Match reports: B and C teams in action (18 October)

The B team: A curates egg of a match for the B team. On board one Phil transformed a solid two pawn advantage and an opportunity to open up the centre onto Fergus’s king into something less palatable, by, and I quote, ‘contriving to play moves that made his otherwise innocuous attack work’. John on board two, following his game last week (over which we have collectively drawn a mental veil), focused very much on the basics of avoiding hanging pieces, skewers, forks, pins, back rank mates, etc (and etc). Jonas turned down the early draw offer and then the game moved into a rook and pawn ending with white a pawn up but with no way to make progress. A draw it was. Judd also drew on board three after ‘turning a winning position into a draw’ (again a direct quote).  However some cheer on board four where Piotr finally got exactly what he wanted from his opening and Conor didn’t see the threat of the kingside attack and the h7 sack allowing white to win the game early and in good style. Mike got into a tangle early on board five and couldn’t extract himself losing pawns, the exchange, then more pawns. All over in 23 moves. Finally on board six Luke won on his debut. Which is a good thing.

So as ever with chess, some good stuff, some not so good stuff, and some ‘opportunities for learning’ as we like to say at my place of work.

The C team: Yate have a decent team this season with good solid players all the way down. On the night they were too good and too experienced for the C team. Board one finished first where after some slight peril caused by my lack of ambition the game drifted into a level position and Andy offered a draw which was fair. By this point it didn’t look great on many of the other boards for us, my consolation was the early draw allowed me a drink and chat in the bar. On board two Remi had a bit of a torrid time; he got caught out by an opening transposition from Jeremy but worked hard to get back somewhere close to equal. White however took an opportunity to stop black castling and with Remi’s pieces misplaced on the queenside Jeremy was able to win pawns and exchange down into a won endgame. On board three Lionel was a little passive allowing Andy to control the game. Black won the exchange and with bishop and queen aiming at g2 and control of the c file white became short of viable options. The pressure told and Andy won through. On board four Harry had down a good job of breaking down Ben’s queenside structure and the game entered an even middlegame but an oversight from black allowed white’s queen entry squares and the loss of a piece. The end game was simple for Ben in the end. Finally board six finished last. Graham, gambling with his time as ever, had held off significant pressure on both sides of the board from James. Black managed to open the g file, load it with rooks and queen and with most of white’s pieces positioned to engage in a queenside attack Graham found a pleasing mating attack.

A comfortable win for the home team, but I am sure we are all better people for the experience.