CCC

The Whitaker Cup is an elimination team tournament with match point handicap. The rules of the tournament and the points handicap system can be found on the Cumbria Chess Association web site. Eight Cumbrian teams are playing this season.

The first round was played against Penrith, on 31st October 2009. The two teams had almost the same averaged grade, therefore there was no handicap. Unfortunately, our team lost on the score of 1-3 and is therefore eliminated from the Whitaker cup tournament in the first round for the second year in succession.

First game to finish on board 2 was Roger Hart playing Black against Dave McMath. The game was looking equal for a long time until Dave spotted few weak squares in Roger's king side. After the white pieces were positioned to take advantage of these weaknesses, Roger resigned in view of a forthcoming checkmate.

On board 4, Peter Hornak developed some nice tactics that gave him a decisive material advantage, and later on a won game. Once again, Peter showed the extent of his resources in chess.

At that stage board 1 and 3 had to win 1.5 points to secure a win for the team. On board 3, Philippe Gleizon lost a pawn in the opening. We could call that a gambit as he got a better developed position, but as the game was progressing his development advantage was fading away although he was putting a good effort to try to regain his pawn. The first board was looking unclear, therefore Philippe tried to raised his chances and exchanged his knight against two pawns in a desperate attempt to get an unbalanced position and a pawn majority, but after the rook exchanged, Andy McAtear's extra knight proved his superiority.

Being already down 1-2, the team had already lost. However, David Jarmany put a good show against Robert Patla. He ended with a superior position in the middlegame having a space advantage and slightly more active pieces. However Robert managed to invade David's back rank with a rook and a bishop. Both players were short on time but Robert got the initiative in trying to catch David's king. David's position was solid enough to secure a draw, but maybe due to a combination of time pressure and tiredness, he put his king on the wrong square allowing Robert to pin his rook with a bishop. He resigned few moves later.

Overall it was a disappointing team result for a promising match. There is always next year...