The all-conquering Guildford team in the Four Nations Chess League (4NCL) are winning match after match but their manager is already planning well ahead to the showdown with a fresh and dangerous challenger at the final league weekend in early May.
Guildford’s record unbeaten run, which stands at 70 wins and two draws stretching over more than six years, is threatened by promoted chesscom.Manx Liberty, whose squad are packed with seasoned grandmasters and bankrolled by a leading global chess website.
Guildford have been outscoring their opponents by wide margins, but not all the results will count. The 4NCL format is that after seven rounds, the original eight-team pools divide into championship and relegation sections. In the end-of-season matches Guildford and the other top three from Pool A will meet the top four from Pool B led by Manx. At the moment Guildford have a small game points advantage, which would decide the championship if Guildford v Manx ends 4-4.
Guildford’s mix of English and French GMs also have a rating edge but Manx’s core of Germans, who live and work on the Isle of Man, have been greatly strengthened by the Romanian, Polish and Hungarian GMs who used to compete for Trier until that team fell out with the Bundesliga and made the drastic decision to switch leagues. Manx began their 4NCL career in the third division but easily secured successive promotions.
Last month Guildford fielded the England No 1, Michael Adams, playing his first 4NCL game since May 2014, while last weekend the England No 5 Luke McShane, also appeared in a highly significant move. England’s Olympiad trio of Adams, Gawain Jones and Matthew Sadler were all registered with Guildford at the start of the season but McShane was not and was used as a wildcard.
Under 4NCL rules, wildcards automatically become registered players for later weekends, which suggests Guildford’s shrewd manager Roger Emerson takes the Manx threat seriously and is maximising his team strength.
Emerson could even introduce another wildcard at the penultimate weekend round on 16-17 March, followed by yet another in May. Sources say Guildford have already tried, so far without success, to enlist Hou Yifan, the world No 1 woman, who is studying at Oxford.
Hou scored 3.5/4 against 2400-rated opponents in the Bundesliga in November but has not yet played a public game in England during her time in Oxford. That will change on 6 March, when the Chinese legend will lead the university team in the annual match against Cambridge at London’s Royal Automobile Club. This is the longest running fixture in chess, first played in 1873 and with breaks only in war years.
Manx won a key match last weekend against Cheddleton to confirm their status as Guildford’s main rivals but have so far avoided wildcards. That could be due to ignorance of the small print in league rules, or more likely a conscious decision to settle for probable second place in 2018-19 and to delay the big challenge until 2019-20.
Jean-Pierre Le Roux v Jean-Luc Weller, Guildford v White Rose, 4NCL 2019
Black managed to self-trap his own queen in a peculiar way in a Guildford v White Rose game. Weller’s 5…Be4 looks odd compared with Bg6, but White only got an edge after move 10 when Re8 and e5 seems logical. The real disaster was 13…Nc3? (13…Qd2!) when Black suddenly found his queen trapped within White’s pawn wall.
1 d4 Nf6 2 Nf3 d5 3 c4 c6 4 Nbd2 Bf5 5 Nh4 Be4!? 6 e3 Nbd7 7 Be2 e6 8 O-O Bd6 9 g3 O-O 10 b3 h6?! 11 Nxe4 Nxe4 12 Bb2 Qa5 13 a3 Nc3? 14 Bxc3 Qxc3 15 c5 Be7 16 b4 a5 17 Qb1 Bxh4 18 gxh4 axb4? 19 Rc1 Qxa3 20 Rxa3 bxa3 21 Qxb7 Nf6 22 Bd3 Rfc8 23 Ra1 Rab8 24 Qa7 Ra8 25 Qb6 Rab8 26 Qa5 Ra8 27 Qc3 Rc7 28 Rxa3 Rxa3 29 Qxa3 Kf8 30 Qa8+ Ke7 31 Ba6 Ne8 32 Bc8 Nf6 33 Qb8 1-0
Alexander Grischuk v Simon Williams, chess.com Titled Tuesday 2019
Black had another chance to equalise when the premature 16 f4?! could have been met by Qb4+! and Black has no problems. After that, Russia’s elite GM showed his class as Grischuk infiltrated the weak squares around Black’s king before the decisive blow 37 Qh5!
1 e4 e6 2 Nf3 d5 3 Nc3 d4 4 Ne2 c5 5 Ng3 h5!? 6 Bc4 h4 7 Ne2 Nc6?! 8 d3 Be7 9 h3 Nf6 10 c3 a6 11 Bg5 Nd7 12 Bxe7 Qxe7 13 cxd4 cxd4 14 Rc1 Nde5 15 Nxe5 Nxe5 16 f4?! Nxc4?! 17 Rxc4 e5 18 fxe5 Qxe5 19 0-0 b5 20 Rxd4 Be6 21 Qd2 g5 22 a4 0-0 23 axb6 axb5 24 Rb4 Rfd8 25 Qe3 Rac8 26 d4 Qg7 27 Rxb5 f6 28 d5 Bd7 29 Rb6 Rf8 30 Nd4 Qe7 31 Ne6 Rf7 32 b4 Bxe6 33 Rxe6 Qxb4 34 Rexf6 Rg7 35 Qf3 Qd4+ 36 Kh1 Re8 37 Qh5! Qxe4 38 Rh6 Rh7 39 Rxh7 1-0
Chess.com, sponsors of the Manx team, run an online 10-round blitz tournament on the first Tuesday of every month for titled players. Over 400 entered the latest event won by GM Alexander Grischuk but the only English GMs competing were Gawain Jones and Simon Williams. Both scored 7/10, after Williams won his first five and met Grischuk in round six. Williams, the “Ginger GM” remained faithful to his trademark strategy of advancing Harry the h pawn but should have pushed on with 7…h3 since at h4 Harry is too static.
3606 1 g5+! Kh5 2 Qh7+ Kxg5 3 Qh4+ Kf5 4 Qh3+ Kg5 5 f4+ Kf6 6 Qh8+ and 7 Qxb2 skewers the black queen.