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D team's narrow win against Cabot A.

There was some great stuff played as we recovered from a potentially losing match position.

Two games finished fairly quickly: Ian equalised with Black and shook hands after fourteen moves; meanwhile Carolus had played 50! He had been a pawn down in a rook ending but managed to win it back and then converted the opportunity given to him by possession of an outside passed pawn in some style.

Nigel had two nicely placed knights by the time all the other pieces came off. The only snag was that his opponent had two bishops and, on a fairly open board, their extra range gave him some tricky problems. He reckons it may have been holdable but somewhere he went wrong. Meanwhile Dave W(illiams) played a neat game as Black, first winning a pawn, then getting control of the e file. He obtained a strong pair of bishops and won another pawn, all of which was enough to ensure regaining our half point lead.

The last two games were not looking brilliant because, while the other Dave W(oodcock) seemed level with most of the equipment still on the board, Miguel was in all sorts of trouble, having gone the exchange down for only a pawn. The final result saw a complete turnaround when, first, Dave unfortunately succombed but then Miguel ("the comeback King") started to play properly, putting his opponent under pressure and, thanks to an unforced error, emerged material ahead with a trivially winning ending.

So a win by 3½-2½ got us back onto winning ways and up to third place in Division Three.

Dan Parcell

3 months ago