Match Report: Horfield D vs Bath C (21 February): Honours even

Bath’s C team is one of the new teams formed for the second half of the season, it is great to see more teams and more people playing competitive chess.

Horfield took the lead early when Kana won his game very quickly. Jayden with king still in the centre decided to push at Kana’s pieces with his kingside pawns which allowed white to use the space and black’s lack of piece coordination to use a series of pins to break through with queen and minor pieces. He won material, chased the black king around, won more material and Jayden had seen enough. Shortly afterwards Harry and Andreas drew on board 2.

Mike was next to finish. He had made a mistake in the middle game meaning Martin could win queen for rook but fortunately for Mike it wasn’t spotted. White did win a pawn but black won it back. Shortly afterwards Mike allowed his queen to be pinned against his bishop, the escape square left bishop and knight hanging but when Martin took the knight it allowed black to get his queen active and force a perpetual to gain the draw. Finally on board one there was a long old tussle. The game had been mainly equal until Graham misplaced his knight to defend a pawn and Meeran was able to capture it. In a long endgame, with Graham (not for the first time) playing on the increment black tried to hold rook plus three versus rook and bishop plus three. Once rooks came off white had an easy job of exchanging off  two pairs of pawns and winning the last one to create a won position and level the match.

So the match finished 2-2 after a decent tussle and the D team continue to top division 4.