With both the B Team and E Team in action, it was sure to be a busy night at the Fishponds Club
Most players (home and away) arrived with plenty of time to spare. It wasn’t long before everything was set up and ready to go. A quick reminder to turn phones off and off we went.
Things were fairly quiet for an hour… then all of a sudden, Max was up and off (well he did have a bit of a drive home). I didn’t see the finish of the game, but the remaining position on the board revealed that Max had his ruthless head on tonight. Being several pawns up in an endgame, his opponent had obviously seen enough and retired to the bar?
Next to finish was Oli (on board two). He had a good advantage straight out of the opening. A strange looking position (to my untrained eye) with one of his rooks on a4 (the best move), and not yet castled. In saying that, Jonas never managed to castle! On move 29 his queen must have been half asleep, she nabbed a pawn on e4, and Oli’s white rook (on a4) suddenly sprung into life; Rxe4. Downend go 2 up!
On board 5, Martin (in his own words) thought that for much of the game he had had an “iffy position”. He slowly managed to untangle things (as he does) and then held the advantage. However, in managing this he became quite low on time, so was happy to accept the draw. An important ½ point.
One more win out of the three remaining games and we would secure the 2 points.
On board one, Mike was in full concentration mode against Ian (well he is a “tricky” player), and an expected Trompowsky was played. Mike told me “I opted for a line that initiates an early exchange on f6, with 2… e6 and 3… h6 after he has pushed his pawn to e4. I did play the opening slightly inaccurately, but after managing to develop my pieces onto good squares, I gained the initiative and eventually won a pawn after some tactics in the centre, and was able to limit any counterplay”. All this caused Ian to soak up a fair bit of time and when the writing was on the wall he resigned with just 2 secs left on his clock.
With 3.5 points on the board the match was now secure. Time for another half of the Club’s excellent Doom Bar (thank you Grant).
Having arrived 5 mins late, Dave T, on board six, came up against a Sicilian and a line he knew well. Before long Dave’s knights were on the move and became a real nuisance for Anoop. Eventually he was forced to give up the exchange and, with no threat of his own, dropped the d pawn. With checkmate coming, Anoop resigned. Well played Dave.
Only Reinhold left to finish, could he spread the icing all over the cake. The answer was, yes he could.
Reinhold’s thoughts: “Hayden played the Albin Countergambit, interesting opening. However, he then played too many pawn moves (a7-a5-a4 and h7-h5-h4) and this was a bit slow. His king stayed in the middle. After the centre of the board opened up, the weak king was a problem. I still had the extra pawn from the gambit, plus Hayden was in time trouble. His position collapsed, a piece was lost, and he resigned”
An excellent 5½ - ½ win. With the rating differences we were clear favourites, but Jonas’s team, as all teams in division one, never gave up. This result boosts our goal difference and ensures we hold on to our target of a (comfortable) mid-table position.
A very good night’s work at head office, with a combined score of 8.5/10 for the two D & F teams.
Our last match before Christmas is away at the Bridge Club (Clifton A). This will now doubt be a tougher test, including the two I.M’s to contend with.
John Stubbs