Played at the Ladybrook Hotel on Tuesday Evening -
Stockport A V Marple A Stockport Lge Div One 18/10/2016
1 A Reeve 0.5/0.5 I Craft
2 D Parrotta 0.5/0.5 G Trueman
3 A Smith 1-0 P Kirby
4 D Sheppard 1-0 A Hall
5 J Pink 1-0 D Hardy
6 M Tunstall 1-0 T Brown
5-1
It was a rainy night in Stockport (Isaac instructed me to begin this report with this sentence) and the Marple players trooped into Stockports old new venue for what we all knew would be a very difficult encounter. Shorn of virtually all our highly rated players we were outgraded on all boards apart from one. In fact on boards two to six the average grading deficit was 35 points.
With the subdued lighting, incessant and noisy precipitation, plus the amount of dark wood in the room there was a definite "gothic" feel in the air. I wouldn't have been too surprised to have seen McDonnell battling against Bourdonnais' seventh rank pawns somewhere in the far corner.
With the vigour of youth Isaac set off with definite attacking intentions. However he soon ran headlong into the granite wall of Mr Reeves defence and a draw was agreed. On Board two with the Black pieces against a highly rated opponent (2102) I decided to emulate Mr Mourinhos Monday evening performance with a very solid line against the Levitsky attack, the downside being it gave virtually no opportunities to play for a win. In its limited objective it was successful and unlike Jose when we agreed a draw I had possession of more than 35% of the chessboard.
So the score was now 1-1 but that was as good as it got as the rest of our team were slowly ground down despite their best endeavours. Alan was very unlucky not to get something from his game as he took the highly talented Dan Sheppard literally down to the last minute of his allocated time.
Thus ended a disappointing but not unexpected first match of the season for the Marple A team. I would like to thank everyone who made the effort to turn out on such a dismal evening.
