Evening star., 1909-02-14
DEPARTMENT CHESS
LEAGUE FIGURES
Agriculture and Treasury Play
a DraW-Interior In
CreaSes Load.

Inc interior A team, twice champions OF
the league, further increased its lead in
| the departmental race during the week
and has now good grip on first place.
OF the matches still to be played there Is
| only one that is likely to cause the
| champions any trouble, namely, the meet
| ing with Agriculture week after next If
! the last named can win this engagement
it is more than probable 1t will bring
about a triple tie for the championship
between Interior, Agriculture and Gov
| ernment Printing Office
| The most exciting match Of the past
| week was that between Agriculture and
Treasury. which ended in draw. This
| was the second meeting between these
teams, the first having resulted in a win
for Treasury. 1t will thus be seen that
Agriculture. although considerably higher
In the percentage column. has had much
the worst of 1t in the encounters with the
Financiers. In fact. out of a total loss
OF two and half points which Agricul-
ture has sustained to date, one and half
| has been caused by Treasury Further
more, Agriculture barely escaped losing
the second as we'll as the first match.
since In the last and deciding game of
their recent contest the Treasury repre-
sentative only lost after overlooking a
line OF play which should at the least
have netted him a draw
| Ihls particular game. by the way. was
one of the most stubborn fights of the
season. The participants were Tupper.
Treasury and Zapoleon. Agriculture. The
play lasted through two long sessions.
! When the adjournment took place the
| game was in an interesting position, Ia
poleon having rook and knight and sew
en- paWns against rook and bishop and
five pawns. Had the game been submit
ted to the referee at this point there is
little doubt Mr.. Smith would have award
ed to Agriculture. as Eapoleon's two
pawns plus. should have been good
enough to win. they being passed pawns
and supporting each other. and although
Tupper had the more open position there
was apparently nothing he could do to
compromise his opponents position. How
ever, soon after the second session COM
menced Zapoleon had to choose between
retiring his king to a more defensive po-
sition or bringing him out in the open.
He selected the more conservative way.
| but 1T is probable that had he adopted
the bolder course and made a fighting
piece OF his ma jesty. he could always have
maintained a winning position. He must,
however. be given credit for playing for
his side when this appeared to jeopardiZe
his individual record. because when a
draw was offered him later on it looked
like courting defeat to refuse 1t. To try
for win meant fighting a rook with two
pawns. one of which was only on its third
square. He finally managed to do this
successfully and had the satisfaction of
recording his eighth straight win. The
other games in this match were won by
Halstead and Prander on behalf of Treas
ury and Stephenson for Agriculture.
Close Contest.
Treasury took part In another important
contest during the week-against Govern
ment Printing Office. The latter had the
not for n 20
but there Is one game yet to be decided.
and the final outcome of the match de-
pends on it's result The Printers, how
ever, are sure of a draw. anyway, as
they won two out OF the three finished
games. Board l was contested by Hal
stead and Mccormick. the former offer
ing his favorite opening. the queens gam
bit. Mccormick, in endeavoring to avoid
The devil of the regular defense, departed
from the books at an early stage, but
found himself in the deep sea. He was
speedily in difficulties. from which he
stead scored the first win of the evening
soon after. Despite this bad start. the
other Printing Office players. Arends and
Graham stuck manfully to their work
and by means of excellent chess finally
emerged winners over Tupper and Pran-
der, respectively. Kistler and SatterIey
are scheduled to play the remaining game
later on.
Interior A. as was anticipated had no
difficulty in disposing of their confreres
on the B team last Wednesday evening.
Walker and Pratt continued their win
ming sequence by defeating Whitten and
Lounsberry, and Landers who made his
first appearance on the team, started aus
piciously by taking a game from Spencer.
Dimick was unable to play and forfeited
to Boykin.
The summaries, team standing and IN
dividual scores of 500 per cent and over
TO date are as follows: