In a recent blog post, I wrote about Cardiff Chess Club’s victory in the Welsh Chess Premier League (WCPL), which qualified them to take on the challenge of the prestigious European Club Cup in Serbia. This tournament brings together the top teams from across Europe in an intense 7-round Swiss format. You can find the previous post here: LINK

The Cardiff Chess Club team consisted of Alex Bullen, Joe Fathallah, Callum Davies, Dave McGhee, Guy Wagner, Leon Zedlmayer and Zack Wilkins. On paper, we had sent a respectable team which would have given any welsh team a run for their money. However, reality hit when we discovered that the Cardiff Chess Club would be bottom seed and that some of the best players in the world would be participating…

Cardiff certainly weren’t aiming for a podium finish; instead, they set more modest goals. The primary objective was to secure at least one match win out of the seven matches, with an added hope that every player might achieve a non-loss result at some point in the tournament against these high-rated opponents.

As the bottom seed, Cardiff were set to face a mid-seeded team in the first round, an exceptionally strong team. Joe decided to sit out this game. Despite some hard fought fights, we ended up losing 0-6.

Round 2 also gave us strong opposition which we were certain to lose as a match. In this case, we lost 0.5-5.5 with Joe Fathallah gaining bragging rights as the first non-loss result against Callum Brewer (2139).

As the rounds went on, we were paired with weaker and weaker teams giving us a better chance for more individual results and even the chance for a match win. Of course, being the lowest seeded team, every match would be an uphill battle. In round 3, we managed more individual results including a nice draw for Alex against a 2369, but not enough for a match win. We lost 2-4.

But not without some fireworks. Here is Leon’s final position as white against Carl Jackson (1934). White’s king has escaped all of the checks and black’s king finds itself in an unstoppable mating net. Another interesting position I have to post is a missed advantage by Joe. White has blundered with Re1?? Can you spot the near-win for black?

The solution to Joe’s position is Qxe1+! Bxe1 Rxe1+ Kd2 Rae8. No matter what white plays, black will play Ra1 and Ree1. Even though black does not immediately gain adequate material for the queen, white has no good way to move the g-knight or the h-rook and so positionally white is playing down heavy material.

Round 4 saw Cardiff play a fellow welsh team, White Knights. We managed to score another 2-4 result with some admirable draws and another great win by Leon who at this point is becoming a real trump card for Cardiff.

Round 5 presented an interesting opportunity for Cardiff. While we slightly outgraded our opponents on the top two boards, they held a slight rating edge on the bottom four. It was a surprise, then, when our lower three boards delivered upsets! With Joe’s draw on board two, Cardiff ended up winning the match 3.5-2.5. Apparently, the match was won with a time scramble by Guy Wagner who ultimately clinched the win in the final seconds. So the primary goal of winning one match was achieved. Could Cardiff get another? And as to the secondary goal, everyone except for Zack has managed to score something, so he would be pushing hard for that result in the last two rounds.

Since Cardiff won their last match, they were now being paired with a team that also had a win and so the opposition was stronger.

The match turned out to be a lot closer than expected. Each game was a close fight. For a time it seemed that Cardiff might win 4-2 or even more! Joe, Callum and Guy all had winning positions but these strong players have experience digging in and surviving and ultimately we ended up losing or drawing those games. We ended up narrowly losing 2.5-3.5.

Alex managed to beat an FM this round rated 2289! Dave also won an impressive game against a 1935 and found a nice tactic to bag the win. There are multiple good moves for white but Dave found the best:

The best move for white in Dave’s round 6 game is Rxe6! Ripping open black’s king safety. If Qxf4 then white has Re8+ and ultimately wins a piece. If black instead plays fxe6 then white plays Qg4! threatening to do Rxe6 and simply Qxg6. Even if black avoids checks with Kf8, white still plays Qxg6 and despite being an exchange down, the black king is too weak.

In the final round, Cardiff were paired against a team that seemed relatively evenly matched. A great opportunity. When I saw the pairings I thought Cardiff would win as their last two rounds were promising. What I didn’t expect was Cardiff soundly beating their last round opponents! We managed to win 4.5-1.5 with a well deserved win by Zack against a much stronger opponent. Which means everyone finished this tournament with something to be happy about.

And so in the end Cardiff finished this tournament with 2/7 match points. From an outside perspective, that might seem low, but given the competition, it was actually well above what was expected.