In Gerry’s absence last night Peter Gill stood in as Captain and provides the match report.
| Bedford C | Luton | |||||
| Board | Name | Grade | Score | Score | Name | Grade |
| 1 | Marc Obi | 161 | 0 | 1 | Andrew Perkins | 186 |
| 2 | Joe Valerio | 153 | 1 | 0 | Samir Vora | 160 |
| 3 | Peter Gill | 122 | 0 | 1 | Peter Montgomery | 149 |
| 4 | Nigel Staddon | 116 | 0 | 1 | Damon D’Cruz | 142 |
| 5 | Peter Housden | 104 | 0 | 1 | Marek Gladysz | 140 |
| 23/03/2017 | 1 | 4 | ||||
Marc took Gerry’s usual place on top board thus bringing down our average age below 70 for the first time this year! Outgraded by an average of 25 points on each board we were obviously in for a tough evening, but the match was not as one sided as the scoreline suggests, with everyone, with one exception, putting up a fight.
I was the exception. Level with black after 16 moves I played what I imagined was a clever temporary piece sacrifice only to discover it was not temporary or clever at all. I hung on until the time control hoping for a swindle but Peter made no mistake, and gained revenge following his similar blunder in our previous match.
Nigel reached a blocked position with Queens off and looked to be heading for a draw at least but Damien managed to engineer a pin to win a pawn and so the ending.
When I first saw Peter’s game I got rather excited as he appeared to have won his opponent’s Queen for a Rook but in a complex position his opponent’s back rank threats and a pawn on the seventh were stronger than Peter’s Queen attack at the other end of the board.
My fellow old codger Joe won a pawn early on and then as he often does held on like grim death into a won ending. Not very entertaining but highly effective.
Against the class act that is Andrew Perkins, Marc’s game teetered on his usual knife edge. Marc managed to capture Andrew’s pawn on the seventh in the nick of time but it was soon replaced by two connected passed pawns which could not be stopped.
So sort of close but no cigar!
Peter