New January Grades

The new ECF grades have been published and are shown below

Marple A v Stockport Reds

Dear All,

The first team returned to winning ways with a convincing win against Stockport Reds. Alan was first to win with a nice game, finishing by playing b1=N+!!

Then Daniel won a very attractive looking sacrificial attack. On the way home he said it was unsound, but it looked pretty to defend against over the board to me.

I finished next. A typical boring positional game from me where I was able to sacrifice a pawn to open up lines against the opposing King for my heavy pieces. A nice tactic at the end finished it, but it wasn't particularly tricky.

As we got to the end of the night, Michael's position which looked great to me earlier did not look as good as it had. However, he had it all under control (of course) as he swapped all the pieces off and left himself a trivially winning ending.

And so we were 4-0 up with Paul and Alex adjourning. Paul looked to have a huge position throughout the game but, when he finished he was a pawn down and, having looked at the game he has since resigned. Alex was up against it for a fair bit but there is still play in it so will be resuming some time soon.

Cheers

Sean

BD		Marple	Result	Stockport Reds
1	B	Alex Longson	Adj	David Hulmes
2	W	Daniel Fernandez	1-0	Mike Taylor
3	B	Alan Walton	1-0	Crowther, Michael
4	W	Paul Kirby	0-1	Sheppard, Daniel
5	B	Sean Hewitt	1-0	Mason, Jeff
6	W	Michael Fernandez	1-0	Barber, Jill

Marple A v Buxton

A game that didn't quite go according to plan!

First to finish was Glenn, who was unable to secure any advantage and drew. Then Michael also finished when, despite being the aggressor in a Q+P ending he was unable to force anything. Then Daniel unexpectedly lost. I didn't see much of the game but he appeared to have lost his queen for rook and knight and his opponent made his advantage count. Meanwhile, I had managed to blow a nice position by playing a combination which, far from winning a pawn (as I thought) lost a piece! I managed to generate some play which looked tricky but was hopeless. So we needed Alex and Sarah to draw. Both tried valiantly and just when it looked like we might get out of jail both opponents resourcefully found draws.

Let's hope for a better result against Stockport Reds next week!

BD		Marple	Result	Stockport Reds
1	B	Daniel Fernandez	0-1	Martin Olsson
2	W	Alex Longson	½-½	Robert Shaw
3	B	Sarah Hegarty	½-½	Ron Doney
4	W	Sean Hewitt	0-1	John Rout
5	B	Michael Fernandez	½-½	Chris Sizeland
6	W	Glenn Trueman	½-½	Carl Pinel