A Finchley Cup Final classic goes to tie break, 7 March 2016

 

Matches between Wanstead first and second teams, which this match was, for this North Circular Chess League rapidplay knockout Cup competition, are renowned for being fiercely fought events. This match, extended from 4 to 7 boards played in front of the Finchley Cup raised on a pedestal of our 70^th birthday celebratory sets’ boxes, was no exception.

Chairman Ian, last to arrive, remarked on the tension in our club room as the assembled players awaited the arrival of the team captains to declare the teams, no-one being quite sure of which team they were playing for; friend or foe? As not unusual in extended board events there was an enforced team change when stalwart of this competition, Keith Jones, fell victim to a Mother’s Day family surprise.

Wanstead 3 reached the final with relative ease having been gifted a walkover at home by the fancied Barnet Elizabethans 2 who in the event could not raise a team and a home tie against Enfield 2 (Enfield being the only other club with two teams in the competition), winning 5½–2½. Wanstead 3 were even the designated home team for the Final!

Wanstead 4 in theory had a tougher ask. Fixture congestion in October led to a somewhat stronger team than had been intended turning out at Loughton to be faced with unexpectedly weakened opposition looking to avoid fixture congestion of their own, winning 6½–1½. A further away trip followed to face Enfield 1 with our fixture list requiring two team changes, winning 6–2.

Skippers, John Keehner and Mark Murrell, having liaised in advance of the match had divided the players into what they had thought were two teams differentiated in playing strength whilst nonetheless giving competitive pairings across all boards, with both captains playing for their respective teams. Ian Hunnable and Philip Staniland kept with the third team joining top seed Vladimir Parols and Peter Nickals and Charlton Siddo kept with the fourth team.

With the match invitation extended to the whole club (excluding the 8 Division A barred players) places 7 members made their first appearance in the Cup: Ben Harte, Arie Nieuwerf and Victor Fuller for team 3 and Alex Collyer, Sid Burns, Jim Slattery and Nigel White for team 4. With Keith unavailable, Paul Barclay returned to board 1 for the fourth team (his last appearance having been against Loughton) replacing skipper Mark, which on paper did not seem to upset the balance of the teams. Of course the players had other ideas and what a match it turned out to be.

Play got under away at 8:10 pm, with Wanstead 3 winning the toss. Arie Nieuwerf (6) opened the scoring for team 3 against Jim Slattery only for Sid Burns (5) to level the scores, using all his guile to set a poisoned pawn trap with a skewer of a minor piece against Ben Harte’s king. Victor Fuller (8) made full use of his penetrating knight on Nigel White’s 6^th rank to put team 3 back in the lead.

With the top four boards still in play it looked as though it was going to be a top board decider for the first leg. Philip Staniland (3) had lost material to Charlton Siddo falling victim to having to take his opponent’s touched piece whilst Ian Hunnable (2) had miscalculated  central pawn exchanges allowing Peter Nickals to win two pawns for that rarity of no positional compensation for Ian. Skipper John (4) was however ahead on time and on course to gain a second queen against Alex Collyer. The top board pairing was always going to be a drawn out affair with both players well accustomed to rapidplay encounters. The position to the casual observer looked well balanced though Paul Barclay (1) was creating a significant time advantage over Vladimir Parols.

Peter (2) and Charlton (3) duly converted their material advantages but then disaster struck for John (4) who had two queens to Alex’s one as he was mated trying to find a way to avoid perpetual checking from Alex’s sole queen. Alex was on the cusp of offering a draw when he spotted the mate with just 21 seconds left on his clock. Paul (1) making full use of his time advantage made it a clean sweep of the top 5 boards for team 4 to take a fully deserved 5-2 lead into the second leg. As is said elsewhere, Match On!

Play resumed at 9:20pm. Ben (5) quickly got his revenge gaining material in an open position to claw one back for team 3. It was not until 10pm (40 minutes into the leg) for normal service to be resumed with Ian (2) gaining the positional advantage over Peter and making it count whilst Charlton (3) was on the receiving end this time from Philip to level the match 5 all with four to play.

The resurgence was short lived as Jim (6) soon after converted against Arie, all four results reversing the first leg scores. With team 3 ahead on two of the remaining 3 boards (Victor (7) a queen and extra pawns v rook and John (4) having brought Alex’s king into the open) it looked once again to be down to the top board with Vladimir (1) trying to press with black against Paul but again was behind the clock. Vladimir elected to concentrate on his central pawn advance only for Paul to take to the wings creating a passed pawn which looked to be decisive as Vladimir’s flag fell taking team 4 clear once again by a 2 point margin. Victor (7) exchanged the major pieces to give a won ending and reduced the gap to 1.

It was left to Skipper John to bring the teams level at 7 all; a 5–2 reverse for team 4 in the second leg, taking the match to the tie-break. A spirited come back from Wanstead 3 but not quite enough. Full results appear below.

Bottom board elimination applied allowing Nigel to declare he won it for the team! In reality of course it was Paul Barclay with a 100% score who earned the proverbial winner’s medal for Wanstead 4 in their 7 – 5 victory on tie break.

Once again a Wanstead second team goes into the Club’s folklore maintaining a long tradition of inflicting first team upsets. A thoroughly entertaining match to watch, with no quarter given by either team.

Billed as a warm-up for our Club Rapidplay Championship on Saturday 19^th March it was a somewhat hotter affair, which has duly given notice to our Division A contenders in what should be a riveting championship. Entries are now being taken by controller, Ian Hunnable. Battles will no doubt resume on Saturday week……

Mark Murrell

Finchley Cup Final, Monday 7^th March at Wanstead House

Wanstead 3 had white on odd boards in the first leg.

134  Wanstead 3                                         115  Wanstead 4

169  Vladimir Parols       0 – 1    0 – 1         164   Paul Barclay

157  Ian Hunnable           0 – 1    1 – 0         140   Peter Nickals

157  Philip Staniland       0 – 1    1 – 0         140   Charlton Siddo

138  John Keehner          0 – 1    1 – 0         105e Alex Collyer

132s Ben Harte               0 – 1    1 – 0           97   Sid Burns

93  Arie Nieuwerf         1 – 0    0 – 1           80   Jim Slattery

91  Victor Fuller            1 – 0    1 – 0           78   Nigel White

        1^st Leg Score           2 – 5    5 – 2           2^nd  Leg Score

Match Score                 7 – 7             

Tie Break                     5 – 7                  (bottom board elimination)