Horfield & Redland Chess Club

Three matches in a night again. Exciting times. B team vs Cabot A Scott finished early. Unfortunately the wrong side of opening know-how as Alastair created an enormous centre and black had no squares for his pieces, was unable to get his dark-squared bishop out and his king died in the middle. Mike J dropped …

Continue reading "Match Reports: B, C, and D teams (1 February): Mixed blessings"

Downend A are very strong this year and consistently strong on all six boards. So what came to pass wasn't entirely unexpected. Before the match there was a degree of amusement that Downend had decided on a board order to avoid Nigel and Oli playing Peter and Matias. Half right. So in board order: On …

Continue reading "Match Report: Downend A vs Horfield A (26 January): Out-graded, out-gunned"

We’ve added a fourth team to give some of our new recruits a chance to play regular league chess and last night they did themselves proud. Two of our matches were at home. The B team took on Hanham and the C team were playing Cabot B, the third match of the night was our …

Continue reading "Match Reports: B, C, and D teams all in action (19 January): Oh what a night."

Off to Yate to play North Bristol. Our hosts were a man short so I sat out the match and we promoted everyone up a board so Remi and Owen got matches whilst I counted ceiling tiles waiting for the games to finish and the pleasure of chauffeuring the team back into the city. Piotr …

Continue reading "Match Report: North Bristol B vs Horfield B (9 December): Victory in Yate."

We were significantly stronger than Bath who certainly didn’t have their best team out; the new world has impacted some clubs more than others. James finished quickly mating Roy in 21 moves after white blundered a knight and got his queen trapped in the first ten moves.  Nigel and Mikey didn’t have too many problems …

Continue reading "Match Report: Horfield A vs Bath A (30 November): Another win."

The inter-church hall battle; a fixture that gets the synod a flutter. We’d brought, by our standards, a decent team and I was hopeful we would get something out of the match. On one Nigel and John had got wild early with white giving up a knight for two pawns to try to get to …

Continue reading "Match Report: Keynsham vs Horfield C (25 November): A comfortable win."

Close but no cigar. Mikey won comfortably on board one (and continues his unbeaten run this season) ; he was in control of the position throughout and after all the pieces had been exchanged off Conor was left with a queenside pawn majority and Mikey a kingside one. However Conor’s extra pawn was backward and …

Continue reading "Match Report: Horfield B vs University C (23 November): The kids are alright"

A win in Henleaze. The top two boards finished first with Matias winning quickly and Peter maintaining his unbeaten start to the season. Matais had pressed Alistair from the beginning and had won a pawn and created a dominant position when black called it quits. On three Phil won a pawn in the opening after …

Continue reading "Match Report: Grendel A vs Horfield A (16 November): Third win of the season"

Bristol’s most highly anticipated sporting event of the season; the Horfield local derby between the B and C teams was played last night. Neatly the boards finished in order. On one Mike had a forward e pawn which restrained James but also was in the way of any attempts by white to progress and black’s …

Continue reading "Match Report: Horfield C vs Horfield B (9 November): B team win the derby"