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!