) ended also in an exciting draw where the American player offered a venus fly trap of a sacrifice leaving a piece en prie to be easily taken but there was an all to obvious trap to it when a Knight would block the Queen taking the piece in a death trap. Below is the position from Grischuk and Caruanas game:-

Round 5-Candidates 2020- 22nd March-the table of results is a bit above

All the games were drawn today but there was ascare for Fabiano but he recovered as black against Giri, Nepo won against Wang( the joint leader before this round, Nepo won as White) to take a half point lead in the competition on his own approaching the half way stage. And the other joint leader with Nepo and Wang going into this round could only draw ie MVL (as black) was in trouble against Alekseenko but recovered. The game I followed again had little altering from 0.00 estimation according to the computer but it was still an exciting game full of action and pitfalls for both sides which they both avoided with some skill. The game below is Alexander Grischuk vs Liren Ding.

Round 4-Candidates 2020- 21st March-the table of results is a bit above

today it was a case of all stand still after the lull of the rest day as all 4 matches ended drawn I watched Fabio in a titanic struggle with Nepo which never went much from a 0.00 estimation by the computer but that had plenty of action. I include the game immediately below this text. The other games were MVL vs Grischuk, Ding vs Giri and Wang vs Alekseenko.

Round 3-Candidates 2020- 19th March-the table of results is a bit above

note-the 20th ie tomorrow ie friday is a rest day- Today the 19th saw an upset of recent form in that off form Ding Liren won against the on-form Fabino Caruana the full game is given below. The other games were all drawn that is Giri vs MVL Grischuk vs Wang and Alekseenko vs Nepo. The leaders at this early stage are Wang, MVL and Nepo on 2 points and Caruana and Grischuk are on 1.5 points and the other three are on 1 point so no one is lagging and no one is steaming ahead.

Round 2-Candidates 2020- 18th March-the table of results is a bit above

Sorry corection to below Giri drew with Wang Hao so Wang is joint leader with Caruana and Nepo

from the same game as Diagram A nearing the final position. Again Maxime comes up with a great combination, 36 b7!! now i thought after 36...Bxb7 37 Ba5 played Ding resigned because after Bxd8 he loses a piece, but I thought the line for Ding would go 37...Nc6 38 Rxb7 Nxa5? when 39 Rxb8?? I thought it actual maybe drew for Ding to 39...Nxc4 40 Nxc4 Rxd3 he gets atleast three pawns for the piece but white is mating Black with 39 Rf7#!?

Round 1-Candidates 2020- 17th March

The results from the first round are a little below, all the matches were tight affairs, Maxime VL was struggling against one of the favourites Fabuana Caruana but held out for a draw. Ding Liren the other main favourite going on form had a disasterous start against his fellow Chinese candidate Wang Hao in a game which took a long time to take off. Giri looked like he may get a win against Nepo but Giri lost his way abit in the complications, and Grischuk and Alekseenko was also tight and ended in a draw. The move of the day undoubtedly was when Alekseenko offered a knight which was extremely cleverly offered as a sacrifice, taking it would have lost Alexander Grischuks queen. see below Above is the table for the Candidates tournament 2020 to decide who plays Magnus Carlsen for the World Championship i think later in the year. The coronavirus has had an effect but not stopped the event. The main effect that some that have heard of the event may spot is that Maxime Vachier-Legrave from France has been included this is because Radjabov has said he didnt want to play with the coronavirus-crisis. This is great news particularly for Fabiano Caruana who was otherwise facing a stacked deck of 4 Russians to 2 Westerners and it makes it a fair contest. I for one now will be cheering on Ding Liren who is one of the favourites, and he is from China, but now that the Russians have signalled they want a fair contest I dont mind who wins they all deserve their place. It starts 17th March and goes on until the 4th April, it is double round robin one game as white one as black, 14 games in all. I will give regular coverage to the event on this news page.

Chess Club Season (older seasons included below) (covid era)