Rook sacrifice and a cool head: the U16 advances
These are the afternoons on which youth chess is at its finest: concentrated faces over the boards, the soft clicking of the clocks, and at the end a team that prevails deservedly. Our U16 has solved its task, won 2.5:1.5 — and thus advances.
Board 1 — the exclamation mark. Out of a position full of possibilities, our top board made short work of it: in the midst of the sharpest action came a beautiful rook sacrifice that tore open the opposing king position and left no further doubt. That’s how you win the kind of games you tell stories about later — the first full point was in the bag.
Board 2 — class has a name. Matvei Fedorov (DWZ 1869) set up his favourite scheme, a solid double fianchetto, and quickly stood somewhat freer. One of those positions developed in which material is unevenly distributed — here the queen, there two rooks, in the end a queen for rook and pawn. Matvei kept the overview, steered the game into an endgame with two pawns against the bare king and converted it with the calm of an old hand. Confidently to 2:0.
Board 3 — showing character. Having come well out of the opening, our third board landed in a tough knight-and-rook endgame. There was a long struggle over an extra pawn, but here precision and steady nerves were required — in the end there stood a hard-fought draw that definitively secured the team win.
Board 4 — tuition fees. A slightly more active position out of the London System, the knight nicely central on e5 — it looked good. But in chess the trickery lurks in the detail: the queen came into the crosshairs and was trapped, and against this material loss there was no remedy. The only defeat of the day — and the kind of game from which you learn the most.
The bottom line: a 2.5:1.5, carried by a squad that is strongly manned both in depth and at the top. The U16 thus stays on course and attacks again in the next round on 18 June at 14:00. We’ll deliver the games later — and then there may, for the first time, be something to see in the diagram too.