Am I the strongest player in my chess club?

Apart from playing online and in OTB tournaments, I also play chess with my local club, Naomh Barróg. It's a small club in North Dublin, Ireland but it has a good athmosphere and team spirit. We regularly play against other clubs but the time had come to answer the crucial question, who is the strongest player in our club?

So for the first time since before Covid, a rated club championship would be held. Of the 21 players, I was 4th highest rated, but the gap between players was narrow, so I felt that with a strong performance, perhaps I could win.

Beware the Knights

My first game was against a much lower rated player, but it turned out to be one of the trickiest and most dangerous games of the tournament. We opened with a Scandanavian and after Black took with the Knight, I played c4 to kick it away. To my surprise, the Knight came forward to b4, which looked like a blunder. Can't I give check with my Queen and then push the pawn to d5, winning the pinned Knight?

However, I got a bad feeling about this and I vaguely remembered falling into traps in this position during some rapid games I'd played online. I checked after the game and found that I've had this position online 3 times - and ended up losing my Queen every time. When Black played b5 on move 5, I knew I couldn't take with my Queen as this would leave c2 undefended and allow a Rook fork. So I tried to play it safe and take a step back, but this didn't help at all as the fork was still a danger that prevented my from taking the Knight. After less than 10 moves, I was losing.

I got a lifeline on move 11, when my Queen threatened both the g7 and e5 pawns. I figured to first take with check, but this was a blunder as I missed the backwards Knight move that protected the pawn and exploited my pinned pawn. However, by move 16 the position had begun to stablise. Materially, I was down an exchange and my King was still very vulnerable so if Black lined up his Rooks, it would be very dangerous. But Black's Knight was trapped, so if I could hold my defence and win the Knight, then I still had a chance.

On move 19, I got my Knight onto a strong square that allowed me to attack the Queen and I started to plan how to use the e7 check to take the Bishop which would leave the Knight without protection to escape. I wasn't safe yet as Black's Queen was still a danger so I reluctanctly traded Queens as the least worst option. The Knight was still trapped and I had a feeling that my opponent might focus solely on getting the Knight to safety and miss the danger to their Bishop. Sure enough, on move 23, I won the Bishop and better still, his Knight was completely trapped. If Black could get their Rook to b2, they could cause trouble for me, but they were just one turn too slow.

Beware the young, under-rated player

My next game was against a tricky opponent. On paper, his rating was only 1485 but he had performed very strongly in games that hadn't been rated yet and almost won our club Christmas blitz. So, he was a young up-and-coming player not to be taken lightly. The game opened with a standard Slav Defence in response to his Queen's Gambit. There were some trades of Bishops and neither side could get much play going.

On move 20, I played f5 to try and open up the game and perhaps launch a breakthrough. I doubled my Rooks and had them pointing at f2, but this was easily defended. It turns out there was a tactic I could have played to win the pawn beginning on move 24, but I missed it in the game. It was the only chance I got in the whole game to take a lead. Instead I focused on winning the d4 pawn but it too was defended.

I lost a pawn on move 29 but hoped to get counterplay with the White Queen so far away from the Kingside. Despite my pressure on f2, I couldn't turn it into any real advantage. The Queen trade allowed me to win back the pawn, but that was as much of an advantage as I got. Instead we went into an even Rook endgame and picked off pawns from each other. My opponent had chances on move 38 had he doubled his Rooks and for a while I was worried. But he missed the chance and I was able to get my Rook back to defend.

In the end we agreed to a draw. If he truly was only 1500 I would have played on, but I knew he was much stronger so I was unlikely to gain an advantage. Plus I had recently had a series of even endgames where I stubbornly played on only to lose. If anything, he was more likely to get the advantage, so I was happy with the draw.

My fastest ever checkmate

My next game was against one of the strongest players in the club who regularly battles it out with me for 3rd place in the ratings. We had played each other the year before in a grueling positional battle where he slowly restricted my position until all life was squeezed out of it. This game was very different, in fact it turned out to be one of the quickest classical chess games I've ever played.

My opponent responded to e4 with b6, something that's apparently called the Owen Defence and I have never seen before. We must have both been tired because neither of us noticed that I hung a pawn on move 3. A silly mistake, but worse was to follow.

