Back after Christmas

Three matches this week.

Tuesday saw the F team at home against debutants Thornbury B. Match details below from Siobhan and co (thank you).

The game on board 1 saw the ever-popular (sigh) London system deployed by Richard. It remained equal after the first few pieces were traded off and, whilst there were opportunities for minor advantages, neither player took control of the game until a suddenly chaotic ending. Tom found an attack on a weak C pawn, which led to a knight sacrifice and a threatening passed pawn. However with only 10 minutes left on the clock, black didn’t see the winning queen sacrifice and offered a draw, which was quickly accepted. On board two, Martin struggled out of the opening against Ben and had to castle on the queen-side leaving his king very exposed.  Black offered a queen exchange, which relieved the pressure. White fought back well in the middle game, finding some tactics to equalise, and then eventually sacrificed a knight to get a very strong attack with both rooks and bishop. However, with checkmate in sight Martin blundered one of his rooks and with no chance left resigned.

Board 3 saw Kristian still at the start of his OTB career take on Mike with many (many) years of experience, The game saw some interesting threats and counter threats but with little chance of either player winning. The only real chance for Kristian was whether he would be able to capture an isolated pawn but it came to naught and a draw was agreed. A fair result with few surprises. Finally, Siobhan on board 4 was well placed into the middle game against Alun. However white’s position went wrong in the centre allowing black to get queen and knight into the danger zone and deliver a checkmate. Three one to the visitors. Match card here.

Two matches on Wednesday. The A team went to high-flying Bath and came away with a creditable 3-3 draw. The top four boards were all drawn with a jet-lagged Andy coming up short on 5 and Phil securing the halved match with his first win of the season on board 6.  Match card here.

The D team managed to cobble together 6 players who proved good enough to beat South Bristol C. Jason evened the match up on board 4 with a comfortable win after an early loss for Siobhan on board 6. Mike then drew his game to keep the match level. It didn’t look particularly clever on the other boards as Pete had dropped a pawn then lost any concept of how to play chess, and continued to make his position worse by trying to chase unfruitful complications leading to the loss of the exchange and another pawn. Scott was thinking about resigning on board 2 and finally Graham was a piece up but inevitably way behind on the clock.

It all turned out fine. Pete managed to create a blockade of sorts with knight and bishop and get his queen and knight around Nasir’s king at the other end resulting in a perpetual. Graham, cool as ice, ignored the clock and delivered the win, and finally Scott hung in, hung on, managed to dissipate most of Simon’s advantage. Then it turned out could count better in a pawn race and won the game. A swindle overall? Sure. Match card here.

Also to note last week we whimpered out of the MKO with a comprehensive loss to South Bristol who very much deserved the win. Match card here. And finally, we’ll need to rearrange the C team fixture away to Clifton.