Match Results

A-Team PerformancesRatingAve BoardPlayedWonDrawnLostDefault
Wins
%
Andrew P Lewis23501.08521075.0
Panagiotis Kanellopoulos22542.06401180.0
Phillip J Hutchings19212.88332056.3
Bob Stephens17333.0100100.0
Rowland Kerr18534.04112037.5
Simon Webber17094.02011025.0
John McAllister16434.02101050.0
Graeme Jones17184.73111050.0
TOTALS3415810157.6
Performance stats for all Competitions

DIVISION ONE
PWDLPoints
1Bury St Edmunds A641118
2Manningtree A732216½
3Ipswich A833216
4Saxmundham A731312½
5Felixstowe A81169
Full Table

 Manningtree A20/03/21Bury St Edmunds A
1Lewis, Andrew P23500 - 1Jermy, Jaden2200
2Kanellopoulos, Panagiotis22540 - 1Le-Vine, Mark R2048
3Hutchings, Philip J1921½ - ½Balogh, Jan1965
4Kerr, Rowland18530 - 1Ruthen, Stephen W1904
   ½ - 3½
This result equals our A Team's worst over the board defeat ever* when back in December 2013 we were beaten at home, by the same score, and the same team. And it was the same player who saved us from a whitewash on both occasions. This defeat scuppers any realistic chance we had of retaining the Division One title, it would now take a miracle to deny Bury the trophy, so we will have to settle for being runners-up this season.
  Bury turned up with only one of their nominated squad missing, and while we had all of ours, we were still expecting a very close match. How wrong we were, at least as far as the end result was concerned. But at the half way point things were looking very different. We were looking very good on boards two and four, where the half hour time differential told its own story, and we looked at least equal on the other two boards where the clocks were within ten minutes of each other.
  But then the wheels started to fall off in the second half. Rowland had launched a pawn advance on a broad front against his opponent's King's Indian, although it was not until almost ninety minutes of play before so much as a pair of pawns were exchanged. After that the game opened up and Rowland's opponent had to surrender the exchange. And while Rowland's king's side attack was looking decisive, his opponent staged a counter attack down the queen's side, where Rowland's king had castled. Overlooking a two move mate Rowland delivered what he thought was the coup de grace, but he did so with the wrong piece and the game was flipped on its head.
  Phil was next to finish and as Black had equalised quickly via a series of early exchanges against his opponent's offbeat and fairly un-ambitious queen's side opening that was essentially a Nimzo-Larsen with an unusual move order. By move 23 both players had a queen, bishop and knight and an equal number of pawns in a balanced position with no real winning prospects for either side. When Phil's opponent offered a draw, he accepted immediately as he has a lot of respect for his opponent's play.
  Then our second wheel fell off. Jaden Jermy played the King's Indian Attack against Andy's customary Sicilian. After castling queen-side, Andy sacrificed a pawn, but obtained nothing for it. Jaden consolidated, and forced the exchange of queens. Andy regained his pawn, but found himself enmeshed in a neat tactic that won a piece, forcing his resignation on move 35.
  Not long after that, the final wheel came adrift in a game that had been looking good at the half way point. We have been so used to seeing Panagiotis brush aside all opposition once he starts to get the upper hand that we often assume his board is in the bag long before it actually is. And most of the time our assumption proves true, but tonight was the exception. With a strong attack developing from of his regular English, Panagiotis made an uncharacteristic miscalculation, caused in large part by playing too quickly. Almost out of nowhere both of his opponent's knights, supported by their queen, sprung into action and dominated the centre while Panagiotis' queen was misplaced and virtually out of the game. Panagiotis fought back, but by the time his queen had been brought back into the game, he was a pawn down in a dire position with simply too many weaknesses to defend. His opponent then found a neat win of a second (defended) pawn by snatching it with his queen, which led to a flurry of exchanges ending in a knight ending two pawns down. Hoping for a miscalculation from his opponent Panagiotis took it to the wire, only resigning when all hope was gone.
  We started tonight needing 5½ points from our last two matches, and for a long time it looked quite possible that we would get three of them tonight. Getting just half a point we did not expect. Even with a 4-0 win at Bury, we would still need Saxmundham to hold Bury to at least a 2-2 draw in the final match of the season. And in spite of the fact that Saxmundham actually defeated Bury in their first match, they are probably about as likely to do that again as we are to beat them 4-0.

