Our second narrow defeat of the season, continuing the trend from last year the C team has made a habit of losing the close ones.
We were weaker than we’d hoped but super-subs Piotr and Mike gave us a solid start holding higher-rated opponents to creditable draws. Soon afterwards we went ahead with Pete winning on board two. White was always marginally better and the pressure told on Spence who fell to a fork and lost a piece and the game. It was looking even on board 1, Joe was clearly ahead on board 4 and ever-present super-super-sub Scott was struggling on board 5 after dropping material against Barry early in the piece.
Board 4 finished next. Lucy had countered Joe’s mating threats but at the cost of limited development and Joe was well placed to pick up a piece however instead he thought he’d found a mate (which wasn’t) and the position slipped away as Lucy’s one active piece created havoc. Alan and Jared, after a fair amount of shadow boxing, agreed to a draw leaving the match level and just board 5 remaining. Scott battled and battled picking up loose pawns to try and close the material gap but, in the end, once Barry manoeuvred the rooks off the board, his bishop was too strong and after 95 moves Bath won the game to take the match 3.5-2.5.
Horfield & Redland Chess Club 