The D team welcomed Yate A for our Division 3 season opener. With Yate only able to field 4 players we were gifted an early 2-0 lead, which proved crucial in ensuring we came away with something from the match. Well done to the Yate quartet for playing well and coming from behind to earn a 3-3 draw.
First to finish was Joe Wing, who had white against Lester Moon on board 4. After having his knight kicked around all opening, Joe fell for a Queen fork and lost his rook early for just a couple of pawns. From here Joe had no choice but to play aggressively to regain some initiative and did a good job of complicating the game, but Lester ultimately handled the confusion well and converted for a comfortable win.
Board 2 saw Nigel Wilcox play with white against Andrew Hewitt. These guys are too good for me to provide any meaningful commentary - they each played a 93% accurate game with no mistakes for either to punish. The pieces gradually came off the board and even though Andrew did briefly manage to make an incursion with his Queen behind Nigel's pawns, the defence was solid and once they were traded off, a draw was agreed.
Going the distance, the top board saw last season's star player Carolus Tang playing with black against Lawrence Northam. Opposite side castling led to a sharp game and Lawrence did a good job pressing on and opening up Carolus's king, taking advantage of Carolus's passive middlegame play. Carolus ultimately had to give up an exchange to stay alive, giving Lawrence a sizeable advantage, but he was unable to find the right moves and capitalize. Carolus handled the endgame well, controlling space and preventing Lawrence's king from joining in. With both players low on time, Carolus spotted the lesser of two forks, bringing the game back completely level, and the players agreed a draw.
It was captain vs captain on board 3 to decide things as I had black against Jeremy Gardner. I felt things started well - Jeremy offered a gambit I was too afraid to accept and pushed hard on the Queenside, whilst I stuck to the plan and developed normally. Jeremy made a mistake on move 15, losing the advantage he'd gained and creating an imbalance in my favour as I traded a rook for 2 minor pieces. This gave me the edge and just when I thought I was building up an insurmountable attack, Jeremy found some strong counter attacks I'd underestimated, and I incorrectly started retreating in defence. With this I lost all of my threats and the position petered into what was a draw at best for me. However, in what feels like true Dan style over the past year, I managed to clutch defeat from the jaws of parity, and under time pressure blundered a back rank checkmate.
Dan Parcell