Board 1. Mark Thwaites had the white pieces. Mark played the London System but somehow contrived to lose from a position which the engine says was 3.6 points up. As his opponent said, it was a game of two halves. Mark says: “The moral of the story was don’t rush and perhaps don’t drive for 4+ hours before the match. Instead, black was carelessly allowed to pilfer a couple of pawns which led to an unstopped b-file passer and also there was the loss of the exchange which resulted from a boxed-in rook.” Mark apologised to the team for not having converted his early lead. He shouldn’t feel too bad, however, since we’ve all experienced snatching defeat from the jaws of victory on at least one occasion!
Board 2. I had the black pieces against Ed Swann. I’ve been learning the Black Lion defence and was able to put it into practice in this game. Overall, I managed 77% accuracy versus my opponent’s 69%. My breakthrough came when I found f5 and won a knight. Later on, I was able to trap Ed’s rook and he resigned, giving me my first victory this season.
Board 3. John Paines had the white pieces. He says “I faced Rod Taylor who played the Centre Counter Defence. With cautious play on both sides the game had reduced to rooks and pawns by the 29th move at which point we agreed a draw, with neither of us having made any significant error or spectacular move.”
Board 4. Nick Woods had the black pieces against Charlie Cooper who is rated around 150 points higher. He says: “The game started with a standard e4 e5, then knights and bishop's opening. I seemed to be defending everything for the first 20 minutes but after an exchange of pieces I came away a bishop to the good. I exchanged queens hoping the extra piece would see me home. The only weakness in my game was the King was still in the middle. I had to block a check with my bishop, with the bishop pinned I missed that it could be attacked by another piece so I lost my bishop and advantage and a draw was agreed.”
Board 5. Vivaan Suresha had the white pieces. Unfortunately, Vivaan’s dad took him to the Fishponds Club rather than South Bristol and so this board was defaulted.
Board 6. Danny Wilkins, rated 1145, had the black pieces against Alexandra Hughes, rated almost 1500. He says: “A fairly even opening for 10 moves, then I was behind on material for most of the match. I set a trap to sack my Knight on e8 to set up a checkmate and capitalised when my opponent fell for it on move 29 Bxe8 to allow me to mate with the pawn three moves later. I'm relieved to get my first win for the team!” A great result.
Which brought the match score to a 3-3