The B team were calling up reserves on WhatsApp earlier in the week for the match against Championship contenders Horfield A, so it was much appreciated that Alan and Elmira were able to play.
Although Horfield were at full strength, they certainly had a fight on their hands to maintain their challenge for the title. It started when Matias grabbed Oscar’s h pawn, possibly expecting that he could hold onto it and follow up with his Queen and bishops which were bearing down on the King-side. But Oscar hadn’t castled and the opening of the h file meant that he had immediate threats against the White King too. By move 13 Oscar’s King was safe on c7 while White had the knight on h7 pinned against his Queen and four onlookers (R on a1, N on a3 and Bs on c1 & c2) playing no part in the proceedings. By move 21 the White Queen had been chased round the board before it was trapped and those four onlookers hadn’t moved an inch. A delightful start for us and Oscar had every reason to be extremely happy too!
James was promoted again to board two where he had White against Andy Hill. He built a very solid position with advanced central pawns and two marauding knights backed up by well positioned rooks. There may have been a plan enabling him to capitalize on this but his feints with his Queen were matched by Andy moving his King to counter his threats and they both evidently decided they were content with a draw by repetition. Another excellent result for James.
Board three saw Martin with Black against Tom Shepherd. He reached a level middle game as Black where each side had Q + 2Rs + B + N and five pawns. When it came down to the endgame Martin had R + N + 4 K-side pawns against R + B + 4 but his King was awkwardly placed and the R + B were able to target a weak pawn. Such small things have an unfortunate habit of deciding a game!
Aleksei had White against Derek Pugh. He built a solid position and had a moderate plus for the first twenty moves with all the play on the Queen-side. It got very tactical in the centre around move 22. In some lines Aleksei won a pawn but the game followed a variation where Derek won the g pawn which allowed him to force a pair of connected passed g and h pawns. These were able to advance decisively after which there were too many problems for White to cope with.
On board five Alan had Black against Peter Kirby and, after winning an early pawn, maintained an equal position for 27 moves before he tempted Peter to win the exchange. Alan now had two pawns as compensation plus very active bishops. On move 34 Peter swapped his remaining bishop for a knight, leaving Alan with the bishop pair on a board with vast empty gaps while Peter’s knight was relatively inactive on the side of the board. From here Alan patiently advanced his pawns while allowing the rooks no possibility to exert their superior firepower. Faced with difficult choices against the oncoming pawns and running lower on time, Peter elected to give up his knight for one of the pawns but it now became a matter of technique for Alan to convert with two bishops and an extra pawn (five against four) against one rook. This he duly did and it must have given him great satisfaction to score such an enterprising win against a player rated over 2000. That exchange sacrifice had been truly innovative and got precisely what it deserved!
Elmira had White against Phil Nendick who played his pet Schliemann variation, on which our Dave is the resident expert. He tells me that “Normally Nendick plays 4......Nf6 against Nc3 but in this game he resorts to one of the old mainlines Qg5. White should follow the mainline playing f4 on move 9 but Nxa7 is very tricky and led to an interesting game! I think Elmira should have gone for Queen-side castling asap to get out of the firing line, she put up a very brave fight and was last to finish.” Elmira generously acknowledges that Phil “found a great knight sacrifice that she missed and was much better in the ending”.
So we had come within a whisker of taking at least one point off the mighty Horfield A. It was disappointing to lose narrowly but we had seen some great games and indeed famous victories for Oscar and Alan.