Bedford A, ultimately, beat a heavily outrated Luton B team pretty comprehensively, although it wasn’t all plain sailing.
| Board | Rating | Luton B | V | Bedford A | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1751 | Gladysz, MarekB | 0 – 1 | G Ledger, Stephen C | 2119 |
| 2 | 1667 | Mirza, HumayunG | 0 – 1 | B Gardner, James | 2117 |
| 3 | 1654 | Jones, Dixon HG | 0 – 1 | G Dairi, Ramsey | 2043 |
| 4 | 1623 | Juhasz, AleksandarG | 0 – 1 | B Collacott, Nick | 2035 |
| 5 | 0000 | Handa, MannanG | ½ – ½ | B Taylor, Alex | 1921 |
| Total | 6695 | ½ – 4½ | 10235 |
With Alex replacing the double- booked Ravi, Ramsey was bumped up to board 3, to keep our colour sequences in order, and made short work of his opponent.
On board 5, a rusty Alex, recently returned from his overseas travels, didn’t seem to get much beyond a slight edge and when the pieces started to be traded off a draw was agreed rather than take too many risks to maintain winning chances.
On Board 1, I got a comfortable position from the opening and managed to straddle my opponent with an IQP that I could target.
When both rooks were traded to leave us with Q,B,N + 6P each, I was mildly concerned that there wasn’t an immediately obvious way to cash in my advantage for material but, soon after, the pressure paid off and, faced with the loss of a pawn and a very passive position, my opponent tried sacc’ing a piece but the hoped for perpetual just wasn’t there.
On Board 4, Nick won/was gifted a pawn fairly early on for minimal compensation and, not long after, was gifted a second pawn.
His opponent did hang on in there for a long time before this considerable advantage was eventually converted to the win in a rook ending.
On Board 2, James’ attempted Owen’s Defence ( 1…… b6 ) went a bit pear-shaped and his opponent seemed to have definite K-Side attack potential.
James, as James does, hung on in there, shuffled around and managed to avoid the situation getting too desperate. When the game got down to around 5 or 6 minutes each on the clock, both sides were shuffling around in a 2R+N+6 or 7P each, fairly blocked position. James eventually found a couple of pawn breaks, to open the position up, and promptly won an exchange and the game.
So a slightly flattering 4.5 – 0.5 win it was.
Steve Ledger, 05/11/2025.