For the trip to Hanham it was agreed to bolt on two extra boards to give more of our members an opportunity for league chess. Greg decided to pitch two of our juniors in on the top two boards and it worked rather well.

Charlie had a fairly wild game, first losing and then regaining a pawn. When the dust settled material was level. He overlooked that a bishop could be trapped by a pawn attack but fought back well and managed to overturn the result.

Carolus gained a space advantage and after the Queens came off his opponent’s pawn formation was ruined. Carolus quickly got both his rooks into attacking positions and when his opponent failed to find the best defence he delivered checkmate on move 28. Very nicely done!

So, with a very welcome early two point lead, Greg cemented the advantage with a draw against the very experienced Barry.

Shaun defended carefully and when his opponent misguidedly opened the a file, Shaun seized control of it and built pressure on a weak central pawn. When White blundered a piece, it was soon all over.

We don’t have Christopher’s game at present. Suffice it to say he went astray at some stage.

Sam equalized comfortably, then exchanged a couple of pairs of minor pieces to wreck White’s castled King position. He later gave up both rooks for the enemy Queen after which his own Monarch had the freedom of the board and eventually won sufficient material to force resignation, thereby securing his first win for the club. Well done!

So the match result was 4.5-1.5 and after it was pro-rated to four boards we ran out 3-1 winners. Excellent result!

Ian Pickup