The D Team welcomed North Bristol A for their season opener in Division 3, a virtual re-run of the MKO opening fixture merely a week prior.
On board 1, Ian Pickup again faced-off against the strong Richard Millener and his familiar Jobava London setup. Ian handled this excellently, nullifying Richard's threats and managing to equalise the position for 32 moves (an improvement on last week's 22 moves he emphasised!) before trading rooks in the centre and granting Richard control of the open d file. Richard duly seized this and pressed on to win the rook and pawn endgame, a very high quality game with +90% accuracy from both players.
Nigel Wilcox played against the new Will Mullaney on board 2 and was very happy with how the game played out. Starting with the Smith-Morra gambit, sharp play and tactical awareness from both led to an equal start, but an untimely knight jump to d4 from Will gave Nigel a decisive lead. With black's King exposed in the centre and his rook stuck in the corner unmoved, Nigel began pressing the advantage. An opportunity to equalise was missed when Will declined a queen trade, unfortunately blundering his queen to a rook pin in the process and giving Nigel a straightforward route to victory as he swept up black's remaining pawns and forced resignation.
Moving to board 3, Dave Williams played James Bingham in another exciting and well fought game. Starting as a Sicilian Defence but transposing to a French, Dave managed to obtain a queenside space advantage as black whilst James attacked his King and the b and f files opened up. As the game progressed, Dave was able to exchange his queen for James' bishop and both rooks and went hunting for checkmate. Despite this material gain, James found great counterplay, delivering a multitude of checks with his queen and picking up pawns in the process. With time running very low for both players, a draw was agreed after a very sharp and imbalanced game. This was the last game to finish, giving us the crucial half point to win the match.
Joe Wing - on his Division 3 debut - played Jason LeRoy on board 4. Both sides played a solid Indian Defence with neither carving out an advantage for 15 moves, but Joe's decision to play cxd4 and give Jason control of the open c file would come back to haunt him. Joe, focused on attacking, later relinquished control of c2 and despite missing it initially, Jason managed to plant his rook on the second rank, infiltrating white's space and building pressure. Joe smartly nullified a large chunk of black's advantage at times but, playing reactive chess as he put it, fell into the endgame down a minor piece. Some clever traps weren't fallen for and Jason converted the win with checkmate.
On board 5, I battled against fan favourite Peter Saunders in a turbulent affair. I had carved out a clear advantage early but perhaps took unnecessary risks by castling queenside and enabling a dangerous looking a4 and b4 pawn storm. Despite handling the threats well and taking the game into a winning rook and pawn endgame, I hastily sacrificed 2 pawns to create what I thought were two unstoppable passed pawns on the a and d file. What I did not fully appreciate was the strength of counter-play I had allowed Peter with two connected passed pawns of his own on the g and h file. The ensuing King and pawn endgame was study worthy and under no real time pressure for either player, littered with blunders - each seemingly worse than before. The position bounced from +checkmate to -checkmate move after move, when I finally realised the error of my ways and pushed my pawn to d4, forcing resignation from Peter.
The final board 6 was a match between youngster Carolus Tang and Tony Golding. Carolus was quick to pressure the centre and develop his pieces, capitalising well on some of Tony's mistakes and exposed centralised King, gaining a definitive advantage. Carolus opened the door slightly with an untimely c6 (perhaps the safer O-O and rook centralisation was neatest) which allowed Bc5+ and his King being forced towards the centre, but Carolus didn't worry and impressively ignored an attack on his Queen to deliver the start of a forced checkmate in 6, forcing resignation.
When the dust settled, the D Team had won the match 3½-2½ and started the season with a win. The closeness of the match truly reflected the closeness of the individual games, with almost all games resting on a knife edge for most of the evening. The season opener could've gone either way but the D team came through as victors in a hard-fought match. Many thanks to North Bristol A for bringing the fire in this exciting and well spirited season opener.
Dan Parcell