* Manningtree were defeated 4-0 several times in Division One in 2010-2011, but we only had one team back then, so strictly speaking, that wasn't Manningtree A. There was a Manningtree A back in the 1981-1982 season, and they were defeated 4-0 by Ipswich D, but that was by default.

 Manningtree A13/03/21Felixstowe A
1Lewis, Andrew P2350½ - ½Gemmell, Peter A2069
2Kanellopoulos, Panagiotis22541 - 0Kirkham, Ed1781
3Hutchings, Philip J19211 - 0Weidman, Mark J1590
4Kerr, Rowland18531 - 0Rigley, Laurence1500
   3½ - ½
This is our last match before the double header against fellow title chasers Bury St Edmunds. And while this puts us one and a half points above them, Bury have a game in hand against Saxmundham, so it unlikely that we will stay there after that match is played. Unfortunately we have no idea when that will be (it is still scheduled on the LMS for Oct 31st) so unlike last year, we don't know the size of the task ahead of us, but a big win tonight would go a long way to making that task a little easier. And while we didn't get a clean sheet, three and a half points is a very good result.
  Rowland finished well ahead of the rest, taking full advantage of both the white pieces and the huge rating difference. Panagiotis put us two up a little later. His game had started as a quiet, slow English, and Black was doing fine until the point he allowed the wing push b4 challenging Black's pawn on c5. Panagiotis took over the centre, gradually increased the pressure, and eventually an exchange sacrifice led to the win.
  It wasn't long after that that Phil put us three up. His opponent essayed out his own home cooked variation against Phil's Queen's Gambit Semi Slav Defense. This involved forgoing castling, directing all his pieces towards Phil's king and leaving a bishop en prise on g5 for ten moves or more, which if grabbed, would have led to mate. Threats and a king hunt were the intentions, defensive precision was required. However, Phil managed to effect a series of exchanges and with a gain of tempo, grabbed the en prise bishop at the right moment, warded off a few threats, and produced a double attack on both his opponent's rooks, netting one and his opponent resigned on move 27, a rook and bishop down. A case of the biter getting bitten, but his attacking instincts and go for it mentality are worthy of respect.
  This left Andy fighting for that much desired clean sheet. Some players learn from their games and Peter Gemmell lost his way in complications in his previous two Suffolk league games against Andy. This time his choice of the safe and sensible English Symmetrical was rewarded with a solid, defensible position. In the last game to finish, Andy laboured to prove an advantage, but running out of time and ideas conceded the draw on move 53.
  If we assume Bury defeat Saxmundham 4-0 in their game in hand, we will need 5½ points from our remaining two matches against Bury. That's a big ask, but we did in last season's finale, so every chance we can do it again.

