Match Report: Horfield B vs South Bristol A (6 December): Honours even

A hard fought match. South Bristol came with a really strong team but generously chose to give us a time advantage on boards 2 and 4 as Richard and Tony both arrived after eight. Being reasonable sorts we consented to games being played; after all if you’ve turned up to play chess you might as well.

Board 2 finished first with Richard shrugging off his time gap to win against John. The game oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear! Then oh dear oh dear oh dear!!!?! resulting in a win for black [editorial decision to redact content as it was considered it may be upsetting or harmful for readers]. Phil levelled the match on board one and draws on board three and five for Mike and Nigel kept the match in the balance. Against Nigel Gareth had an early development and activity advantage. White managed to get his knight onto a dominant outpost on d6 but then decided to trade it for the black bishop, still on its starting square, lightening black’s problems. Nigel worked his way into the game but missed a chance to win the exchange and from there the game petered out into a draw.

On board 4 Judd and Tony were even out of the opening but then black’s kingside positional manoeuvring, and advancing h pawn to give his rook space to lift, created a degree of uncertainty for white who was struggling to find a plan to counter. An attempt to free the queenside with b4 proved a problem for white not black allowing Tony a protected passed pawn on that side of the board. With rooks lined up on the open h file, knight unchallengable on f4, and queen about to enter the fray it was all black and South Bristol were 3-2 up with one to go.

Luke and David had battled hard in a close game and in the time scramble Luke had a little more winning the game and levelling the match at 3-3. An average grading of 1849 for Horfield, 1848 for South Bristol. A 3-3 draw. Seems about right. On another day, and another team we might have won 5-1 with the defaults but really who wants that?