The D team ended 2024 with an away match vs the strong Horfield & Redland C team. Despite admirable effort from our top 3 boards, the lower boards struggled and the match result was a fairly comfortable 4.5-1.5 lead for our opponents.
Ian Pickup played on board 1 against Alan Clarke, with the players agreeing to a quick draw before I had chance to see any of the game. (He commented "You didn't miss much. After the game Alan produced a scoresheet for a game between us from 1975, which was also drawn in 12 moves!")
Nigel Wilcox had the black pieces on board 2 against Nigel Pollett. They played a high quality symmetrical London System, with accuracies upwards of 90% each and neither gaining even a 0.5 advantage until move 30. Even still, it remained equal in material and unclear how Nigel P could eek out his small advantage in the Knight and Queen endgame, and a draw was agreed.
Board 3 saw Dave Williams face Peter Marks in a sharp, back and forth game. Both players played the opening well, developing their pieces and castling. After missing the chance a few moves earlier, Peter played a brilliant Nxf2 knight sacrifice, blowing open Dave's defences and finishing the combo up a pawn and in a commanding position come the minor piece endgame. Shortly later, Peter had several opportunities to drive his rook onto the 2nd rank, forcefully trade some pieces and enter a comfortably winning endgame up a number of pawns. This opportunity wasn't taken and Dave managed to solidify his position and activate his pieces better, forcing Peter to defend rather than attack. In the end a draw was agreed as there was no way for either to push for a win.
I played with the black pieces on board 4 against James Facey. We played a Scandinavian Defence and both players were content with how the opening had gone. In the middle game James seemed to be able to improve his pieces at will whereas I felt that I was being constantly forced into passive and reactive moves. The engine is less skeptical, suggesting I did a good job for the most part, but it felt like I was playing for a draw at best. Struggling to get my queenside pieces involved, James played a timely a4 push, forcing me to lose control of key defensive squares and allowing his knight in, signalling the beginning of the end. With James' well coordinated pieces dominating mine and my queen overloaded, I soon lost a piece. I tried to complicate things by taking some pawns in the process, but James was never under any real threat and I resigned soon after. We had a great post-game discussion which I appreciated and learnt a lot from, cheers James.
Board 5 was a rollercoaster of a game, with Carolus Tang taking on Judd Chidwick. Carolus played an excellent opening, punishing some inaccuracies from his opponent and earning himself a +2.5 advantage after 14 moves, with Judd's pieces passive and stuck and Carolus' active, well placed and ready to attack. Carolus might've won the game on move 29 with either Nf6+ or Qh6, threatening checkmate and giving his opponent effectively no choice but to sacrifice the queen to avoid losing. Unfortunately Carolus' move gave Judd one final chance to trade queens and calm the attack, which he found, but even still Carolus retained a sizeable advantage and found himself winning pawns as the endgame begun. On move 44, Carolus moved his rook to f3, into the bishops potential line of sight. On move 45 Judd played c5, opening up a discovered attack on the rook from his bishop on a8. Sadly for us, Carolus took the free pawn, forgetting the bishop on a8 altogether. It was a real shame to blunder a piece after such an excellent game and certainly a lesson for future noting that Carolus had an hour remaining on the clock at the time and the skills to spot the threat. Even still, Carolus should be very pleased with his play and strong overall game.
Board 6 saw Dave Woodcock play with the black pieces against Joseph Fearnhead. After fairly standard opening moves the players castled on opposite sides and Joseph got his attack rolling first, pushing his pawn to h5, followed by f3 and g4 (both with tempo), leaving Dave's King exposed and defended by only a sole knight on f6. Joseph confidently played e5, forcing the only defensive piece to move away, and when it didn't Joseph took it, forcing resignation with a clear checkmate coming in the next two moves.
Dan Parcell