Epsom Salties: 4NCL - Season 12 - Round 2

4NCL Online - Tuesday 23rd September 2025 - Division 4 - Round 2

4 boards, Online

Epsom Salties 1 1.5-1.5 English Deaf Chess Association Epsom Salties 2   0-4 Chess Rising Stars Epsom Salties 3   - Bye

Well, that was quite a night. The Salties 2 result wasn't unexpected due to the huge rating

differences, but Tiara and Aryna did a sterling job to hold back quality opponents. Leia was

looking good for so long, unfortunately it didn't go her way and John's opponent really went for it.

There were also small margins for the Salties 1 with a few moves just turning the matches mostly in favour of the opponents. Kudos to Mike who got our only win of the

night and Robert who got our draw. Next match will certainly be easier for both teams. The

Salties 3 had a rest night with a bye – really there should be triangular pairings to give

everyone a game.

So looking in more detail in some of the games, the lessons from the games are about passed pawn(s) and King safety.

The last match we had two matches with two connected passed pawns + R v R and different outcomes. Here Robert reached that position, but with the added complication of black and white pawns on the other side of the board. White has just take one pawn and he can easily get another. Robert was 7mins to 33mins down. So what to do? – push the pawns or try and prevent a clear up of your other pawns and a surge of white pawns – then push your pawns. It seemed to me at the time that Robert needed to push the pawns and it would be very difficult to stop – but that was without any real calculation. Robert went more defensive, and it could have worked but it was difficult and it ended up as a draw. Pushing the pawns seemed the best approach. Certainly not an easy decision or a clear win.

Here Mike got a pass pawn with axb6– ultimately this was part of his win, especially when it was joined on the c-file by the pawn from the d-file. However, neither player noticed, the taking of the pawn was not the best move, as the pass pawn will be lost after Bb5. If BxBb5 then there is the QxB+ response. Overall a smooth win for Mike.

Talking of pass pawns here we have Leia after 11 moves. She has a pass pawn and a pawn up, her opponent had isolated doubled pawns and a isolated pawn. Couldn’t be much better. She followed the ‘push the pass pawn’ adage. And that can cause all sorts of problems for black. It may have been better for her to build up her attack first, nevertheless she still ended up in a decent situation. Stockfish was suggesting Be5 and Qd4 – really locking down black’s pieces.

I think Leia went wrong later after black had played h5, she played the dreaded move of the f-pawn– stockfish didn’t have too much issue with it – but it opened up the King’s position and was instrumental in the downfall of her King. h4 was a better option to deal with black’s pawn advance. Obviously disappointing for Leia after being so far ahead.

King safety was not a consideration in Aryna’s match against a strong opponent – with neither side castling and both King’s off of their starting blocks. This can be OK, once the queens are off the board. Her position is worse here, but far from fatal, unfortunately white managed to get his Rooks co-ordinated and got a cheap checkmate – overall Aryna did well here.

We must include the friendly match between Andrew and Gary here. Gary has been known for his wild and entertaining games – here Gary played with good opening principles and taking his time. Until this point, Gary went on the attack. There is a potential weakness to attack on h3 but good play will prevent this, he really needed to get his Bishop out and castle his King to safety. Instead we have a classic overworked piece, the Queen (and it often is a Queen) is defending both the d-pawn and the Knight. Andrew however, failed to notice that Nxd4 wins the crucial pawn. After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in the match, the lack of castling went on to haunt Gary as Andrew ruthlessly attack Gary’s King sitting out in the open.

John really felt the disparity in rating with his opponent. After 14 moves John was facing this fearsome attack. He of course fell eventually, but not without making his opponent play another 40 moves.

Finally, Lev’s game was a tight affair, and swung on a few non-optimal moves. The opponent’s captain said he watched it very nervously. So here on move 21 we have a key point, that Lev did not really recover from. The game was very blocked up with long pawn chains. Lev’s queen’s rook was completely trapped by his Bishop that couldn’t move. But there are not a lot of options for Black either, in addition he has a backward pawn at the base of his pawn chain- and so Stockfish gives it as essentially level. The move here would have been the ugly Qh2 or Qh1 – moving off of the potential e5 and discovered attack. The game went 22. Ne4 NxN 23. dxNe4. The analysis moved to -1.2; far from terrible. From what I can see, those moves solved Black’s backward pawn issue and give a hole for the black Bishop and Queen to attack through, Lev does not have a dark square Bishop to counteract. The game remained close but Lev never found that saving move, and the game finished on move 54.