Last week our B team had a bit of a chastening experience against Clifton (who I notice followed it up with a comprehensive victory over Downend A this week). Peter had a good win against and Derek couldn’t find the correct continuation in a winning position against the venerable IM. He had a draw in hand but the match situation made him over-press. Otherwise the rating disadvantages turned out to be tough to overcome.
| 1 | Chris Beaumont (2255) | 1 | Derek Pugh (2115) | 0 |
| 2 | Gareth Morris (2048) | 0 | Peter Kirby (2029) | 1 |
| 3 | John Curtis (2025) | 1 | Phil Nendick (2012) | 0 |
| 4 | Duncan Grossett (2056) | 1 | Rob Attar (1913) | 0 |
| 5 | David Collier (1960) | 1 | Mike Levene (1887) | 0 |
| 6 | Dominic Goodwin (2067) | 1 | Judd Chidwick (1722) | 0 |
| Clifton A | 5 | Horfield B | 1 |
The E team fared better in Whitchurch comfortably easing past South Bristol C (thanks Scott and Mike for the report).
The first game to finish was Joe on 4, controlled slow wearing down of his opponent who (from what I could see) seemed to be resistant to defending his pieces. An early finish for Joe, which is always nice when you have to wait for a lift back. Next to finish was Scott. Things were looking fairly even and quite congested until move 18 when Alessandro failed to spot my reason for moving my queen to e1; to attack his undefended knight on a5, and decided to leave it undefended. An uphill struggle for Alessandro from that point, but after a fairly solid assault on my kingside, there was an opportunity to trade off a couple of pieces to relieve the pressure. I swapped a rook for a bishop knowing that there was a queen/rook fork available to my knight to even the trade. Alessandro either decided enough was enough, or simply made a mistake by moving his queen to an undefended square directy in sight of my queen. He subsequently resigned.
Mike and Graham’s games far more involved, Graham went from a fairly even position to a winning position, two pieces up but had about 40 seconds left, he kindly offered his opponent a draw which was declined, a few quick moves, an illegal move by his opponent relieved the time pressure and his opponent resigned. Mike’s game also went the distance. Black won a pawn early but it gave John a lead in development. Mike, under pressure weakened the pawns around his king and white was able to win two pawns then using the dark square holes around the black king John used his queen and knight he created threats resulting in Mike only being able to prevent mate by sacrificing his queen for a rook.
| 1 | Alessandro Coppola (1398) | 0 | Scott White (1579) | 1 |
| 2 | John Robinson (1549) | 1 | Mike Jennings (1500) | 0 |
| 3 | Jack Britton (1993) | 0 | Graham Strickland (1453) | 1 |
| 4 | Nathan Churchill (1159) | 0 | Joe Fearnhead (1288) | 1 |
| South Bristol C | 1 | Horfield E | 3 |
Horfield & Redland Chess Club 