 Saxmundham A23/01/24Manningtree A
1Wilks, Simon19490 - 1Lewis, Andrew P2351
2Lightfoot, Malcolm J1920½ - ½Hutchings, Philip J1935
3Feavyour, John A18541 - 0Webber, Simon1745
4Gaffney, Samuel18261 - 0McAllister, John WF1645
   2½ - 1½
After defeating Saxmundham 4-0 in our first match of the season, our fortunes against them have taken a decided turn for the worse. We just about scraped a victory in the Norfolk/Suffolk Cup three weeks ago (despite heavily out-rating them), and tonight we came off second in this Division One match that could have been even worse. Both of these below par results mean that the odds have shifted heavily in favour of Bury St Edmunds taking both trophies. On the plus side, Saxmundham did provide a very nice cup of tea!
  Phil finished first after a blunder on move 12 left him two pawns down with zero compensation, the queens exchanged, a draughty kingside and his opponent in possession of the bishop pair - all by at move 16. And to save himself getting mated Phil executed a manoeuvre that you don't often see, a manoeuvre that some were not sure was legal in this position. With his king still at home on e8, the first of those pawns fell to a knight on f7, which was now attacking Phil's rook on h8. The knight could not be taken by the king or mate would follow, so Phil castled. It was perfectly legal and later a tempo losing inaccuracy by his opponent on move 18 let Phil back into the game with threats of his own, and his superior development allowed him to win back a pawn, leaving him with sufficient positional compensation for the other one. So Phil chucked in a draw offer, which to his surprise and delight was accepted immediately. Half a point rescued from the abyss.
  Andy had the advantage for most of the game after Simon Wilks's Nimzo-Indian converted into a Snake-Benoni. Andy went a pawn ahead on move 30 and appeared to be winning with connected-passed d & e pawns, but was under considerable time-pressure. Simon Wilks could have made matters extremely tricky, but blitzed out his moves, overlooking a simple tactic that lost him a piece.
  Simon faced a King's Indian where black played an early c5 instead of e5. Play immediately focussed on the queenside and with the a1 - h8 diagonal open, it was a sharp and tactical middle game. Simon gave away an initial edge by playing too passively for just one tempo, and then lost a central pawn in the middle game. He figured however that he had enough active counterplay for this, but made a mistake in giving up his light square bishop to turn his opponent's extra pawn into doubled pawns on the d file. After that, he had a chance to equalise, but missed it and then couldn't hold the endgame.
  John faced a QGD in which his opponent exchanged pawns on d5 giving John an open diagonal for his light squared bishop, which might have been useful had he actually used it. He was soon faced with a decision to either retreat a knight on e4 or to exchange it. He chose wrong, which led to the knight being exchanged several moves later with the disadvantage of leaving John with doubled c-pawns, which made his opponent's d-pawn a real pain. Twenty or so moves later that pain reached the seventh and there way no way of holding things together.
  After the match we discovered something that wasn't right - apart from losing our bottom two boards that is. It was something that some of us hadn't even noticed. The clocks on the bottom two boards had been set up without an increment. It would have made for an interesting problem if any of those four players had lost on time.

 Manningtree03/01/24Saxmundham
1Lewis, Andrew P2351½ - ½Wilks, Simon1949
2Kanellopoulos, Panagiotis22471 - 0Lightfoot, Malcolm J1920
3Hutchings, Philip J1935½ - ½Feavyour, John A1854
4Kerr, Rowland1854½ - ½Gaffney, Samuel1826
5Webber, Simon1745½ - ½Lawes-Wickwar, Matthew1619
6Jones, Graeme1729½ - ½Collicott, Peter J1500
   3½ - 2½
The last time we faced Saxmundham in this competition we out-rated them by a similar margin of approximately 190 points per board and achieved an identical result (although we were not helped by the unfortunate default of our bottom board for reasons outside of our control). With Bury St Edmunds being the only other club in the competition this year we assumed that Saxmundham would be the whipping boys, which teaches us yet again the folly of assumptions.
  Saxmundham won the toss and elected to play white on the odd boards, and even though the heating was definitely on, there was a definite chill in the air as we started, and as the match wore on the odd jacket or jumper was brought into service. Panagiotis was the first to finish in a style we expected several others to follow. The game started as a Symmetric English and Panagiotis had a slight advantage until his opponent allowed the break 19. c5, which changed that to a large advantage due to Black's weakened pawn structure and passive light-squared bishop. This eventually led to Black's resignation when that bishop was trapped and could not avoid being captured.
  Andy finished next and set a trend that continued for the rest of the match. He had unfortunately missed an obvious tactic on move 7, which enabled his opponent to trade pieces and simplify the position. Simon Wilkes never looked in danger, and Andy reluctantly conceded the draw on move 33. And suddenly our prospects of a big win to give us every chance of toppling Bury in the final match seemed to evaporate. There were no clear advantages for us on any of the remaining boards; in fact we were looking decidedly doubtful on boards three and four to the point where losing the match was a distinct possibility.
  Simon's game was super close as well as being a bit dull. It was an English that transformed into more of a QGD. As black, Simon got the better of the opening, with full development. But the pieces got traded down with neither side making any mistakes sufficient for either to create an advantage. Even though both sides had a backward pawn the game eventually boiled down to an ending with six pawns and two rooks each, and with no way to break through without adverse consequences, both sides repeated moves and the game was drawn.
  Graeme appeared to be playing a King's Gambit, although his opponent was playing something else entirely. Unlike the average King's Gambit, this developed into a rather slow positional game, with Graeme's main advantage being on the clock. As the ending approached Graeme missed winning of a pawn, although it would still have been far from a won game, but a pawn is a pawn and it's generally better to be one up than one down. The resulting queen and minor piece ending gave little scope for digging traps and a draw was agreed.
  And now we were staring at the very real possibility of losing the match, or at beast scraping a draw. As Black Phil faced the exchange variation of the QGD and found himself totally outplayed and devoid of counterplay due to consistently subtle play by his opponent. John Feavyour manoeuvred with threats on both wings and in the centre, gaining space and improving his position at every turn. When his breakthrough finally came however, Phil was able to counter with a tactic that netted the exchange but at the cost of two pawns, which led to an ending with a queen, a powerful entrenched knight on e5 and two extra pawns facing down Phil's queen and rook. In looming mutual time pressure a draw by three fold repetition ensued, much to Phil's immense relief, as John held all the winning aces both on the board and on the clock. A lucky escape for Phil and the team.
  Rowland's game went the full distance. He played the Nimzo-Larsen, although his opponent deviated from the more common paths, and the game developed along more positional than tactical lines. Slowly but surely the game seemed to drift in his opponent's favour and Rowland had to dig deep to hold things together. In the rook and knight ending Rowland lost a pawn and had to dig even deeper. After the rooks were exchanged material balance was restored and in the knight and pawn ending Rowland's defence was sufficient to prevent his opponent's king from leaving the action to devour his Queen's side pawns. With both players running out of time a draw was agreed.

