The Bodley A and B teams continued their respective form in home games against rapidly improving Rathmines Juniors and Naomh Barróg last night. On a night when we had ten Bodley games going – with one of the matches reduced to 1:30 each by agreement – it was a bit strange that the first match finished was the one Armstrong tie of the night; John Gibson playing out a GM draw with Gonzaga’s Carl Jackson. The rest of the Armstrong play on Saturday; the recent dip in form hasn’t been too calamitous yet as teams below have failed to take advantage – we’re still in seventh, unless Dublin scored 5½ or more at home to Rathmines B in round 6.
The next four games finished were all for the As – Andrew lost early enough after hanging a piece, while sub Jamie Kearns drew praise from Rathmines manager Sam Osborne – a once familiar face on club nights! – for the way he finished off a rook ending, ruthlessly pushing his passed pawns home to promotion. Next, Tom Kearney – suffering with the same illness which meant brother Michael missed the game; a novel problem of having two brothers on the same team! – sacced a piece for three pawns to get in at his opponent’s king; when his opponent didn’t find the best defence, Tom finished clinically enough. 4½/5 for Tom this season, 2-1 to us. Dan Boland was next in, although I didn’t see what happened in his game at all, and when Paddy Power also lost later on, we were on the wrong end of a 3-2 defeat.
Meanwhile, the Bs were fairly level against their much higher-rated opponents – except for boards 5 and 2. On the former, sub Luke Hayden made his debut, but unfortunately seemed to drop a piece early on. There was all sorts of madness on 2 though, which from memory went like this –
M Manojlovic (Unr) v J Carroll (1122), Bodley Cup, 18 Jan ’12
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4!?
The Evans Gambit. Not that often seen at Bodley level, I’d say!
4. …BxP 5. c3 Ba5 6. d4 PxP 7. Qb3 d5?
7. … Qe7 or Qf6 is called for here, to defend f7. d5 ideas aren’t uncommon in some gambit lines (like the Bertin Gambit in the King’s Gambit); the idea is to give back some of the material gained to develop quicker. It doesn’t really work here though; it’s basically a free pawn, and with the knight on c6, it’s doubly dangerous for black.
8. PxP Qe7+? (D)
This looks natural – the king must move, forfeiting castling rights (9. Be3 is met with d3, winning the pinned piece). In actual fact, it’s the start of quite a ride for black!
9. Kd1
Mihailo and his dad disagreed on the best square for the king here. Zdravko reckoned on king safety on f1 and developing while hitting the queen with Ba3, Nd2 and Re1; Mihailo preferred Kd1, allowing the immediate threat of Re1 in addition to the problem of the hanging knight. After a minute’s thought, Fritz rates Kf1 0.17 better, but white has a clear advantage here either way (+3 or so).
9. … Ne5?
Again, looks natural, but is a mistake. After 10. NxN, the queen can’t take back because of the Re1 pin. Fritz suggests PxP here, giving up the knight as dead. That’s the kind of move you like to see it recommend for your opponent!
10. NxN PxP 11. Qb5+ Kd8 (D)
12. d6!
The bishop isn’t free; white’s knight is hanging now that the king has moved to d8. The text protects the knight, opens up a line for the bishop onto the weak f7 square, threatens to take the bishop on a5 AND hits the queen. What more can you ask of one move?
12. … Bg4+ 13. Kc2!
Actually stronger than NxB; black’s checks are going nowhere, and the knight is in too fine an attacking position to consider retreating. Instead of the bishop check, black could have tried 12. … QxP+, but 13. Ke2 is grand, and the threats of NxP+ with the family fork, or Rd1 pinning the queen are more than black can cope with. If he tries 13. … Qe7, then white has 14. Rd1+ Bd7 15. Bg5, bringing another two pieces into the attack, while all the threats on the previous move are still on as well. Not quite as strong – but still winning – would be 12. … QxP+ 13. Kc2 Bf5+ 14. Kb3 Qb6, when the queens come off. White’s still crushing though.
13. … Bf5+ 14. Kb3
The king looks weird in here, but it’s actually quite safe.
14. … a6?? 15. PxQ+ 1-0
Black must deal with the check, leaving him no time to take white’s queen. An unfortunate way to end a nice miniature, though black was lost anyway. If the queen goes to e6 or h4, there follows 15. NxP+ Kc8 16. Qe8+ Qd8 17. QxQ#. If 14. … PxP, then black’s position falls apart with checks – 15. NxP+ and there follows QxB+; which bishop is taken depends on which square the king moves to, and the other bishop will drop next move. 14. … QxP falls to NxP+, and the same family fork mentioned on move 13.
We were still well out-rated though; 300+ points on two of the other three boards. However, the points kept rolling in. Dan got a draw on board 1 – his opponent maybe offered a draw a bit early, but the pawn structure was the same on either side and major pieces were starting to come off. Odhrán got his pieces and pawns nicely stuck right into the heart of his opponent’s position, picked up a piece, traded everything off and was left with enough passed pawns to win comfortably, while Finn somehow managed to turn around a R+5 v R+6 ending into a won K+5 v K+5 to bring home a rather outrageous result against a side with three 1000+ players. Mihailo moves to 4½/5, Dan is on 4/5 while the McDonnells are inseparable on 3½/5 – a board prize somewhere on the team is looking increasingly likely, and the High Fives are in danger of becoming a Bodley B-only zone.
The table is now as follows –
The As have yet to play the sides in italics; the Bs have yet to face the sides in bold.
Inchicore beat Bray B 4-1, and are next up for the Bs in a massive top-of-the-table clash. The As, meanwhile, have a bye next round before coming up against a Naomh Barróg side who’ll surely be gunning for revenge.