Initial success for A team in Stockport League

Played at the Navigation last evening -

Marple A                V     Holmes Chapel    Stockport Lge Div 1 15/01/2015

1 M Fernandez  0.5/0.5 JLB Blackburn
2 J Bentley           0-1    JM Turner
3 I Craft                1-0   M Hancock
4 S Hegarty          1-0    B Scattergood
5 P Kirby           0.5/0.5  AL Raeburn
6 G Trueman       1-0      MA Roberts

                              4-2

Although we were heavily outnumbered in terms of initials on the match scorecard (11-6) Marple managed to win last nights chess match against perennially strong opposition in Holmes Chapel.

My game was the first to finish. I felt sorry for Malcolm my opponent. He had gone to the Conservative Club by mistake. I'm pleased to report that they directed him to the Navigation  and as the match was slightly late starting he wasn't even behind on the clock. However I feel things like this are unsettling and I would always advise players in such circumstances to play their opening moves very slowly. Here Malcolm blitzed out the first 10 moves and allowed me to build up a massive Kingside attack. When I've played Malcolm before I've found him a very resilient adversary but here my position was so overwhelming I was able to mate him on move 26.  1-0.

Michael faced very strong opposition who launched a g4 anti -Slav system against him. It always looked to me that Michaels position was sound and  draw was agreed after about two hours play. 1.5/ 0.5.

Paul was on the Black side of  a very dangerous Grand Prix attack. Although he "won" the exchange it was clear that Andrews (Raeburn) Knight was a very good piece indeed. Paul found a way to countersacrifice one of his remaining Rooks for the steed and the players agreed a draw in a position where Andrew could have forced an interesting pawn ending. I'm not sure what correct play would have led to but Michael and Paul analysed this line in some detail afterwards. 2-1.

Sarah then won a nice game against rising star Ben Scattergood. Ben is something of a French Defence expert and his game against Alan Beresford  on the Holmes Chapel blog is well worth playing through. Here in a Classical variation Black almost equalised ..but not quite.. and a passed c pawn ultimately proved decisive  in the endgame. 3-1.

Isaac faced a Kings Gambit from Mike Hancock and bravely played what is arguably the best but most hair raising defence with the ...g5 line. I'd be lying if I said I had any grasp of who was better but it seemed to me Mikes King position was the most important feature of the position. Ultimately Isaac secured the upper hand and with Q+B+N V Q+R found a very nice sac on g3 which forced resignation. We had won. 4-1.

The last game to finish was the battle of the Johns. Our John played a very interesting line where he sacrificed first one then two pawns for a positional advantage. Think QGA meets the Catalan for the type of position. John B then sacrificed a piece and  after the game regretted  winning it back immediately. He could he said have reached a position where he was a lot of material down but John (T)s Rook would have been completely out of the game. In the line chosen White retained some prospects and the deficit was reduced to one pawn with drawing chances when a missed Knight fork ended things. 4-2.

So another good win. Many thanks to all who played and special congratulations to Isaac on his first victory for Marple Chess Club.