 Ipswich A06/12/23Manningtree A
1Lunn, Timothy20250 - 1Lewis, Andrew P2342
2Lewis, Stephen18950 - 1Kanellopoulos, Panagiotis2245
3Shephard, Andrew19041 - 0Hutchings, Philip J1946
4Irving, Angus17591 - 0Kerr, Rowland1863
   2 - 2
It was exactly four weeks prior to this fixture that we played host to Ipswich A in Manningtree, and apart from Manningtree's board four, all other board positions were occupied by the same players. The fact that it produced exactly the same result wasn't quite what we were hoping for. Credit where credit's due, Ipswich took their chances and raised themselves to the highest position they have stood in Division One for a very long time.
  Panagiotis was again first to finish, playing the Black side of a Sicilian Najdorf. As in the home match, the result was largely determined by the less-than-ideal clock strategy used by his opponent. Stephen Lewis' position was fine for some time and Panagiotis's speculative play could (or perhaps should) have led to a very comfortable middlegame for his opponent, but a few inaccurate moves however, led to the loss of the exchange, although with some compensation due to the weakened black squares in Black's camp. With White being down to his last couple of minutes for several moves, it was proving very difficult to defend. Even though Panagiotis's play was rather superficial in the last phase, eventually a defensive oversight led to him overcoming his opponent's defences and getting the point.
  Making his first appearance for us this season, Roland experimented with a very ambitious kingside expansion (g5 and f5) against his opponent's castled and fianchettoed king's position. It's an experiment that perhaps needs a little more testing before deployment, as it left his king very exposed to the counter attack, and Rowland was soon suffering the consequences.
  In an opening variation familiar to both players, Phil improved on a previous game and quickly gained a promising initiative only to completely and inexcusably leave an advanced knight en prise, gaining only a pawn as consolation. From then on his opponent took control, efficiently exchanging down to a simple win with his extra piece. "Shockingly lax play" said Phil, but he shouldn't be too hard on himself, we've all done it. Some of us a lot more often than others.
  Andy's game against Tim Lunn was delicately balanced after a sharp and theoretical King's Indian Defence led to a position in which White's space advantage and control of the c-file was matched by corresponding pressure from Black on the g-file and king's side. Tim self-terminated on move 30 with a dubious piece sacrifice for two pawns, followed by an exchange sacrifice on move 34, and finally the loss of his queen on move 38.
  We are now 2½ points clear at the top, but with Bury St Edmunds still not really off the ground with their 2023-24 campaign, we can hardly be said to be "comfortably on top". This could be heading for a very interesting conclusion to the season, as the last two matches for both Manningtree and Bury St Edmunds are against each other. Of course, this assumes that Bury complete their unplayed October and November fixtures before the end of March next year.

