It's a Heartache

Played at the Navigation last evening -

Marple A         V      Chorlton A   Stockport Lge. Div. One     02/04/2015

1 A Longson    1-0    D Lee
2 J Bentley      0-1    R Doney
3 I Lentzos      0-1    S Foulkes
4 S Hegarty     1-0    D Owen
5 P Kirby         0-1    A Elliott
6 G Trueman   1-0    A Beresford

                         3-3

A very solid Chorlton team arrived at the Navi and a full-blooded battle ensued. As far as I am aware there was only one draw offer made throughout the evening.I saw very little of the first two and half hours play so some of my perceptions may be inaccurate.
The intense nature of the match can be shown that my game was the first to finish and that was on move 47. Alan inadvertently allowed me to play a little combination involving a Bishop sacrifice. He found the best response though which kept his arrears to one pawn with all the minor pieces exchanged off. The best I could do was reach a Queen ending where I had an extra b pawn. It wasn't going to be easy though but fortunately, as I was trying to remember how Botvinnik beat Minev at Amsterdam in 1954, Alan enabled me to grab a second pawn after which the winning technique was  not too difficult. (1-0).
Alex then showed what a superb technical player he is by winning on the Black side of a Lasker QGD against strong opposition. Danny ultimately dropped a Knight and although he ended up with about five passed pawns on the Kingside Alex convincingly demonstrated that his less dramatic Queenside pawn majority got home first. (2-0).
So 2-0 looked good on paper - but we appeared to be losing on three boards with one game unclear.Both Ioannis and John then  resigned in quick succession. Ioannis had lost his Queen for inadequate compensation and John had always been struggling against a Ron Doney Knight embedded deep in his position. (2-2).
With Paul clearly in difficulties it was left to Sarah to ensure we did not lose. She had a promising position early on but Dennis had wriggled his way to a position where a draw was certainly possible. With very little time left Sarah played a beautiful piece sac that was many moves deep but ultimately left Dennis with a choice of losing his King or Queen. He chose the latter but Sarah mated Dennis with less than a minute left on her clock. (3-2).
Chorltons strength can be shown by the fact that Austin Elliott was playing on Board 5. Austin is a superb attacking player and he launched a vigorous attack on Pauls King. With an open g file and no dark squared Bishop I feared the worst for Paul. Although he resisted for a long time ultimately Austin broke through. (3-3).
So a drawn match in the end. Although we obviously hoped to win we are still in a very strong position in this league provided we win our next match at home to East Cheshire on the 16th of April.
Many thanks to all who played/drove.