Carolus secured Team E’s only win on board 1 with the white pieces in quite a balanced game. Black managed to attack the queen side from a Caro-Kann opening. Carolus gave up his b pawn to damage Black's King side pawn structure by exchanging bishop with knight. In the middle game Carolus got the opportunity to force Black to sacrifice his Queen due to the Checkmate threat. However Carolus blundered the knight which made the end game tougher. Black managed to improve the position and defended very well. But he resigned after a frustrating blunder.
On board 2, Leon squared off with the black pieces against a much stronger opponent and played the Czech Variation of the Old Indian Defence. He played accurate chess up until move 28 when White was just under half a pawn up. He should have played 28…Qe5+ and the game would have gone on, but he was flagging a bit after 2 hours and made a hasty move. He grabbed the pawn on f2 without even looking for threats and blundered a mate in 2.
On board 3 was Nick. He cannot find his record of moves but gave the following summary, working from memory. “My opponent’s opening was a bit unusual and put me on the back foot. He played played the Sicilian - I usually play the Maróczy Bind but then he played b6. I usually play a d4 pawn break straight away but this time I played c4 which could have been a mistake. From there on I was never able to play the d4 pawn break and my position felt cramped which shouldn't happen in the Maróczy, since White is supposed to have more space. I had managed to bat away various tricks and traps and had stayed equal on material until I had 30 minutes on the clock against my opponent's 42 minutes but at this point I made a bit of a schoolboy error. A knight trade led to a check and a discovered attack on my Queen so at a queen down and with my defense starting to crumble, I called it a day”.
On board 4 was Christopher who says “I had a lot of fun against my opponent. I saw lots of the ideas he was going for but wasn’t sure how to defend them myself and he looked a bit surprised towards the end of the game. Even though it was a loss I managed to claw it back a little”.
As a result of this win, University C have won Division 4A while we remain in second place and are certain to be in the new Division 4 in the New Year.