Match Report: Clifton E vs Horfield D (15 March): A clean sweep.

Clifton have had a boom in new players this year and they are trying to introduce as many as possible to league chess. Our team had three players who have started this season meaning seven out of the eight participants are new this year which surely is a good thing for chess in Bristol.

Board 2 was first to finish. Remi showed more understanding of the opening and won a central pawn early allowing him to impose control on the position. Black encouraged a trade off of pieces meaning his centralised king was well positioned to support his pawn centre which could begin to roll. However before it even began Mathew missed a back rank mate and that was that. On board one Judd and Jack had emerged into the middle game in a pretty even position however black’s pawn chain gave him better access to the king-side to attack and potentially constrained white’s pieces from getting across to defend. Jack lined up his rook and queen on the h file and potentially was close to creating meaningful threats but then he tried to shift Judd’s knight on f4 by playing g5 but the result was to leave his queen trapped and with that the game was essentially done.

On board 4 Lionel had much the better position with a strong pawn centre and Tony had castled long which looked risky with black’s queenside pawns and heavy pieces lined up to attack. The game was decided by Lionel stretching Tony’s defensive set up and winning the e4 pawn, with this white’s position pretty much collapsed as he lost his h1 rook exposed on the diagonal. The game went on for a bit longer but it was never in doubt as Lionel carefully consolidated his overwhelming material and positional advantages. Finally board 3 was the last to finish. Mike made it a clean sweep. He was a piece up after six moves and continued to increase his material advantage. By the end white had queen, knight and bishop versus black’s lonely king. Will obliged Mike to deliver the coup de grace, which he did.

4-0 on the night in the first of our three division 2 matches this week. Cabot A and University B to come.