English Chess Federation

4th European Union Youth Chess Championship U14, U12 & U10

Mureck, Austria, 8-17 August

Day Five

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Victor Jones is now leading the U12 section with 4½ points out of 5!

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8:57 a.m. Most of the Team Mates are in the coaching room. They have been up for an average of 0.2 hours. News from the outside world is starting to seep in – something about airports, flight delays or cancellations – so contingency plans are being mooted. How long will it take by train to London? Could we hire a bus? Where’s High Wycombe? Does anyone have to get back on Friday?

As if in sympathy, the weather has been a bit awry the last few days – a sign of the times no doubt. Torrential and incessant rain on Saturday with a real drop in temperature had all the RAs running for their warm clothes. But now the sun is back out, the rain has stopped and everyone feels a little warmer and more upbeat. Everywhere you go, you have to take the weather with you. Although there are a number of holes over Blackpool, Lancashire. Still, with indoor tennis courts available even the rain could not halt the real events here. Talking of tennis, there have been interesting developments in the last few hours: having thrashed the local postman before dawn last week, our hosts have thrown down the gauntlet to Polly’s RA and challenged him to a match. Because Mr Translator Franklin was not around we are not altogether sure who Mark will be playing against, and it also appears to be doubles, and is set for 6pm on Day 6. So Mr Chips has contacted The All England LTA to see if this would qualify as a Davies Cup match. If not, it will have to be assigned Local International Tennis Elite status only. But that is good news: what with the Team Mates coincidentally finding an international chess tournament happening nearby, all thoughts of Boggle have been put to one side and everyone is finally finding their feet in the right sport.

Round 5 (the chess bit):

The tension surrounding the Eng vs Eng match on Board 1 of the U12 section can be cut with a subtle knife. Almost no one seems affected. The paranoia and resultant security arrangements surrounding the coaching sessions in the morning seem a little over-zealous in retrospect, but necessary nonetheless. An exciting afternoon in prospect, at least it is if you care.

Team Mates start re-appearing after an hour and half with Samuel recording a straightforward win, but Daniel loses before Patrick comes out with the biggest smile you can imagine for a well won point! A downturn then as Ed and Sharan lose, and Callum turns the tables on his opponent – sadly for him, from a winning position to a not-winning position. Then an improvement: Joseph draws, as does Harry. Levaing only the Board 1 Eng vs Eng match and William Jones still playing. Victor ends up grinding down Saravanan and emerges victorious to take over the mantle of top U12 – at least for now! And finally, after a very lengthy game, William is defeated.

Overall then, a somewhat disappointing 5 out of a possible 11 points. The group slips just one point shy of an average 50% score over the 5 rounds to date. Everyone is determined to recover the lost ground over the back four…

The Team Mates’ results for Round 5:

The Team Mates’ results to date:

The game of the round:

The highlight of the round comes from Patrick Stevens’ match against the Austrian:

Handler, Lukas [AUT] - Stevens, Patrick [Eng]
EU Youth Championships U12, 13.08.2006

We join the game with Patrick playing the black side of a typical Kings Indian attack:

23.Rf1 Nh2! 24.g3 [24.Rh1 g4 picks up the white bishop] 24...fxg3 [24...Qh3! is stronger, with the threat of g4] 25.fxg3 Qxg3 26.Bh5+?? [26.Be1! turns the tables nicely, as the black queen has to move to a light square allowing a devastating discovered check. ] 26...Ke7 27.Rxf8 Rxf8 28.Be1 [28.Qg1! is the correct defence] 28...Qh3 29.Kd2 Nf3+ 30.Bxf3 Rxf3 31.Kc2 g4 32.Qd2 Bh6 33.Qe2 Re3 34.Qf2 g3 35.Qg1 Rf3! threatening Be3.... Despite the offside black knight white has no defence 36.Bd2 Bxd2 37.Kxd2 g2 38.Rc1 [38.Ne2 fails to 38...Rf1 39.Qxa7 Rxa1] 38...Rd3+ 39.Ke2 Qf3+ 40.Ke1 Rxc3 41.Rxc3 Qxc3+ 42.Ke2 Qxc4+ 43.Kf3 Qf1+ 0-1

The draw for Round 6 is out early but this time does not catch out the Master of the Sellotape. Everyone crowds round the pairings, and then get down to researching their opponents. Someone finds a poker baize, the cards come out and the real work begins. But huddled in the corner, Mr Chips and #27 are busy reviewing the pairings – it looks more Six Nations rugby than EU Youth Boggle! But even so, the draw is tough with Victor and Daniel in the U12 section taking on the first and second seeds respectively…

Pairings for Round 6:

And finally, for my young listeners…

Message from Prtrchess@hal.con on Sat, 6 May 2006 03:50:29 EDT

To: XXXXXXXXXXX
Subject: Market sensitive information

Hi

This is very, very confidential. At yesterday's meeting of the SLIME group my design for the new lorry livery was accepted!! See picture.

Cheers
Peter

***** End of Message *****

Interesting Fact #5:

Whilst ‘snail’ is an anagram of ‘nails’, they are not as hard as them.