A double!
B team vs North Bristol B
This is the fifth time we’ve played a North Bristol team this season. Last time they came and beat us 4-0 and they brought a reasonable team again, bolstered by the late replacement of Debaditya for Jason on board 4.
Kandara and I finished first with a draw on board 2. It was quite a drawish draw as neither of us risked a huge amount to try to create anything and with equal pawns and just a pair of bishops and knights each we agreed enough was enough. Next to finish was Mike and Miguel on board one. As they entered the late middle game it was even with white possibly having some threats. Miguel maybe misread the position and exchanged queens leaving him in trouble down the open c-file which allowed Mike to pin bishop to rook, forcing the win of the exchange and a pawn to go with it. Then black swapped off a pair of rooks and his remaining rook and extra pawn were too good for white and we’d gone ahead on the scoreboard. On board three Scott had gone two pawns up but Arnav had marched his king behind black’s pawn chain and with bishop and rook also in attendance and white’s rook watching from afar passively protecting his bishop a mating net looked certain. However white couldn’t quite find the combination to stop black’s king scraping free and with white worried about how to control the extra two pawns a draw was agreed. After some discussion we still weren’t sure if there was a forced mate but Scott certainly looked the happier of the two. Last to finish was board 4. Lionel had calmly controlled Debaditya’s threats earlier in the game and reached an endgame two pawns to the good. Two soon became three and white carefully shepherded the pawns down the board with rook and bishop controlling any threats black could manufacture with rook and knight. An impressive win from Lionel, his best of the season.
3-1 the final score, a satisfying team performance.
| 1 | Mike Levene (1903) | 1 | Miguel Espinosa (1773) | .0 |
| 2 | Peter Marks (1675) | .5 | Kandara Acharya (1743) | .5 |
| 3 | Scott White (1615) | .5 | Arnav Sud (1411) | .5 |
| 4 | Lionel Germane (UNG) | 1 | Debaditya Dasgupta (1710) | 0 |
| Horfield B | 3 | North Bristol B | 1 |
D team vs Downend E
The match was decided early. Kana won in 15 moves in a game I know nothing about and no one was able to shed any light on. Alex then won in 16 moves firstly sacrificing his bishop on h7 to bring the black king out then delivering mate with knight and rook after Krishna fatally couldn’t resist the bait of taking white’s queen allowing the one move mate. Alex was pretty pleased with that. 2-0 up by 8.30. Mike secured the match by drawing on board 3 not long after. The game finished with queens and four pawns each and whilst Frazer had an outside passed pawn it wasn’t obvious how to progress it and find a safe space for his king so a draw looked about right. The last game to finish was board 1. From an unbalanced and open position Nigel manoeuvred his knight into a hole on d6. Hendrik possibly could have given up the exchange to remove it but hoped to be able to play around it. However black couldn’t find any counter-play, white won a pawn with a nice little tactic, and then the conversion of the pawn endgame was simple enough. A decent game from Nigel.
| 1 | Hendrik Wessels (UNG) | 0 | Nigel Wilcox (1575) | 1 |
| 2 | Alex Dunn (1521) | 1 | Krishna Patel (UNG) | 0 |
| 3 | Mike Jennings (1498) | .5 | Frazer McAllister (1050) | .5 |
| 4 | Kana Balasubramaniam (1319) | 1 | Per Saunders (976) | 0 |
| Horfield D | 2.5 | Downend E | 1.5 |
Two matches, two wins. Marching to victory? Springing to victory? Some kind of end of winter pun of your choice. Fingers-crossed we win on Thursday to make it a clean sweep for the week.
Horfield & Redland Chess Club 