Apologies to Marvin Aday.
Four matches this week, three wins and the only loss to the runaway division 1 leaders.
The C team were away to table-topping Clevedon on Monday. Conceding an average of around 50 per board didn’t stop us and great wins from Alan, Piotr and Scott meant we eased to a 4-2 win and move within one point of the top of the league with a match in hand. Match card here.
The D team were out-graded on every board and were conceding an average of 80 points against Grendel B. However the result was another 4-2 win. Wins on boards 4-6 from Graham (I don’t know why I mention it but the ice-man delivered another mate in dreadful time-trouble), Mark, and Ryan were the key. Duncan offered a draw from a winning position and Joaquim’s got a draw in a queen vs rook and two knights ending. Piotr had played really well to get Jack on the ropes but sadly blundered a rook in a winning position which would have made it an even more dominant win. Anyhow a super team win. Match card here.
The F team won away to Hanham B to stay second in division 7. Match report below (thanks team). Match card here.
Finally, the A team went down 4.5-1.5 against the remorseless Downend A whose march to a first league title since 2017 looks inevitable. Match card here.
F team report:
On board 1 Tom had advanced his pawn to d6 to constrain Andrew’s pieces with the fianchettoed kingside bishop being blacks only developed piece. White extended his positional advantage by denying black castling rights and increase his spatial control. Andrew found a skewer to win the exchange, but it wasn’t enough to change the outcome with Tom’s active pieces combining to deliver a neat checkmate on the h-file.
On board 2 the white pieces were again victorious with Nick being able to cramp Kristian’s postion and then launch his kingside pawns. The winning move was a knight move that attacked the black queen and gave a discovered check. And that was that after 15 moves.
White again on board 3! Martin entered the middle game with the more active pieces and including doubled rooks on the semi-open g file. Roger got in a muddle and whilst he tried for queenside counter play it allowed white to trap a rook for bishop and then shepherd a pawn up the board forcing black to resign when promotion became inevitable. Martin was pleased to avenge his defeat to Roger from last season.
Board 4 was the only game where white didn’t win and the draw was enough to secure the match result for us. Richard’s hedgehog was de-spiked by Siobhan who was an exchange and two pawns up in the middle game but a couple of blunders levelled up the material and black was happy to accept the draw offer. Match card here.
Horfield & Redland Chess Club 