Final Four Nations League Weekend – Part two

The Four Nations League is a team tournament over three divisions, with over 850 players
registered to take part and over £10,000 in cash prizes on offer. It is the most prestigious
team chess event held in the United Kingdom. It is held over various weekends from
Oct to May 2013/14, in several venues (for the 2013/14 season).

Read the first part of this report on the 4NCL final weekend. We continue with part two...

Round ten

Division 1, Championship Pool: Keeping Up With the Joneses

Once again, all eyes were on the game points of the two big battalions, with Wood Green 1 still holding a minimal half (game) point lead at the start of the round. The Wood Green side, with fire on board two in the shape of Alexei Shirov, faced a Cheddleton side with three GMs and an average rating of 2418, while Guildford 1, now equipped with stylish, go-faster stripes on the top board in the shape of French GM va-va-Vachier-Lagrave, would probably hope to score more points against an e2e4.org.uk line-up averaging 2288 and with just the one GM.

Cheddleton 1½-6½ Wood Green 1: there were no full-point accidents this time but Wood Green conceded three draws to their opponents, with Jonathan Hawkins, now out of the norm hunt, holding Mickey Adams to a draw on top board. Alexei Shirov against English firebrand Simon Williams was a mouth-watering prospect and did not disappoint. After the game I was able to quench the fire on board by buying Alexei a pint of beer. He opted for Carlsberg but, when he saw my delicious pint of Tetley’s, rather wished he’d gone for that instead. It was perhaps his one false move of the afternoon.

Alexei Shirov (right, Wood Green 1) v Simon Williams (left, Cheddleton)

Guildford 1 8-0 e2e4.org.uk: with the score at 5-0 and three games left, Guildford 1 needed 2½/3 to ensure their game points tally put them ahead of Wood Green, thus providing them with draw odds for the final round. They went one (or rather, one half) better, scoring 3/3, with MVL beating Stuart Conquest, Antoaneta Stefanova winning against Rasa Norinkeviciute and Matthew Sadler outwitting Iliyan Mladenov in a tricky encounter.

Barbican 2 3½-4½ White Rose: this was a significant match for White Rose as it secured them third place in the league with a round to spare. Well done to them. Once again, they owed much to Sue Maroroa, who beat Natasha Regan on bottom board with a finish which was not unlike that of her husband in an adjoining room. I asked her about this but Sue was oblivious to her husband’s rooks versus queen denouement, so it was just a coincidence. Jim Plaskett has been informed.

Sue Maroroa (right, White Rose) v Natasha Regan (left, Barbican 2)

Grantham Sharks 1 2-6 Guildford 2: the extra firepower in the Guildford first team trickled down to Guildford 2, and Mark Hebden bounced back from his round nine loss to beat Sam Williams. Alberto Suarez Real took a giant stride towards his IM norm with a quick draw against Tom Rendle, the latter being happy to take the day off after suffering an Adams grind in round nine. I noticed afterwards that Aussie GM Dave Smerdon was having a good-natured whinge on Facebook about being allocated three Blacks over the weekend but he seemed to do pretty well as an All-Black, drawing very effectively with Simon Williams.

But there was a real calamity for Yang-Fan Zhou, whose GM norm chances waxed and waned a number of times in a game of four halves (I was never mathematically inclined). In the end he lost and the opportunity evaporated. However, the cloud had a silver lining as his opponent, Peter Roberson, had his own IM norm chances suitably enhanced. He showed good technique to finish the game off.

Yang-Fan Zhou (right, Guildford 2) v Peter Roberson (left, Grantham Sharks)

Division 1, Championship Pool after Round 10
Guildford 1 12(39½), Wood Green 1 12(38½), White Rose 8(24½), Cheddleton 5(20), Guildford 2 4(20½), Grantham Sharks 1 4(20), e2e4.org.uk 3(15), Barbican 2 0(14).

Division 1, Demotion Pool

Barbican 1 2-6 Blackthorne Russia: Barbican 1 had been leaders with a 100% score to date but their lead was cut to game points over Wood Green 2 after their heavy defeat at the hands of super-charged relegation-dodgers Blackthorne Russia, with their genuine Russian GM on board one beating Matthew Turner. Other full points were delivered by Andrew Ledger, Simon Ansell and Richard Bates.

3Cs 3½-4½ Wood Green 2: Wood Green 2 moved closer to the top of the division but 3Cs’s relegation worries became more serious after this nail-biting result. Stephen Gordon seemed to be pressing against Jon Speelman and may have let him off the hook at one point. Another 3Cs man, Adam Ashton, might have been better against Richard Pert but couldn’t convert. As compensation, 3Cs could look to Sophie Milliet’s somewhat fortunate point against Andrew Greet.

Jovanka Houska produced a brutal finish involving two knights.

Jovanka Houska (right, Wood Green 2) alongside team colleague and Scottish GM John Shaw

Grantham Sharks 2 3½-4½ Oxford: Grantham Sharks 2 came close to scoring their first match point of the season but it wasn’t to be as three of Oxford’s higher boards scored wins to put them two points ahead of the demotion places but still not safe. In truth, Oxford might have won by a more comfortable had Zoe Varney not spoilt a clear win against Claire Summerscale.

Cambridge University 1 6½-1½ King’s Head: the London pub team was also still seeking its first match point of the season after being beaten comfortably by Cambridge University 1. Despite the win, the university still found itself in the demotion zone going into their final match.

Division 1, Demotion Pool after Round 10
Barbican 1 10(31), Wood Green 2 10(28½), Blackthorne Russia 8(30½), Oxford 8(23), 3Cs 6(28½), Cambridge University 6(24½), Kings Head 0(11), Grantham Sharks 2 0(12½).

The prelude to the final round: dressed to kill

Whilst walking round the venue towards the end of Round 10 on the Sunday, I was surprised to come across the Guildford team manager, Roger Emerson, dressed in a Japanese kimono and carrying a samurai sword. Seeing me carrying my camera, he invited me to an impromptu photo session in a room upstairs from the main corridor.

Samurai warrior Roger Emerson

Thus it was I found myself in a large conference room, alone with a man carrying a dangerous weapon which he proceeded to draw from its scabbard. Had he been captain of the relentlessly unsuccessful Grantham 2 or King’s Head teams, still pointless after ten rounds of chess, I might have expected him to perform hara-kiri: a ritual Japanese suicide by disembowelment. However, this was clearly not the time for the highly successful Guildford captain to do so (a loss to Wood Green on the following day would be the appropriate time in his case). Roger must have seen my look of alarm so reassured me: “don’t worry, it’s completely blunt.”

The reason Roger was dressing up was his forthcoming address to his Guildford troops at a private dinner on the night before the show-down with Wood Green 1. I didn’t attend this dinner and am not privy to all of its secrets, but events the next day seem to indicate that it was every bit as successful as Henry V’s rallying of his troops before Agincourt. (Perhaps not the most apt parallel since two of Roger’s warriors were Frenchmen, but you get my drift.) Next day Roger explained to Malcolm Pein and me that he showed his players the film ‘Yojimbo’, directed by Kurosawa. I’m not familiar with that movie but apparently ‘A Fistful of Dollars’ was a westernised remake of it – which, in a roundabout way, hints at a more plausible motivation for his team’s performance on the morrow.

– Part three of John Saunders' report will follow soon –

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