Two matches this week, two wins.
On Monday the D team had a comfortable win at Portishead. A second win out of two for Duncan, Piotr taking his unbeaten run to five games and Scott extending his excellent record this season to 6-4-1 (+5). We missed out on a clean sweep as Mike, unfortunately, got into time trouble against a fast-moving junior. Well done chaps. Match card here.
On Wednesday the B team continued their resurgence with a comfortable win over Downend C. Nigel recorded his first win of the season. Throughout the game Alexis had a lot of pressure on f7 and probably had the edge. But black defended solidly and advanced his queen-side pawns. In the end, despite Nigel’s king-side caving in, he was able to create a passed pawn on the far side which proved to be decisive.
Brent lost out to Ash after turning down a draw. We’ve all done that. On board 4 Mike drew with Alan. John also drew his game with Elmira. In a peculiar game both players were out of book by move six. John snaffled a pawn on move 15 to a mistake and was well placed but missed a win on move 22 then compounded it by handing back his extra pawn. Advantage gone, nerves, a draw offer on move 27, accepted, relief. John noticed later Elmira had an immediate crushing and winning response!
Finally two wins on the top two boards. Firstly on board 2, Andy won in style. Keith had allowed Bxf3 doubling his pawns to give him the g file to attack down and was able to position his rook on g1 and queen on g2 but the attack came to nothing. Later, once the sting was gone, Andy was able to position a knight on f3 supported by a pawn on e4. This excitingly allowed a queen sacrifice followed by a back rank mate with a rook and the knight on f3 (the white rook, now on g2, blocked his only escape square). Mike finished the match off. As he notes when you play 10.Kd2 it is reasonable to say you’ve messed up the opening, but in this case there was actually nothing to worry about. Mike ended up rushing an exchange sack and Stephen played well to gain back some activity and should have probably drawn the ending but it was always difficult to save all his pawns. Black went astray and white created a passed pawn that, as with board 6, made the difference. Match card here.
On Tuesday we had a little internal rapid play session and a curry. 17 of us in total. I am far too modest to mention I won all three of my games…
Christmas sees the A team top of Division 1, the B and C teams have seen an uptick in results and are neatly tucked into the chase for top two positions in divisions 2 and 3. The D team is nicely placed and the E team is still unbeaten. Nineteen matches won against only nine lost and 90 games won against 54 lost. Well done us.
Happy Christmas
Horfield & Redland Chess Club 