Default 0-1 P Chatterjee (135)
G Cullen (128) 1-0 J Facey (136)
J Blaxill (131) .5-.5 P Marks (117)
R Taylor (96) 1-0 M Jennings (106)
J Molins (76) 0-1 A Dunn (102)
R Day (85) 0-1 G Strickland (95)
We had a weakened team out for our Thursday night clash with South Bristol but I was confident we would be competitive just the same.
Prakash got an easy night as his opponent failed to show. Fortunately for Prakash South Bristol had quite a few social players in the next room so he was at least able to chat to Tyson about the good old days. The matches finished, neatly for the purposes of this report, in board order.
James lost pretty much before he even started missing a basic trap on c7 which lost his rook and destroyed his position. He limped on for a little out of pride but resigned after less than an hour of play. As he noted it was if he had never played chess before. I got the exchange and a pawn up but then decided the game was won and stopped playing. Jason enacted the standard Kings Indian kingside pawn invasion and to free the pressure I gave back the material resulting in a simplified and drawn position. 1.5-1.5 from the top three boards.
Mike struggled positionally throughout his game against a Polish opening then after battling to almost equalise into the ending fell to a neat tactic from Rod making it 2.5-1.5 to South Bristol. However Alex had worked a position with nicely active pieces which gave him about 20 ways of winning again Joan. He decided upon a very pleasant pinned mate with rook and knight. Classy stuff from the E team skipper and it made the score 2.5-2.5.
Eyes turned to Graham and Roy duking it out on board six (as an aside credit to South Bristol’s team spirit as their whole team stayed to watch the conclusion). Graham had a material advantage but there were enough holes for Roy to possibly invade with his queen. As the clock approached what felt like midnight and with both players short on time (below 2 minutes) Roy blundered, blundered again and Graham strolled through. 3.5-2.5. Good.
So we’ve beaten every team in the division at least once which is a pretty good show.
Horfield & Redland Chess Club 