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The 4 Nations Chess League is
the most prestigious team chess event held in
the UK. The world’s best Grandmasters travel
from all over the globe to compete in the 4NCL.
The J4NCL weekends will be hosted
and sponsored by Puma
Hotels
Daventry Court.
The 4NCL provides FREE chess
tuition between rounds for all competitors. This
coaching will give you the chance to have your
games analysed by our leading masters and
professional coaches who will be on hand to
answer any questions.
2013/14 Entry form:
Word
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PDF
| J4NCL dates 2013/14 |
Weekend 1: 5th-6th October 2013
Weekend 2: 16th-17th November 2013
Weekend 3: 11th-12th January 2014
All of the players in
Beethoven’s Fifth made crucial contributions to
the team’s results for the weekend.
On paper, the Midland Monarchs
were the second strongest team, and it was a
great start when we beat them in the first
round. In the second round we faced Witney, a
team stronger in reality than their grades would
suggest. Fortunately for us, they had 6 team
members that they were cycling and one of their
stronger players was not playing in that round;
even so, we did not quite manage to beat them,
Alyssa outplaying her opponent throughout the
game but then missing some tactics which gave a
clear win, so having to settle for a draw.
The third round opponents were
Yateley Manor, a team that we outgraded
significantly on every board except board 4. It
all looked as if it was well in the bag on the
other boards, but unfortunately Vickie was
having a bad day (it happens to all of us) and
blundered to lose her game. So the team was
especially grateful for Aishwarya’s win on board
4, which meant the match was another win for the
team. End of Saturday, 5/6 match points, 2nd
place behind Gloucester Giants on 6/6 and
everything to play for on the Sunday.
On previous weekends, the
Beethoven’s Fifth team have done far better on
the Saturday than the Sunday. This has been in a
large part due to the “pool” system where with 8
teams, the top 2 from each pool play the other
top 2 on the second day.
For this last weekend of the
season, there were only 6 teams entered, so the
format was all-play-all. But as round 4
progressed, it started to look like the Sunday
jinx was continuing. While the players in the
Welsh Dragons team had quite low published ECF
grades (and/or WCU ratings), as is often the
case with stronger juniors, this clearly did not
give a fair representation of their current
playing ability.
Aishwarya was playing her best
friend Emily, and was winning comfortably, until
suddenly she lost. Alyssa was outplayed by her
fellow countryman on board 1 in the end game
after an equal opening and middle game. It was
not a complete rout, since Zoe played very
strong chess to win on board 3 and Vickie held
the draw on board 2 despite being two pawns
down.
Still, that left everything
hanging on the final game against the toughest
team in the competition, the overall winners,
the Gloucester Giants (“McLarens +1”). Only a
win would guarantee a trophy to add to the prize
money for the season. That would be second
place. A draw would give third or fourth place
depending on the exact results from the other
teams. A loss was almost certain to mean fourth
place on game points. Aishwarya hung on
heroically for a long time, but finally
succumbed to an on-form opponent 40 grading
points ahead of her and playing well above his
grade. Alyssa played a solid game to score a
draw against Charlie. Zoe managed to make it a
fantastic tournament performance of 5/5 with a
win against Harry. It was all down to Vickie.
The last game, still playing.
Dangers of being distracted by people crowding
round. She was a piece for a pawn up but much
lower on time. Well, she pulled the rabbit out
of the hat just when it was needed! Turning down
a draw, she managed to swap off queens and rooks
to get a winning end game while thinking in her
opponent’s time. At one point Tom had 20 minutes
to Vickie’s 6 minutes, but by the end when Tom,
in Zugzwang, resigned, both clocks showed about
2 to 3 minutes left (Fischer timings helped!)
- Andrew Varney
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