 Manningtree A08/11/23Ipswich A
1Lewis, Andrew P23271 - 0Lunn, Timothy2038
2Kanellopoulos, Panagiotis22451 - 0Lewis, Stephen1894
3Hutchings, Philip J19490 - 1Shephard, Andrew1873
4Jones, Graeme17210 - 1Irving, Angus1741
   2 - 2
This is the strongest team Ipswich A have assembled for some time, and it gave them a respectable 2-2 draw tonight. We still maintain our position at the top, but as our main challengers Bury have only played one match so far this season (a big win over Ipswich at that), they only need five and a half points from two matches to catch us.
  First to finish was Panagiotis, who played his usual English Opening. His opponent seemed to be doing fine, but at the expense of spending considerably more time on the clock. The game developed slowly, with Panagiotis having slightly better control of the centre and, seemingly, the initiative, although the computer engine is not impressed. Pressed by the clock (at times he had less than a minute while Panagiotis had over half an hour) his opponent eventually weakened his own pawn structure, allowing Panagiotis to steer the game towards a favourable ending. Eventually, black played a wrong knight move leading to a position were white was effectively a piece up; the win was not hard to get from there.
  Not long after that Andy made it 2-0. His game against Tim Lunn started off as a Sicilian Taimanov, but soon entered unknown territory after an enterprising early g4 from his Tim. Andy was knocked off balance, but Tim missed the chance for a big initiative on the king´s side. Andy regained control of the position, Tim misplaced his pieces and then missed a combination allowing Andy to force an endgame the exchange up - he resigned immediately. We were now two nil up, and while things were not hopeless on the remaining boards, they were not looking too good either.
  Graeme had played the f4 attack against his opponent´s Sicilian and moved into a balanced middle game. He then blundered, losing a bishop for two pawns and had to tread very carefully in the shadow of a smothered mate. His active queen recovered a third pawn, and later on (at which point the computer had them dead level) he couldn´t resist capturing a fourth - all passed and connected on the a-d files, stretching from the second to the fifth rank. Whilst achieving this impressive material advantage, his opponent put together an attack on the other wing that proved his downfall as the net closed in on his king´s position. In the end his queen got trapped as she and her rook tried to fend off the multiple threats from their opponent´s queen, rook and knight.
  Things were not looking good for Phil on the remaining board, in fact they had not been looking good for some time. Playing the Caro-Kann Advance Variation, he carelessly blundered a king´s side pawn in an even position at move 22. Thereafter his opponent very skilfully orchestrated a series of exchanges to maximise his advantage and tighten his terrier like grip on the position. Phil wriggled, bluffed, blustered, complicated, threatened, created some half decent counter-play but in spite of a couple of draw offers Andrew Shephard was not to be denied his first and well deserved win against him.

