Two matches this week.
The E team and University C put on an eight-board extravagnza of chess on Tuesday.
After racing into a 2-0 lead on the bottom two boards not a lot went well for us as the University closed the advantage then went ahead. The last match standing was board 4 but Graham had no winning chances and the match went to the students.
| 1 | Joaquim Luque (1653) | 0 | Anoop Singh (1866) | 1 |
| 2 | Piotr Zielinski (1576) | .5 | Lukasz Krepa (1670) | .5 |
| 3 | Scott White (1565) | 0 | Samson Main (1732) | 1 |
| 4 | Graham Strickland (1447) | .5 | Juan Psatuszak (1432) | .5 |
| 5 | Mike Jennings (1495) | 0 | Marko Kubica (1948) | 1 |
| 6 | Kana Balasubramaniam (1383) | .5 | Luke Galt (1592) | .5 |
| 7 | Joe Fearhead (1370) | 1 | Francis Saunders (UNG) | 0 |
| 8 | Jack Knipe (1629) | 1 | Tom Stanton (1659) | 0 |
| Horfield E | 3.5 | University C | 4.5 |
Thursday saw our A team travel to the University to play their A team hoping for a better result than the B team got last week against the same opposition. The initial drama was the absence of a board 3 for University which meant emergency calls and an out of breath Jonas arriving at 7.45 to play Steve. First to finish was Carl and Tom on board 2. White had a slight edge out of the opening but after some complications Carl resolved any problems to secure a level endgame and the half point to continue his unbeaten return to league chess. Next up board 6 saw the University go ahead. A level game where nothing had happened finished with me simply dropping a rook in the endgame. Not particularly clever. Fortunately the actual chess players on the team made up for my feebleness.
Andy was completely comfortable out of the opening and Ulugbek tried a sacrifice on h6 to stop black’s kingside extension. It came to nothing and white’s position unravelled shortly afterwards as Andy eased to the point and levelled the match. On board 5 Phil and Indura drew after some adventures. From a wild opening where Phil let a pawn go but had significant spatial and development advantages a complicated middle game ensued. Phil won back the pawn with his queenside pressure and eventually the players reached a still unbalanced, but even, position and a draw was agreed.
Steve put us ahead against the Jonas by winning on board 3. Jonas spent a long time on the opening leaving white 30 minutes up on the clock. Steve chose not to win a pawn to try to extend his positional advantage but black gained the initiative however time pressure started to tell. In order to maximise his initiative black gave up 2 pawns. One of them dropped soon afterwards and it looked like the second may go the same way so Steve decided to offer the draw which Jonas turned down. However in awful time trouble black blundered a piece and with it the game.
Finally on board 1 Matias had played a slow burn of a game where white had significant pressure on the kingside. However Matias couldn’t find the best continuations and in time trouble James was more accurate finding a little tactical trap which won a piece and the game.
Match levelled at 3-3.
| 1 | James Clarke (2087) | 1 | Matias Candelario (2150) | 0 |
| 2 | Tom Shepherd (2086) | .5 | Carl Bicknell (2170) | .5 |
| 3 | Jonas Zurba (1761) | 0 | Steve Dilleigh (2018) | 1 |
| 4 | Ulugbek Nozimov (1896) | 0 | Andy Hill (2010) | 1 |
| 5 | Indura Sapuarachchige (2012) | .5 | Phil Nendick (2012) | .5 |
| 6 | Conor Newton (1568) | 1 | Peter Marks (1746) | 0 |
Horfield & Redland Chess Club 