The C team were in Bath on Wednesday. It wasn’t raining, we found a parking space. The omens were good.
Out of the openings we looked pretty good apart from board 4. On board 1, in a low-confidence game, Christian and Pete were having a contest to see who could play the more drawish chess. On board 2 James was looking to exploit an open centre, his pieces were more active and it looked like black had the edge. On 3 Alan seemed to have a slight edge but it wasn’t entirely clear how he was going to exploit it. On board 5 Joe had launched a kingside attack from the outset. If Andreas could hold the position his strong central pawns would be decisive but a lot of careful defence was needed first. Finally on board 6 Jack had a definite edge in a game that quickly reached a rook and pawn ending. Pawns were a mess but Jack’s were marginally better and his rooks more active.
Board 5. Nothing to see. Mauro uncompromisingly aggressive. Scott back home in Bristol by 9pm. Bath 1-0 up.
The next match to finish was board 6. Jack chose not to pick up a pawn with his dominant rooks then got in a bit of a muddle allowing Szabolcs to trade off rooks and create unstoppable outside passers. 2-0 for Bath. But it still wasn’t raining, which was something.
On board 1 Christian misplaced his rook, allowing Pete to win the exchange, and from there white was able to get in behind black’s pawns with rook and queen to exploit the space around the king. Once queens came off an outside passed pawn couldn’t be stopped and it was a point back for Horfield. Alan and Eliott drew shortly afterwards on board 3. The game ended with the two of them playing on opposite colours with no prospect of breakthroughs. Then Joe won on board 5 to level the match. Forcing Andreas to keep making accurate defensive moves told as Joe was able to fork bishop and rook with his queen then force the black king onto bad squares. With the only way for black to stop mate was to give up his queen Andreas accepted defeat and Joe took a good win against a player rated almost 300 points higher.
So all eyes on board 2. James had all the pressure and Bob pieces were in a cluster around his king. Trying to create some space white pushed pawns which made them vulnerable and black picked up one then another. Two pawns versus four felt enough and James decided to take the opportunity to remove the last remaining pieces and stepped into a won endgame which Bob conceded.
A good match win for the C team who have turned their form around after losing the first two matches of the season. And it rounded off a good week for the club with two match wins and a draw against the odds against Downend B.
| 1 | Christian Brown (1774) | 0 | Pete Marks (1750) | 1 |
| 2 | Bob Gore (1696) | 0 | James Facey (1722) | 1 |
| 3 | Eliott Van Steirteghem (1639) | .5 | Alan Clarke (1740) | .5 |
| 4 | Mauro Farina (1613) | 1 | Scott White (1586) | 0 |
| 5 | Andreas Stalidis (1600) | 0 | Joe Fearnhead (1305) | 1 |
| 6 | Szabolcs Szigethy (1511) | 1 | Jack Knipe (1659) | 0 |
| Bath C | 2.5 | Horfield C | 3.5 |
Horfield & Redland Chess Club 