Three matches this week.
On Tuesday the A team’s good run of form came to an end against Clifton B. The white pieces on boards 4 and 6 proved to be decisive. Match card here. Also on Tuesday the D team went down to a strong Grendel B in division 4. Joe won his game before 8 o’clock and Mike secured a solid draw. However, that was about as good as it got. Duncan and Jason lost out in their matches and Pete, the exchange down, scraped a draw against Patrick. It was left to Graham, low on time (of course), to try to get a full point from an equal position. He couldn’t. Match card here.
Better news on Thursday with the C team winning away against Clifton J1 to go top of the table. Board two finished first with Nigel taking the draw having surveyed the balance of play across the other boards. This was followed shortly by Pete winning against Toby on board 4. White had got cramped defending a pawn and ended up losing a different one to a small tactic. Further pressure led to the capture of a second pawn for black who then traded down into a won endgame.
We went 2.5-.5 up when James won on board 3. It was relatively even until Will, trying to free his pieces, miscalculated and dropped two pieces for a rook. White then won a pawn and traded knights. Black decided that was enough rather than carry on with the misery of trying to hold a lost endgame.
Judd drew in a game that looked like it was always a draw and Duncan under-estimated Adam’s kingside attack on board six meaning the match was close again with just board 1 in progress. Alan needed a draw to take the match but was under some pressure when the game reached the position below with black having played Rd3 to d2 rather than 30…e5 where he would still have stood better.
Assuming black was hoping to deflect the knight and mate via h2 and f2, but after 31 Rxd2 Rxd2 and 32 Qxe6 there is a mate threat, which both players initially missed (although Alan could see his way to obtaining perpetual check and the half point needed to win the match). It seems that black’s best is to play the rook back to d8, but Henry was still looking for a win and played 32 Nxf2, hoping for an exchange of queens on h3. However, white played Qe8+ followed by Ng5+ and black resigned, as he spotted that after the forced capture and the queen check on h5 white can check (and mate) with the rook. 4-2 match result and top of the table.
Match card here.
Horfield & Redland Chess Club 