 Felixstowe A31/10/23Manningtree A
1Hopkins, Phil20970 - 1Lewis, Andrew P2327
2Simons, Conrad19130 - 1Hutchings, Philip J1949
3Kirkham, Ed17711 - 0Stephens, Robert W1722
4Rigley, Laurence17000 - 1McAllister, John WF1649
   1 - 3
Not that long ago things were not looking too rosy for this fixture. Panagiotis was unavailable and Andy was doubtful, and Felixstowe were unable to re-schedule. The possibility that we would be fielding three substitutes with Phil on board one looked a very real one. The only consolation would have been that we would have been shedding points to Felixstowe rather than Bury St Edmunds, as was the case last season. Fortunately Andy came through and that changed everything.
  John finished first having faced a Giuoco Pianissimo, or as he prefers to call it, the Quiet Italian because he can´t pronounce Giuoco. Both players developed along well trodden paths, but when John´s opponent allowed the exchange of the light squared bishops on a2, misplacing white´s rook, John jumped at it. An injudicious early d4 led to the loss of the e-pawn because of the misplaced rook. His opponent put up a strong rearguard action but one by one another three pawns fell, but it wasn´t until he lost his bishop as well in a rook and minor piece ending that he resigned.
  All the other boards went the distance and it was a long time before any of them produced a result. In fact the venue itself was shutting down and the manager came up to enquire how much longer we would be. As every clock was down to five minutes or less he was told about ten minutes, although in reality it was probably more like twenty.
  On board three, Bob played white against Ed Kirkham. After an even Reti opening, both players had good development and the position was relatively open. Bob opened the centre and obtained a satisfactory position which required him to take a black knight on c6 before playing a follow-up move. Unfortunately, Bob didn´t do that and as a result the position changed quite quickly. Although not a fatal mistake, that occurred a few moves later then Bob made a mistake and Ed forked Rook and Queen. The loss of the exchange led rapidly to black gaining a decisive advantage which won the game for Ed.
  The match score was now level, and it looked as though it would stay that way. Phil was clearly lost on board two and Andy was now looking good on board one. However fortune was to favour us with a remarkable turnaround on board two.
  Phil had faced a novelty in the London System, and was busted at move 11. And by move 17 he was two pawns down in a queenless middle game with a wrecked position. However, as Sun Tzu says in The Art Of War "When without resources, use resourcefulness itself." Lost positions convey a certain freedom; one doesn´t have to play sensibly, it´s a case of va banque, rolling the dice, being an awkward SOB. It paid off, Phil´s opponent vacillated as Phil developed illusionary counterplay. His opponent missed three or four tactics that would have won on the spot before blundering a piece in mutual time pressure, forcing resignation a few moves later. Phil got lucky, especially as he had offered his opponent a draw by repetition just a handful of moves before the blunder, which came as a result of trying to avoid the repetition.
  Fears of a 3-1 defeat should Andy have been unavailable were now replaced with confidence of a 3-1 victory. Andy´s opening against Phil Hopkins resolved into another Carlsbad structure (typically arising from a QGD Exchange Variation). Phil Hopkins, rather enterprisingly, sacrificed first his h-pawn and then his g-pawn in pursuit of a King´s side attack. Andy defended inaccurately and Phil had the chance to obtain a decisive advantage on move 30. He missed his chance, Andy consolidated his defences, forced the queens off and, now a couple of pawns up, made short work of the 2Rs + B endgame.
  This puts us top of the table, although for how long we don´t know, as the result of the Saxmundham v Bury match scheduled for the same night was not in at the time of writing.

 Manningtree A18/10/23Saxmundham A
1Lewis, Andrew P23281 - 0Wilks, Simon1915
2Kanellopoulos, Panagiotis22411 - 0Default
3Hutchings, Philip J19411 - 0Gaffney, Samuel1870
4Jones, Graeme17221 - 0Lawes-Wickwar, Matthew1626
   4 - 0
Due to illnesses in the Saxmundham camp we started this match with one point already in the bag, which was a great shame really, for while we have every confidence that the result would have been the same had Panagiotis had an opponent, it´s not the way we like to gain points. Should we have postponed the match? Given that we had only a couple of hours notice, and we had already postponed our first A-Team match, that prospect was far from attractive, hence the decision was taken (somewhat reluctantly) to go ahead with the match anyway.
  It wasn´t too long before Phil made it two up. It was a QGD Semi-Slav Defence, which gave him a slightly better position out of the opening. At move 24, Phil´s opponent overlooked the loss of his b2 pawn to the black queen, which grabbed his a2 pawn on the next move, after which, with two pawns down and no effective counter-play, the White position soon became untenable.
  Graeme kept the sheet clean after his opponent miscalculated his response to Graeme´s f4 attack on his Sicilian defence. This resulted in a bishop sacrifice on his f7 pawn and three moves later him losing his own bishop and rook!
  Andy brought up the rear, and with it confirmed our clean sheet. Andy equalised easily against his opponent´s Tikiakov Anti-Sicilian, but appeared to have limited chances of a win in a 2R+B v 2R+B endgame. Fortunately, his opponent allowed a neat tactic, enabling Andy to go into a rook and pawn endgame a pawn up, an advantage that Andy easily converted.
  A very good start to the season, long may it continue for Bury St Edmunds have signalled their ambitious intentions with a similarly resounding victory over Ipswich.