A good week for us.
Firstly on Tuesday our E team was away to Hanham.
On board 4 Kana was the first to finish and kept his 100% record this season after Richard gave away a queen on move 21, white played on for a while but resigned on move 35. Joe put us 2-0 up with a fairly straightforward win on board 3 checkmating Roger in 21 moves. On board 1 Harry had led out of the opening against Barry but the advantage slipped away in the middle game and Hanham took the full point. Finally Mike won a dynamic game against Jack on board 2 to secure the match. White, who was playing his first ever over the board, had delayed castling and then launched an attack with queen and rooks giving up the exchange to try and break through. However black was solid enough and won a couple of pawns to increase the material advantage. With most of the pieces removed the win became inevitable and Jack resigned.
The win takes the E team to the top of division 4A
| 1 | Barry Davies (1473) | 1 | Harry Duckworth (1515) | 0 |
| 2 | Jack Joyce (UNG) | 0 | Mike Jennings (1492) | 1 |
| 3 | Roger Coles (1536) | 0 | Joe Fearnhead (1293) | 1 |
| 4 | Richard Kirk (1091) | 0 | Kana Balasubramaniam (1357) | 1 |
| Hanham B | 1 | Horfield E | 3 |
On Thursday a full strength C team went to Keynsham looking for their first win of the season. We arrived to be informed that our hosts would probably only have five players. Scott hung around to 8pm and then drove home. Making it even easier for us Keynsham’s top board also failed to arrive on time. The bright lights of suburban Keynsham kept me entertained; I strolled across to get tea bags from the Co-Op, watched the carpet bowls, read my book, and paid a passing interest in the chess as I waited to chauffer Joaquim and Alan home.
Not long afterwards James made it 3-0. He played the sharpest of openings against Duncan who prefers a positional approach, and with black making a couple of wrong choices his position very quickly became paralysed and ultimately untenable. By 9pm Alan had secured a draw against John on board 2. An open centre had resulted in the liquidation of pieces and with even pawns hostilities were brought to a close. Match won. Piotr was next to finish on board 5. He won his first point of the season by building pressure on Dean’s kingside who struggled to find reasonable moves and ultimately a revealed check won a piece for white and the game. Finally Alex and Joaquim shared the honours on board 4 after a game that could have gone either way but finished with the dial stuck in the middle.
So the C team is up and running and two wins out of two for the club this week. Well done everyone.
| 1 | Default | 0 | Peter Marks (1750) | 1 |
| 2 | John Kilmister (1790) | .5 | Alan Clarke (1724) | .5 |
| 3 | Duncan MacArthur (1673) | 0 | James Facey (1713) | 1 |
| 4 | Alex Whelan (1593) | .5 | Joaquim Luque (1658) | .5 |
| 5 | Dean Scott (1209) | 0 | Piotr Zielinski (1589) | 1 |
| 6 | Default | 0 | Scott White (1584) | 1 |
| Keynsham | 1 | Horfield C | 5 |
Horfield & Redland Chess Club 