Norman O’Connor rolled back the years with a stunning demolition of Telford’s top player Mark Keady – but it wasn’t enough to stop the Dawley-based side from clinching the Shropshire Online Chess League division two crown.
O’Connor defeated his bamboozled opponent in just 19 moves – a truly outstanding achievement considering Norman was outrated by 300 points.
Shrewsbury needed to win to stand any chance of halting Telford A’s march to the title – but could only manage a 1.5-1.5 draw.
The match finished in frankly unbelievable circumstances, when Telford’s Roger Brown – two queens up – missed a mate on one on move 73 and instead stalemated Tony Purser’s king, throwing away a certain win.
It marked what was a wonderful week for Telford, having clinched the over-the-board division two title a few days beforehand.
Richard Vernon’s side remain favourites to clinch the runners-up spot, which would be an excellent achievement after a difficult start to the campaign. They need a point from their final match against Oswestry C on Thursday (March 30) to make sure.
Against Telford, O’Connor got Shrewsbury off to a flier. Playing the white side of an offbeat English, O’Connor took advantage of an early error by his opponent to launch a fearsome attack on Keady’s exposed king. The Telford man survived the onslaught but at the cost of a rook, and after soldiering on for a few moves in a hopeless position he soon resigned with checkmate or further material loss inevitable.
Norman’s game can be seen here: www.lichess.org/cMODVHzm
Telford hit back through Stefan Tennant’s win over Vernon on bottom board. Vernon was well in the contest early on and won an exchange on move 20.
But his wily opponent struck back, and after building up pressure along the a1-h8 diagonal won back his exchange plus a piece, after which there was no coming back. Vernon resigned on move 39.
To see Richard’s game, visit: www.lichess.org/XfXN4M8R
Purser’s game initially attracted lots of interest on the club’s WhatsApp chat as many felt he had opportunities to push for an advantage in the early middlegame, especially as Brown was starting to use up a lot of time.
But Purser surprisingly exchanged his strong light-squared bishop for one of Brown’s knights – and with every exchange Brown’s two bishops grew in strength and the pawn weaknesses in Purser’s position began to make themselves felt.
Purser slipped into a difficult middlegame a pawn down, and when he lost a second pawn on move 46 a defeat looked like a formality.
Brown subsequently promoted a pawn on move 55 but owing to the time situation Purser played on. A second queen was crowned on move 68 – but bizarrely Brown then missed 73.Qf7 checkmate and instead captured Purser’s last remaining pawn on 35 – leaving his king in f8 and bishop on f4 without a legal move.
Tony’s game can be seen here: www.lichess.org/JWzKTgmf/black
Full scores (Shrewsbury players’ colours in brackets)
Telford A 1.5-1.5 Shrewsbury C
1. Mark Keady 0-1 Norman O’Connor (w)
2. Roger Brown 0.5-0.5 Tony Purser (b)
3. Stefan Tennant 1-0 Richard Vernon (w)