Match Report: Horfield A vs Clifton A (1 November)

Clifton were 3 from 3 coming into this match but decided they’d challenge themselves by only bringing five players and no James Cobb.

On board 1 Callum and Chris played a surprisingly conventional QGD opening. After minor complications in the middlegame, that involved a queen trade, white missed black’s Rd2 attacking bishop and b2 pawn. Chris promptly offered a draw and Callum accepted having reviewed the boards and the match situation. Whilst black probably had a slight edge it would have been hard to push for the win; a pawn up but white had compensation in the form of activity. Plus a draw with the black pieces against the IM can’t be sniffed at. On 2 Gareth was late arriving and it possibly affected his opening with Matias certainly feeling like he had an advantage into the middlegame. Black lost tempi with a misplaced queen allowing white to attack with queen and rook forcing black to give up a pawn to stop the attack. From there it was relatively straight-forward for Matias who converted the win nicely. On 3 John expanded early out of the opening on the queenside and left Derek struggling for a plan to generate any activity. However white couldn’t quite find the knock-out blow and then short on time traded down into a heavy piece endgame and equality much to black’s relief.  John proffered the draw and Derek didn’t think twice about accepting it. On board 4 Andy unfortunately got the wrong side of the result against David. Finally on board 5 Igor and Peter played a slow cautious opening following which white advanced his pawns on the kingside with f4, g4, and h4 but this always comes with a risk and led to some pawn weaknesses. Igor missed a tactic and decided to sacrifice an exchange to continue the attack on Peter’s king, there were further complications but black was able to liquidate down to a winning endgame the exchange up and a player as competent as Mr Kirby wasn’t going to mess it up.

So a comfortable 4-2 win for the A team. With Downend B team beating the University last night there is a four-way tie at the top of Division 1. Exciting times.