Essex v Sussex match Report

Wanstead House, Essex 30/11/2008

This was a crunch tie for both teams, both of us already losing to Kent recently. A second loss would be very damaging to any chance of making the final.
Things didn't start very well when a mix up resulted in Selina Johnson arriving too late to make the first round, Edward McCallum stepping up to play on board 8.
Sussex quickly took charge in the first round notching up two quick wins to set the pace. Jamie Stimpson made a welcome return to form notching up a fine win
with a co-ordinated attack against his opponents King. At this point the match was finely balanced and a 6 - 6 scoreline looked on the cards. We always looked
strong on the bottom 3 boards but a couple of the games on the top 3 boards started looking shaky. Nikhil had a hard game on Board 1 with Amy Hoare playing really
well to seize the initative. The pressure was starting to tell and a neat tactic won the exchange, tipping the balance in Sussex's favour. George Horan was a solid pawn up
on board two, but active play by Arthur Graham in the ending saw the spoils shared. We lost a little more ground when Edward Ballard was worn down by determined play
by Hannah Watkinson on board 9, who looks a little undergraded at 22 with the play I witnessed. Siddarrth and Edward Quilty won their games to make the score 3.5 - 4.5.
to Sussex. Johnathan Newby played a great game creating a monster of a supported passed pawn in the centre with a piece up to boot. Johnathan didn't have any trouble
finding the correct endgame technique to win the game and level the scores up at 4.5 - 4.5, it was turning out to be a very exciting first round of fighting chess.
William Swain always looked comfortable on board 11 and when the draw was agreed that made the score 5 - 5. With Nikhil losing on board 1 and Arjun winning on board 12
both stewards expected the tie to remain deadlocked 6 - 6 at half time. Arjun had quite a large advantage and this probably explained the slip that cost him a Rook.
It can be hard sometimes finishing off won games, even more so when your opponent makes life as hard as he can by keeping the game alive and not rolling over for you.
I think a lot of credit must go to the Sussex player on Board 12 who just kept finding moves to frustrate Arjun at every turn. What I was impressed with though was the way
Arjun composed himself despite the error, just taking a little time out to adjust himself to the new situation. Arjun was still winning but this little ritual was very good
to see in a young player and showed a bit of experience in hard fought tournament play. Arjun went on to win this game nicely with some strong endgame technique. Whilst this was
happening things were hotting up on board 1 and though Nikhil was the exchange down he had two very dominant knights in the centre of the board. He also had a time advantage
which is always good compensation to have when you are behind. Indeed Nikhil probably had a slight edge in effect because poor Amy had to watch out for 16 possible knight moves
that could suddenly spell disaster. The two players entered a desperate time scramble with Nikhil closing in on a mate but with very little time to do it in, each player just
played on sheer reaction until finally it was over, Stalemate, which I suppose was probably a fair result. That left Essex a point up going in to Round 2.

Round 2 was where it all went wrong for Sussex though that wasn't evident in the first 15 minutes of play. Funnily enough what Sussex experienced here was something that happened
to us last season against Kent and you come away not really knowing how it happened. Back to the action, James McCallum was having a bad day at the office and a poor opening
left him a piece down after about 5 moves, this was a shame because his play after this was very very good indeed and the Sussex player was having a hard time of it. However a piece
is a lot to give a player at this level and so it was to be, James went down and the score became 6 - 6 and I was a little worried. This thankfully was unfounded since Sussex just seemed
to hit the self-destruct button on virtually all of the remaining boards. It really was difficult to see where Sussex was going to get any points from, the Essex positions just seemed to
magically improve over a 15 minute spell. Nikhil Sanghani had a really powerfull Kingside attack going on that had ripped open the black defences. Walton was gradually outplaying
his opponent so was Siddarrth who was a pawn up in a Rook ending. Edward had a winning position as did Johnathan on board 10. Selina was in a spot of bother a piece down but was
making life hard for her opponent until a drastic error swung the game in our favour. A bad blunder handed Selina a nice advantage in a Rook ending with the opponents King
trapped in a bad position close to the edge. I was hoping that this may have alerted Selina to a mating possibilty, however, Selina spurned this for a two pawn advantage, which
still would have been enough until for some unexplained reason Selina played her Rook to a square where the Sussex player could check and pick up the Rook. To everyones amazement
this was missed by the Sussex player, probably a case of so called chess blindness, alas Selina also missed the trick again on her move and it was asking a lot for the Sussex player
to miss the trick a second time and he duly played the check, won the Rook and with it the game, a real shame for Selina as the win was there for the taking. This loss proved
to be our last defeat of the evening as we then won game after game from that point. Siddarrth's opponent had played the ending well to reach a drawn King and Pawn ending, I was
expecting the players to shake hands at any moment but Siddarrth decided to just check his opponent knew the correct drawing method. Perhaps due to tiredness the Sussex player misplayed
his King to the wrong square and Siddarrth converted the half to a full point. I am sure the Sussex player won't forget this ending ever again. Nikhil's pieces quickly followed into the
opponents Kingside, allowing a nice mate in 3. William Swain also overpowered his opponent on the King side with a nice Rook and Knight check mate in the corner of the board.
Jamie Stimpson lived a little dangerous at times allowing his opponent some tricks to win material, fortunately for us the combination was played incorrectly and the end seemed to
come quite quickly after that.

So all in all a nice win against Sussex who though were not at their strongest, certainly contained enough fire power to cause us problems. Our next match is at home to mighty Kent
and at least we go into this match now with a little bit of confidence that we can hold our own at this level.

ZONAL MATCHES

	Essex*	30.11.08		Sussex
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12	Nikhil Sanghani 76 Walton Charles 48 George Horan 41 Siddharth Chandrasekaran 35 Edward Quilty 34 Jamie Stimpson 42 James McCallum 32 Edward McCallum (r) / Selina Johnson 30 Edward Ballard 35 Jonathan Newby 22 William Swain 17 Arjun Takhar	½ 1 0 1 ½ 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 ½ 1 1 1	½ 0 1 0 ½ 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 ½ 0 0 0	Amy Hoare 67 Sean Lintott-White 56 Arthur Graham 24 William Graham 32 Alfie Brand 41 Robin Fells Joseph Willmott James Falvey 35 Hannah Watkinson 22 Henry Carter Alan Airlie 1 Morgan Blake

(Wanstead House)	6½ 10 5½ 2
Sussex had white in rd 1 Friendlies (Essex players)	16½ 7½

	Rory Johnson 39	1 1	0 0	Edward McCallum

Current Table

EAST	Essex	Kent	Sussex	Essex	Kent	Sussex	GP	MP
Essex		3	16½				19½	1
Kent	21		13				34	2
Sussex	7½	11					18½	0