The Armstrong B’s quest for survival got a huge boost at the end of a tense afternoon’s play in Kildare yesterday.
There was bad news for us as we arrived at the venue – well in advance of the start time; a sure sign of a big match! – with the sight of Peter Cafolla milling around the venue. Nothing personal against Peter of course! But he duly slotted in on board 2, strengthening almost all of Curragh’s boards and having the added effect that our pre-match prep was out the window – Ross wasn’t down to play fellow junior Pádraig Hughes, Mariusz couldn’t renew acquaintances with and improve on his Enniscorthy draw with Martin Brehhov, while I had prepared for a Caro-Kann, and was unlikely to face one now. Ciarán was at least unaffected, having prepared for white on 6 only to find that, of course, he was black.
Still, as play got underway – with me still facing a Caro-Kann, luckily enough – it became clear both sides were very evenly matched. Past the two-hour mark, it looked like we might be just about shading it – Mariusz was winning material, but it was unclear how much, John was a pawn up but it was unclear if it was worth it, while Ross was material down but had a bit of an attack going. In fact, it was close on 3½ hours before the first result came in, and even then, to me on the other side of the room, it was unclear what the result actually was. John had stopped playing, that much was clear, but his opponent had two rooks and a bishop in at John’s king, which looked bad. But then I saw John had his opponent in check, which would be an unusual position to resign in! John reckoned his opponent had paid the penalty for pressing too hard, and fell victim to a counter-attack, giving John his first win of the season.
Ciarán stole a draw moments later; he’d looked under a lot of pressure with two rooks, a queen, a knight and bishop all pointed at his kingside defences, which were starting to look shaky. His opponent then allowed the light-squared bishop to get swapped off for a knight, and then temporarily sacced his other piece to get a pawn on f7 – but it turned out the pawn was too far advanced to survive, the attack was gone without the minor pieces and everything came off to leave K+6 each, which was immediately agreed a draw.
Around this stage, Mariusz’ opponent claimed a draw – he’d managed to squirm out of a couple of nasty pins to emerge just down two pieces for a rook, and he claimed a three-fold repetition. But after a bit of debate, it turned out that while Mariusz’ opponent’s position had repeated three times, his own had just repeated twice – Mariusz was trying to add to his two minutes on the clock to give himself time to find a winning plan. Play resumed, and the game reached a tricky-looking 2B+4 v R+4 ending.
Ross eventually lost after saccing most of his army – in his words, he “thought there might be a perpetual at the end…but there wasn’t”, though it was one of those positions which can look scary enough for your opponent until it peters out. But then Tim also pulled off a first win of the season, converting a QvR&B material advantage into a win against Curragh’s board 1, whose record coming into the match had been losses to Sam Collins and Alex Baburin, draws with Stephen Brady and David Fitzsimons, and wins over everyone else, including Karl McPhillips. Although his ICU rating is a mere 2050, based purely on 8/9 in the Heidenfeld last season, his FIDE rating is 2300, so this was an exceptional win for Tim! (In fact, his opponent’s ICU rating has already jumped almost 150 points based on his first 6 Armstrong games of the season)
Zdravko went down to Peter Cafolla, while Mariusz finally converted his position to leave us 3½-2½ ahead with two games remaining. Mihailo was in a losing R+3 v R+5 ending, while my opponent escaped from what seemed a lot pressure – though Fritz mostly shrugs it off, annoyingly! – to emerge with a rook, knight and pawn for a queen and took the chance to offer a draw; we were both into our final couple of minutes. A 4-4 draw would have been the minimum score we could reasonably settle for, but I figured I had little to lose, although my opponent’s knight pair were probably worth extra in time trouble, and played on. As it turned out, I had to play another 35 moves on my final two minutes (plus increments)! In time trouble, we both missed stuff – including, so far as I can see, a hanging rook from my opponent. Here’s a slightly harder to spot tactic though – white to play and win.
1. BxN+ KxB 2. Qe5+ Ke7 3. Qg5+ and 4. QxN wins. I knew I didn’t want to give up the dark-squared bishop because of the weak dark squares around my opponent’s king – and so missed the ideal time to cash in on those weaknesses. Irritatingly, two moves later, I completely overlooked that my opponent had just attacked the bishop, and while I lobbed the rook on to an open file, he swapped off the bishop and made my winning path a lot harder.
Beside me, Mihailo had somehow wangled his way to a probably drawn R+2 v R+3 ending, and two draws were looking quite possible. I then missed a free pawn before, finally, with my opponent tied down but sitting tight and refusing to creak, he moved a knight to fork my queen and a pawn, neglecting that this undefended one of his pawns – and I had finally broken through. With a more open board, my queen started creating havoc, splitting up black’s pieces and finally forking king and rook to prompt resignation.
By this stage, Mihailo had somehow wangled himself winning chances in a R+1 v R+2 ending, with his opponent increasingly showing signs of panic as the game slipped from his hands. Mihailo’s pawn was an outside passed pawn, supported by his king. His opponent had connected passed pawns supported from the front by his rook – but his king was confined to the first rank, and his own pawns were providing checking cover for Mihailo’s king. Possibly at this stage, he could have bailed out into a draw by saccing the rook on Mihailo’s pawn and pushing the two connected pawns, but instead he hung first one pawn, and then a second.
At this time, Zdravko noticed something, and had a quick word with the Curragh captain – the Curragh player’s flag had fallen, but the clock was still going and adding the 30 second increments – the only indication the game was over was a flag on the clockface. We couldn’t interfere with the game of course, and with Mihailo more than once going down to 0:00 before pressing his clock, there was a distinct chance of both flags falling and the game having to be declared a draw.
But finally, with queening unavoidable, Mihailo spotted the flag and called the win, having by now won the game on merit anyway. With the game having gone on for more than 4½ hours, victory was immediately followed by a request from Curragh to leave the building as we were in danger of being locked in!
So a massive win, which lifts us up to the heady heights of 9th – and 8th if we get a further point from the Balbriggan game. Curragh aren’t out of it yet – they’ve the easiest run-in by far, facing “only” mid-table teams Dublin, Dún Laoghaire and Bray, while between us, Phibsboro, Benildus B and Kilkenny have two matches against Elm Mount, two against St Benildus A, one against Trinity and one against Gonzaga.
Both us and Kilkenny play Elm Mount in the run-in; we also face Trinity while Kilkenny play our As before we finish with a potentially vital match against each other. Phibsboro play Dublin and Dún Laoghaire first, needing to rack up a few points ahead of a nasty final two rounds against Gonzaga and St Benildus A. With Baburin back for Kilkenny, it’s probably still slight odds against that we’ll stay up, but it’s also fair to say that 18 months ago, hoping to build on two successive narrow relegation Heidenfeld escapes, we never dreamed we could be in this position!