University B v Downend C - 24th October 2024

A new room in the same building at the Student’s Union gave excellent playing conditions and we received a warm welcome, both figuratively and literally as the heating was on full blast.

James came unstuck early in the game and it was all over before the ink from the first handful of moves on the scoresheet was dry.

1 - 0

Elmira said her opponent made what looked like an over-adventurous knight sacrifice. Elmira was able to fend off any major threats and before long her opponent was forced to resign.

1 – 1

Mine (Grant) was an unconventional Sicilian with a3 on move two for white. I made a bad fourth move, allowing an attack on an exposed rook. Fortunately, my opponent didn’t see it either, and later allowed me a tactic to win a pawn. That must have put him off balance as another pawn was gifted soon after. When it became clear all the minor pieces would be swapped off, just leaving Queen and rooks my opponent resigned, probably trying to spare himself a slow death, and unaware of my propensity to blunder away winning games.

1 - 2

Alan, as white, was building up pressure from fairly early on with several pieces lining up against the king’s defences. Although it looked like a sacrifice might even be on the cards, Alan used his better activity to whittle down black’s pawns, and after everything but the pawns and same colour bishops were left, it was all but over for black. Black optimistically held on to a slender thread of hope all the way to check-mate for Alan.

1 - 3

Tom said he had prepared for his opponent and was expecting an Alapin, which duly arrived. However, it went down a line Tom hadn’t quite anticipated and he found his knight badly placed. His opponent managed to maintain the edge all the way, being up a knight for a pawn or two. In the end he was able to give back the knight for the guaranteed queening of a pawn.

2 - 3

In an unexpected turn, Alexis’s game was last to finish. It had been a seemingly even game most of the way through, although Alexis looked the most threatening. In the end, with a Rook, Bishop and four or five pawns each, Alexis saw furthest ahead and engineered a way of swapping off the rooks in a way that left his opponent’s bishop badly placed and unable to stop Alexis’s outside passed pawn from queening.

Final score 2- 4 in favour of the C team. A great result! Well played.