The Miles Report by Tony Miles The Nosher The British league, or 4NCL as it is known (Four Nations Chess League--there are a couple of Welsh teams, and an Irish one has been seen, but the Scots are still reluctant to scramble over Hadrian's Wall in any numbers) had its final rounds recently. Now in its seventh year, it has still not reached the strength and depth of the German Bundesliga, but it is improving rapidly. The two divisions will soon become three, and the top teams are becoming fairly formidable. Going into the last weekend of three rounds, Wood Green (with a squad including GMs Speelman, Baburin, Emms, Ward, Levitt and WGM Arakhamia) on 17/18 match points (43 game points) trailed reigning champions Slough (GMs Gurevich, Khenkin, Ftacnik, Spraggett, Hebden, Kosten, Wells, Summerscale, McNab, myself, and WGM Lalic) 18/18 (48.5) by one match point, with Bigwood third on 15/18. It seemed that all would be decide by their individual match in the last round. Tired of near misses Wood Green decide to beef up their team by signing up Nigel Short (incidentally the last English GM to appear in the league) and Alexander Morozevic. Slough - slightly weakened by a clash with the French league - hastily responded by scrambling to acquire the services of Zoltan Almasi, thus setting up the strongest team match seen on these shores since a full Soviet side appeared for the European Championship almost 30 years ago. However, before it actually took place, strange things happened. In the ninth round (of eleven) Wood Green faced Barbican, and Slough met Wood Green 2. Neither opposing team had a GM to their name, but each had a dangerous selection of strong young players. However, Wood Green saw no need to use their sledgehammers yet, and left the job to their regular squad. After a couple of hours play though it was clear that it would not be an easy day. In the Wood Green match, Baburin missed a tactical shot and lost a piece against Colin Crouch, while in the other encounter I was staring at an uninspiring position whilst my teammates on either side were coming under heavy attack. In particular Ftacnik was on the point of being mated after just 20 moves by Norwegian IM Bjorn Tiller. Fortunately for us Tiller thought he had a choice of wins, and managed to select the one that wasn't mate, allowing Ftacnik to crawl out. Probably this was the turning point, and aided by one or two other missed chances, Slough rode their luck and surfaced with a distinctly flattering 6-2 scoreline. Wood Green, though, were not so lucky. Jon Speelman and Chris Ward managed to win, but John Emms was held to a draw. On the lower boards though, World Under-18 champion Nick Pert beat Jon Levitt, and Jonathan Rogers disposed of Paul Littlewood to give Barbican a shock 4.5-3.5 victory leaving Short and Morozevic as the highest rated and most helpless spectators in the business. This result meant that unless Slough too went down to Barbican the final match would have no influence on the final standings. In the event it was another hard fight, with Crouch taking another GM scalp in Kevin Spraggett, but Slough duly emerged with a 5-3 victory. Meanwhile Wood Green belatedly used their full team against the dangerous Guildford side. The line up of Morozevic, Short, Speelman, Baburin, Emms, Ward, Littlewood and Arakhamia had an average rating of 2562. Even this, though, was not enough to deliver a convincing victory. The top four boards all went with the white pieces and it was only when Wood Green won both the bottom two boards from lost positions that a 5.5-2.5 was clinched. Hence the final round was something of an anticlimax, and in fact mainly a fight for Wood Green to hang on to second place. In the end it resulted in a 4-4 draw, with Morozevic winning the battle of the mercenaries against Almasi, and Arakhamia the battle of the women against Lalic, while Wells inflicted Baburin's third loss of the weekend ("I was up to 2615 before this weekend" he told me sadly." Now its back to 2590 again...") and Matthew Turner ground down Paul Littlewood in 90 moves to clinch a GM norm (to add to that already gained by Nick Pert) and tie the match. Final scores Slough 21/22 Wood Green 18/22 Bigwood (who lost their final match) 17/22. Without doubt the game of the weekend was the following encounter, the 4NCL debut of Nigel Short, a.k.a. Gump, or Nosher (anagramatically Nosher L. Git). White: H.J.Plaskett Black: N.Short 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 Be7 With a seriously ungumplike stroke of fortune, Plaskett had been writing an article on this very line the week before the game. 4.Ngf3 Adams beat Short with 4.e5 last year, but after that Morozevic came up with some improvements for black. 4...Nf6 5.Bd3 Again 5.e5 is possible, but Plaskett prefers to head for the type of IQP position that Short himself enjoys. 5...c5 6.c3 Nc6 7.0 - 0 de 8.Ne4 cd 9.cd 0-0 10.Nc3 (See Diagram) A fairly standard position has been reached. White enjoys some kingside initiative, Black the d5 square. 10...Nb4 It is harsh to call this a mistake, but I learnt many years ago that this overdomination of d5 has its drawbacks: White gets free use of e5 and slightly more use of the third rank than he would otherwise have. 11.Bb1 b6 12.Re1 Bb7 13.Ne5 Nbd514.Qd3 Rc8 15.Qh3 Nc3 This change of pawn structure is not really in Black's best interest, as the white c-pawn means he no longer has total control of d5. However, as a consequence of his 10th move, it is hard to suggest a logical alternative. 16.bc Qd5 17.Bd2 Avoiding the transparent threat of Rc3. 17...g6 The alternative 17...h6 is a thought, while White is tied to the defence of g2 and hence cannot play Qd3, but 18. Bc2 with ideas of Bb3 and Re3-g3 still looks dangerous. 18.Bc2 Qa5 Not a happy choice of residence for the Queen; altogether too far from the kingside for my liking. 19.Qh4 Beginning to squeeze the dark squares, preparing Bg5 and Re3. 19...Rc3 (See Diagram) Understandably Black was nervous of moving another piece away from his King by Nd5, but this smacks of panic. True, if White takes the Rook, Black has excellent compensation for the exchange, but when he just leaves it there, the black bits are in an awful tangle. 20.Bb3 Nd5 21.Qh6 Now not only is the white Queen alarmingly close to the black Bing, but also the pinned Rook is in trouble. For example 21....Qb4 22.Bd5 Bd5 23. Rac1 Rfc8 24. Qe3 winning a whole Rook. 21...Bb4 Solving the problem of the Rook, but fatally weakening f6. 22.Nd7 Rd8 23.Bd5 Rd7 If ...Bd5, Nf6 mates. 24.Re6! Not deep, but very strong. The threat is Re8 mating, and on 24...Rc8 comes 25.Rg6 hg 26.Qg6 Kf8 27.Bh6 Ke8 28.Qg8 Ke7 29.Qf7 Kd8 (on 29...Kd6 30.Bf4 is mate)30. Bg5 and now both 30...Be7 31.Qf8 Kc7 32. Rc1 Kb8 33.Bf4 and 30...Kc7 31.Rc1 Kb8 32.Bf4 are murder. There is not much left other than... 24...fe 25.Be6 Kh8 Or 25.. Rf7 26.Bf7 Kf7 27. Qh7 and Qb7. 26.Bc3 Regaining all the invested wood if 26...Bc3, 27.Qf8mate and leaving black helpless against the threats of Bd7 and a decisive queen regrouping. 26...Rd8 27.Qf4 1 - 0 Welcome home Nosher!