Northumberland Ko’ed in quarter-finals
SOMETIMES, playing for North East teams in the counties championship feels like a doomed but heroic endeavour – a bit like Bonnie Prince Charlie’s army turning around in Derby in 1745, only to lose big time at Culloden.
Last Saturday, Northumberland fought valiantly against Surrey in the National Under 2050 quarter-finals, but lost 7-9 after many adventures. The match was not in Derby, but Newark in Nottinghamshire – still a long way to go for a single game of chess.
Northumberland team veterans recall their own ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ moment in 1990. The coach carrying the county teams was at the gates of Nottingham for the national semifinals when disaster struck: The Milk Race cyclists were in town, and due to roadblocks they had to make a traffic detour that led to Northumberland turning up 57 minutes late – just three minutes short of a mass default.
As a result, Northumberland were slaughtered almost as badly as Bonnie Prince Charlie’s men at Culloden. And like the Jacobites, our teams did not recover for a generation.
Fast forward to 2022, however, and Northumberland not only re-entered the National Open Counties Championship – but won it, defeating mighty Yorkshire 8-8 on board count in a thrilling final at Darlington. This season,
both the Northumberland Open and Under 2050 teams qualified for the national knockout stages. The Northumberland Under 2050 individual scores v Surrey on May 20 were:
1 Nathan Ekanem (Forest Hall) 0.5; 2 Marcos Caso Huerta 0.5, 3 Shah Saliev (both Gosforth) 0; 4 Ravi Wariyar (Forest Hall) 0; 5 Kavin Velmurugan (Newcastle University) 1; 6 Yaroslav Kolodiy (South Shields) 0.5; 7 Robin Nandi (Forest Hall) 1; 8 Murray Pollock (Gosforth) 0.5; 9 Stuart Skelsey (Forest Hall) 0; 10 Shakti Sood 1, 11 Ian Chester (both Gosforth) 0; 12 Dalil Benchebra (Leam Lane) 0.5; 13 Morgan Johnstone-french 0, 14 Aaron Welson 0, 15 Ryan Duff 1, 16 Ethan Tatters (all Forest Hall) 0.5.
The team faced an uphill battle after early
losses on boards 3 and 4, but thanks to fine wins by Nandi, Sood and Duff, and heroic saves by Ekanem, Caso Huerta, Benchebra and Tatters, the match was very close. As few as two different results would have won the match, but sadly it was not to be.
Northumberland captain Tim Wall is confident the Open team will win its semi-final on June 10, against Surrey again in Newark. This time, in the words of the ABBA song, he hopes Surrey will be “finally facing their Waterloo”.
This week’s puzzles are on the theme of Lolli’s checkmate, where a queen and advanced pawn attack an abandoned fianchetto. Chess coaches say remembering this mating pattern is fun, as Lolli is close to LOL, and you have the last laugh when you deliver it.