Tonight, Wednesday 05 October saw the first round of the Leeds Rapid Play 2011/12. In the first round we were at home to Pudsey B. First to arrive was Chris Johnson for Pudsey who said that Guy Hutchinson was picking up Ken Marsden, then driving to the venue. When Guy arrived on his own we were a little confused as to whether Ken was going to show so Chris rang him up, he was on his way so we started the match and Zana waited for his opponent Ken, to arrive.

Board 1 saw Mark Szymanski against Chris Johnson, on board 2 I (Tony Ibbitson) was against Guy Hutchinson and board 3 was Zana Aziz, waiting for Ken.

Ken showed up about 10-15 mins after we started but that was no problem for Zana, he was waiting eagerly and less than 5 minutes into the game, Ken and Zana had already played more moves than we had on my board! Zana is a fast player naturally, he uses less than 5 minutes in most of his chess games! But the faster Zana played, the faster Ken played too! The tempo was increasing by the second, it was as if they were competing against each other to see who could move the fastest. Then Ken started to make a few mistakes, Zana become more and more confident and eventually Zana won. Boards 1 and 2 were still playing out some tough middlegames by the time Zana and Ken's 2nd game started. The game started at a very high pace again and this game was over even quicker than the first one, Ken resigned in a bad position giving Zana a 100% score and 2 points to Leeds Chess Club. After winning both games in less than 30 minutes, he put his coat on and watched me and Mark play our first round games with a big grin on his face!

My first game was a tough one, I was a piece up and decided to exchange off into an endgame, then I sacrificed the picece for 2 pawns, leaving me with 2 passed pawns. After a few more mistakes from my opponent I finished off with 4 connected passed pawns and so he resigned. Putting Leeds 3-0 up.

Then it was Mark's turn to finish, he had a much tougher game than my first but he managed to keep his cool and play well right to the end. A well deserved win and 4-0 to Leeds by this point!

My second game was with the black pieces, I played a Black Knight's Tango where I managed to transfer most of my pieces over to the kingside, resulting in a 19 move checkmate and 5-0 to Leeds.

The final game was between Mark Szymanski and Chris Johnson, Chris played an unsound sacrifice in the opening where Mark managed to win a queen but Chris got plenty of material in return. It was a very difficult final match for Mark and unfortuately he lost. 

Overall it was a great result for Leeds, winning 5-1 on the night. I just hope that Zana doesn't play so quick when he is up against a serious contender!

On Tuesday 04 October, once again we travelled to Bradford, this time to face Keighley. Keighley arrived around 10 minutes late but we were good sportsmen and waited for them to arrive and get settled before starting the clocks, had they been another 10 minutes then maybe we'd have been forced to start due to use needing to get our last train back to Leeds.

Keighley arrived at the Polish Club with only 5 out of 6 men, their captain, Chris Watson said "I think he is coming but we sent him to the wrong venue by accident."! Of course, this is hardly an excuse as the rest of the club obviously knew which venue we were playing from, so why would said person be given the wrong address? Well, we're not going to complain about a head start but it's only fair to contact us if the opposition know that they are going to default!

After 30 minutes, Neil's (Leeds) opponent still hadn't arrived so we deicded to claim the win by default. Neil bought himself a pint, watched the rest of us play for some time and then decided to go home. So 30 minutes into the game, Leeds took a 1-0 lead.

John Light (Leeds) was next  to finish, he beat Chris Watson (Keighley) extremely quickly and confidently so this took us to 2-0. Not long after that, Ian Goater (Keighley) offered Dominic Gallagher (Leeds) a draw, the position was a drawish looking endgame and as we were 2-0 up, Dominic accepted the offer. The score is now 2.5-0.5 to Leeds.

Jon Mahony's (Leeds) game seemed to be pretty level most of the way through and later he managed to force a draw by perpetual against his opponent, Mark Cunningham. A draw is all we needed really as this result took the score to 3-1 to Leeds, only needing a draw from 2 boards now to secure the match victory.

Mark Szymanski (Leeds) had a tough game against Daniel Dufton (Keighley) and managed to draw, securing the match victory.

My result was therefore not important in terms of the match result but it was still an important game for me as an individual result. I fought hard in the opening and managed to gain an advantage with many pieces firing down at the enemy king. I also managed to open lines on the kingside allowing me to feed more pieces into the attack. Unfortunately I dropped a pawn later on and allowed my opponent Richard Zaidman (Keighley) to trade off into an endgame. By this stage I hadn't given up as I knew there were chances to hold so once I reached the time control, I took a breather (away from the board) and returned with a fresh mind, ready to play the king and pawn endgame. We now both started to get low on time but Richard had more with 15 minutes to my 7 or 8. Now at this point, Richard Zaidman decided that it was a good idea to stop recording his moves, despite there being a rule stating that you must record your moves at all times when you have more than 5 minutes on your clock. I asked him on more than one occasion to record and he declined, I was having trouble keeping up by playing and recording my moves as he was simply just moving. The captain, Chris Watson was present and he also didn't seem bothered that Richard wasn't recording his moves. Of course, when there is no arbiter present, then the team captains act as arbiter however, I was the only person on the night acting as arbiter and had no support from the Keighley captain. In the end I lost on time and my opponent had just 20 seconds left, of course had he written his moves down, then he would have been the one losing on time.

Anyway, Leeds Chess Club did the job on the night and won the match 3.5-2.5. We are now on 2 wins from 2 matches in the Bradford League. Keep up the good work lads!

Here I intend to start adding some match reports once the season is underway, if anyone from Leeds B or Leeds C would like to write anything, then feel free to do so.