Google Calendar

Thursday 6 March 2014

East Cheshire B -v- Marple C

We visited East Cheshire last night for another important game in our quest for promotion. The night started well when Ioannis's opponent missed a tactic which cost him a piece. He played on but Ioannis produced an elegant finish to put us 1-0 up inside the hour.

Shortly after that, it was 1-1. I didn't see the game, but Tony appeared to have been mated by his opponents queen and knight.

At this stage, things looked good. I had a nice position, Nigel a raging attack, Andy was the exchange up and only Paul was under any pressure. How things can change though! Andy was next to finish. I had assumed he must have won but no. His opponent had managed to pull off a swindle. It looked like there was a potential threat of mate in the corner with two bishops and in avoiding that, Andy got his rook skewered. 1-2.

I finished next. Having finally released my monster KID bishop I was confident I would win the rook, bishop and opposite coloured bishop endgame when my opponent allowed a tactic winning his bishop and the game 2-2.

So, down to Nigel and Paul. Paul looked in real trouble. He was an exchange and a pawn down and his opponent had a monster pawn centre. Nigel on the other hand appeared to have any number of winning choices. He went for the fancy queen sac (who wouldn't). Sadly, it didn't win and merely exchanged queen for rook and knight.

Meanwhile, Paul's opponent generously donated a knight to the cause for, as far as I could see, no reason whatsoever. Very generous and Paul quickly mopped up the pawn centre to win the game. 3-2.

It was 10.15 and Nigel was still playing. He had 30 mins compared to his opponents 7 mins. I should explain that the analogue clock the game had started with continually stopped working. Eventually it was swapped for the digital that had been in use on board 1, but not before 15 minutes had been lost due to the defect. Nigel had managed to win an exchange and we now had 2R+2P -v- Q+4P. It could be a long night! However, as his opponent started to play more quickly, Nigel set a little trap which his opponent missed ended up with his queen pinned. 4-2.

So, victory in the end, but it didn't look on the cards 30 minutes beforehand. Exhausted, we retreated to the Church Inn round the corner and had a Dizzy Blonde. As Napoleon said "Don’t give me good generals, give me lucky ones". Lady Luck certainly smiled on us tonight.

1 Broadbent, David 0-1 Lentzos, Ioannis
2 Rickards, Tudor 0-1 Hewitt, Sean D
3 Bamford, Paul 0-1 Livesey, R Nigel
4 Flaherty, Nicholas C 0-1 Kirby, Paul
5 Stokes, Alan 1-0 Kay, Tony
6 Taylor, David R 1-0 Jenkins, J Andy

No comments:

Post a Comment