Date: March 2, 1994

Junior tussle

Torquay Boys Grammar School played hosts for last week's match

 in the Bloodworth Junior Chess League against Exeter Juniors, supervised by Exeter coach Dave Regis and Torquay master Trevor Thynne. After some long struggles Exeter (Dr.Dave's Dynamos) were bemused to find themselves the losers to Trevor's Terrors by 4-0, but as both senior observers agreed, this by no means reflected the disparity in strength.

 Whoever reckons children these days can't concentrate should have watched these young people sweating it out over the evening. As it happened, the games finished in board order, with the top pairing taking over three hours to play. New Exeter recruit John Holland went down to a brisk central attack by Damien Scarr, although in the final position both players didn't realise it was checkmate! Then Robin Goldsworthy had a neat idea in the opening of running his g-pawn up the board, but fell into a deadly pin from a bishop on h5 that could no longer be driven away. Jeremy Hansell had a good-looking position at one stage and found a neat trick to win a pawn, but gradually went down in a long endgame. In an attempt to unsettle the position on top board, Torquay's Simon Wood spent some time threatening with his queen.

 Meanwhile, Exeter's Stefan Butterfield developed solidly and then won a piece with a deft three mover which began by hitting the errant queen with 14. Bc1! . Soon after he went a whole Rook up when he found a knight fork (26. Ne7+! ), but went almost immediately astray by missing a point in a series of exchanges. Simon didn't miss it, and when his opponent left a rook unprotected while trying to create counterplay spotted a queen fork which concluded the game and the match. Bloodworth League: Torquay Boys Grammar School vs. Exeter Juniors - Exeter players had White on odd boards and are named first. (1) Stefan Butterfield 0-1 Simon Wood; (2) Jeremy Hansell 0-1 Ian van Delft; (3) Robin Goldsworthy 0-1 Scott Richards; (4) John Holland 0-1 Damien Scarr.

 Here is the board one game: your correspondent recognises he didn't play that well at their age! I found some alternative lines at home, but, apart from a couple of mistakes in calculation, both players obviously found a lot of what was going on in the game.

Stefan Butterfield (Exeter Juniors) 0-1 Simon Wood (TBGS). 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. Bd3 (4. c4 is fashionable) c5 5. Be3 Qb6!? 6. dxc5 Qxb2 7. Nd2 Nf6 8. Nb3 Nc6 9. Nf3 Bg4 10. O-O Be7 11. h3 Bh5 12. Re1 O-O 13. Bb5! Qa3 14. Bc1! Qb4 15. Bxc6 bxc6 16. Rxe7 Rfe8 17. Re3 Rad8 18. Qd4 Qb8 19. Bd2 Re4 20. Qd3 Bg6 21. Qe2 Bh5 22. Nbd4 Qb2 (Black might have been better risking 22... Rxd4 since after 23. g4 Nxg4 24. hxg4 Rxg4+ 25. Kf1 White's King looks very loose) 23. Bc3 Qa3 24. Nxc6 Rc8 25. Bxf6 gxf6 DIAGRAM 26. Ne7+! Rxe7 27. Rxe7 Rxc5 28. g4 Bg6 29. Rb1 Rxc2 30. Rb8+ Kg7 31. Qe3 Rc3 32. Rb3 Rxe3 33. Rexe3 (Stefan had anticipated 33. Rxa3 but clearly missed 33...Re3xa3) Qxa2 34. Ra3 Qb1+ 35. Kg2 Qb7 36. Nd4 Qd7 37. f4 f5 38. Rg3 fxg4 39. Rxg4 (39. hxg4 Be4+ 40. Kf2 Qc7) 39... h5 40. Rgg3 Kh6 41. Ra6 Kh7 42. Rf6 (Risky, but 42. Rg5 Qb7 43. Ra2 Qb4 is tough to swallow) 42... Qb7 43. Nf3? Qb2+ 44. Kg1 Qxf6 45. Ng5+ Kh8 46. Rf3 Be4 47. Rf2 0-1

---

Back to Exeter Chess Club home page

Dr. Dave

---

Back to Chess Coaching Page

This document (ECC\eccp5.html) was last modified on 13 Aug 2005 by

Dr. Dave