C Team storm to their first win.

The C team won the first match of the season without losing on any board. We went very close to drawing at South Bristol last week and we showed great improvement this time round. Keynsham were minus their top board George Miller so Bob Radford played able substitute John Kilminster on board one.

Board One

John opted for the Canal-Sokolsky attack , on the 3rd move for white in the Sicilian Opening. Now Opening Explorer gives it less than 35% winning chances despite it’s popularity in recent years. John was unable to get any lasting pressure and offered a draw not long into the middle game. The draw was declined and as the pieces came off and the game ventured into an endgame of white having K+N and two pawns on the kingside and three pawns on the queenside. v black K+B and 4 pawns kingside and one pawn queenside it was extremely risky for either side to try to win and this time Bob agreed John’s second offer.

Board Two

Captain Nigel Pollett playing his usual English opening got into difficulties as David Jarrett, still a force to be reckoned with showed great imagination and deployed his queen on a pawn grab mission deep behind enemy lines and got so close to Nigel’s King that the monarch got a glimpse of this daring royal beauty before she slew two pawns and dashed back to safety of her own lines. Nigel rallied the troops and pressed forward and sent a knight ahead to cause some problems. On move 35. David blundered after he moved the Bishop from the guarding square of g5 allowing Nigel to play a tactical trick winning with a Philidor smothered mate attack.

Board 3.

This was a game that I was not able to see much of with Roger Pearce v Duncan MacArthur. Both played solidly and little quarter was shown by either and the game was eventually drawn.

Board 4.

Tom Holmes v Lawrence Wilmshurst ended after a long struggle when Tom finally managed to overcome Lawrence to collect an important win for the team.

Board 5.

Peter Marks got himself into a right pickle against Jim Rowland and ended up having to do a king walk to the 6th rank to escape pursuit. Eventually though got some cohesion to his game to somehow secure a draw.

Board 6

Piotr Zielinski always just kept a move ahead of Chris Hayden before finally breaking through in a crushing attack to win strongly for the team.