Friday 11 December 2009

CCLA Record - Vol 1 No. 1

Australian chess Archivist Paul Dunn is currently undertaking a project to convert old issues of The CCLA Record (the predecessor to Australian Correspondence Chess Quarterly) to an electronic format, so old issues can be stored and distributed easily.
The first issues of the magazine (from 1948/49) were quite slim at only 8 pages. I am not sure who the editor was, but I suspect is was Max Salm, as he was both the CCLA Publicity Officer at the time, and annotated the games in the magazine. If he was it is fitting that the first game published was a win of his, which I present here, complete with his annotations.

Salm,Maxwell Charles - Jack,Dr.I.B [B73]
CCLA Class I-III, #24 Tourney corr Australia, 1948
[Salm]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 d6 6.Be2 g6 7.Be3 Bg7 8.0-0 0-0 9.Qd2 d5 More usual is 9...Bd7. According to MCO the text is quite playable. 10.exd5 Nxd5 11.Nxd5 Nxd4 12.Bc4 Nf5 13.Rad1 Be6 14.Qb4 Qc8 15.Bc5 Kh8 Subtly countering the threat of 16.Bxe7. 16.b3 Protecting the loose bishop, thus renewing the threat to Black's weak e-pawn. [16.Bxe7 can be met by 16...Nxe7 17.Nxe7 Qxc4 So far the game has followed Pilnik-Iliesco, Mar Del Plata 1943, won by the latter. MCO leaves off at this stage, but implies that Black has a slight advantage. It would seem this appraisal of the position is "annotation by result", as White forces are well posted and the attack is far from spent.] 16...Re8 17.Rfe1 [If immediately 17.Bxe7 Bxd5!;
or if 17.Nxe7 Nxe7 18.Bxe7 Bxc4 19.bxc4 a5!] 17...Bf8 What else? Black could hardly profess to have equality in this bottled up position. 18.Ne3 Ng7? [Better to seek freedom for his pieces with 18...Bxc4 but after 19.Qxc4 Black's lack of development is a serious handicap.] 19.Bb5! b6 20.Bd4 Rd8 21.Be5! Threatening 22.Rxd8 Qxd8 23.Bc6! Rc8 24.Rd1 winning a piece. 21...Qb7 In avoiding one danger, Black puts his head into another noose. Even after [21...Rxd1 22.Rxd1 Black is hard pressed to find an answer to White's other threat of](D)
22.Qa4! Wins the exchange forthwith. 1-0

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