World Under 16 Olympiad- Round 9 and 10

Round 9: Slovakia vs England
1. Christopher REPKA 2129 0.5-0.5 James HOLLAND 2204
2. Jergus PECHAC 1960 1-0 Craig WHITFIED 2010
3. Oliver SPACEK 1907 0.5-0.5 Henrik STEPANYAN 1956
4. Viktor HARING 1964 0-1 Peter BATCHELOR

Round 9 of 10 against a young Slovakian side promised to be a difficult match. Henrik was the first to finish, having played an interesting Tarrasch defence against the Slovak board 3. Actually, as he has done for most of the tournament Henrik got himself into a very nice position from the opening, but was overly worried about three white pieces circling around his king. Using up a lot of time, Henrik exchanged queens into an uncomfortable endgame which he drew using a three-fold repetition.

Craig suffered a bad defeat. Having prepared a main line Sveshnikov his opponent surprised him in the opening and Craig didn’t react in the best way. Having blocked his main source of play (the d5 square) it was left for his young (10 year old!) opponent to try to open the game up. White gave up a pawn to try and keep the position closed, but this extra pawn sadly trundled up the board and gave black the win.

Peter has grown in confidence through the course of the tournament, and played another fine positional game today. Having learnt all he knows from a Kasparov DVD a few days previously, he was happy to enter into a so called ‘Carlsbad’ structure, where he outplayed his opponent convincingly.

James tried something new against his opponent’s solid London System and clearly surprised him, quickly gaining a good position. However somewhere in the early middlegame James misplayed things, and his opponent managed to force black into a passive defensive position. James gave up a pawn to try and free himself, and in the end managed to hold what looked like a very difficult endgame.

So this draw leaves us in 17th place before the last round, tied with the Scottish on game points! We were hoping for a final round clash, but instead we have a downfloat to the UAE ‘B’ team. A good victory should push up towards the top 10. Let’s hope the boys can do it.

Round 10 England vs UAE ‘B’
1. James Holland 2204 1-0 Ali ABDULLA 1701
2. Craig WHITFIELD 2010 1-0 WFM Amna NOUMAN 1710
3. Henrik STEPANYAN 1956 1-0 Fareed AHMED 1711
4. Peter BATCHELOR 1-0 Ali Abdouli MAJED 1506

They did it! An absolutely superb effort in the final round saw us secure a 4-0 win. It didn’t look like happening though. Peter managed to win a nervy first game for us, but got his move order mixed up just out of the opening and could have lost a piece. Fortunately his opponent was playing too fast and missed it. Peter managed then to win a piece, only to expose his own king to a series of checks. Eventually they ran out and Peter mated his opponent.

Henrik was out shortly afterwards, having played what on the surface looked like a very a good positional game. However further investigation revealed a sequence of errors up to the end of the match. His opponent capitulated towards the end, eventually making the last mistake which allowed a nice tactical shot.

James played against a French Rubenstein variation, and his opponent seemed to allow James a pleasant advantage, with weakened black kingside pawns. Our board 1 remained patient, shuffling his pieces about but ceding the initiative to his opponent. Fortunately for us black decided in time trouble to blunder a rook and immediately resigned! I think James earnt a bit of luck for the way he played this tournament.

And that leaves us Craig, who, having obtained a small edge from the opening, almost immediately went into a complex ending. He probed away for what seemed like eternity before winning a pawn. However, in mutual time trouble he missed the opportunity to liquidate into a winning king and pawn endgame, leaving a (theoretically) drawn rook and pawn vs rook. But he continued to play, a good half an hour after every one else in the hall had finished. We missed lunch, but on he went! Eventually, on the 109th move his opponent resigned having missed a clever saving stalemate resource just a few moves earlier.

So this tremendous effort saw us finish 9th overall. Winners were Mr Kobalia and Russia, followed by Armenia and Iran, who edged out Azerbaijan on tie break for 3rd. The tournament, as ever was excellently run by the Turkish Chess Federation, and the boys seemed to enjoy themselves immensely (a good last round win helps!) Craig was very close to a board prize and picked up some valuable rating points, and the whole team chipped in at crucial moments with wins and draws. All is left is for me to go and bring our players down a peg or two with some table tennis lessons.