On move 5, my opponent played the very aggressive f5, which I couldn't take without losing g2 and therefore my Rook. But it meant Black's Kingside was vulnerable to a check on h5 from my Queen (not right now, but possibly later). I decided to use my c-pawn to my advantage and play d5, blocking the Bishop and allowing me to fight for the centre (and prepare a Kingside attack). Sure enough, I was able to get my Queen check in and force a King move. Black would obviously trade Bishops to prevent mate and then bring the Knight out to chase my Queen away, but I felt Black's lack of King safety would give me an advantage in the middlegame.

Except we never got that far.

Instead, to my amazement, my opponent missed the mate threat and played Knight to f6 to kick away my Queen. When I played checkmate, we both started laughing at the absurdity of it all. What should have been a clash of titans instead was my fastest ever classical checkmate, (though not my shortest ever game, I won a game once after 9 moves when my opponent resigned after I won their Queen).

Can't breakthorugh

After my two wins and a draw, I was now jointly in first place and playing on board 1. My opponent had a provisional rating of almost 1800 but he hadn't played many rated games so it was unclear what his true strength was. I opened with a Semi-Slav Defence and after developing my pieces, played c5 to open up the position. We made some trades and I pinned the Knight, but couldn't get any advantage from it. By move 16, I had an isolated pawn that would prove very tricky to defend so I tried to trade it off, only to lose a different pawn instead.

From then on I was on the back foot. Losing a pawn isn't decisive, but as we traded off more pieces, there was no way for me to gain an advantage or build any play. We took turns chasing each other's Queen around, but there was little chance for an attack. The one exception was a moment on move 25, where I thought I might be winning. My Queen on f4 covered the h2 escape square so there was a danger of back rank checkmate. However, it turned out White could easily defend and my hopes were in vain (although my opponent said afterwards that he was worried for a while).

White won another pawn on move 32 which was not as easy to win back as I had thought. To be honest, I wasn't playing very well and was stuck reacting to my opponents moves. On move 34, I reluctanctly offered a Queen trade because White's threats were too strong. Surprisingly, this actually destroyed White's lead and on move 37, the game was completely even.

What I had to do was play defence and leave my Rook to block the a-pawn and space for King to attack White's pawns if the King ever left them. Instead I thought I had to close down the Kingside to stop White from advancing, not realising, it also blocked me in. This meant White could bring their King all the way over to support the pawn. This freed up the White's Rook to hunt my pawns, while my Rook couldn't get counterplay. I won the a-pawn on move 49, but it was too late as White had already won my Kingside pawns and couldn't be stopped. I tried to delay the inevitable for as long as possible but the slow march of the pawns couldn't be stopped no matter how many checks I gave.

Before the Queen, lies danger

I was determined to end my last game on a good note. My opponent was a blind man so I would call out each move to him and he used a personal mini-chess board where he could identify each piece by feel, to make a move that he would call back to me. We opened with an Advanced French and my pawn on d4 became a focus of both sides. On move 6, Black played a6 which would cause many problems down the line. Black increased their attackers and I increased my defenders until I saw a winning opportunity.

On move 12, I took the Bishop with my Knight but instead of immediately taking again on the next move, I instead moved my Queen to b3, pinning the Knight to the Queen. Due to the unusual a6 move, the Queen was undefended. The Knight could be defnded with a pawn, but also attacked by one. Attempts to attack my undefended Bishops with the Black Queen were futile as I could move them to safety and attack the Queen at the same time. Surprisingly, the engine finds a way to save the Knight through a complicated series of moves that involve counter-attacking my Bishop, but neither of us saw that in the game.

My advantage grew on move 19, where I sacrificed my Queen safe in the knowledge that if Black took it, I would win by back rank checkmate. I was now up a full Rook so it was time to finish my opponent off. I lined up my Queen and Rook and headed straight for the Black King. My advantage was too strong and there were just too many ways I could attack, so checkmate couldn't be stopped.

Results

In the end, I finished joint 3rd with 3.5 points. The two players I failed to defeat both tied for 1st place with 4 points after drawing their final match against each other. I gained 27 rating points with a performance of 1807. So, while it seems I am not the strongest player in my club, I am still pleased with my performance, especially as it comes after some tournaments where I under-performed. Interestingly, all players who finished in the top 5, joined the club after Covid, which is a sign of how the club is growing.