| Home Team: Bedford C | Away Team: Open University | ||||||
| Board | Name | Grade | Score | Score | Name | Grade | |
| 1 | Giuseppe Valerio | 154 | 0 | 1 | Peter C Clarke | 170 | |
| 2 | Peter S Gill | 134 | 0 | 1 | Ray Holland | 158 | |
| 3 | Richard McMorran | 130E | 0.5 | 0.5 | James NO’D Alexander | 147 | |
| 4 | Robert S Walker | 117 | 0.5 | 0.5 | Paul Endersby | ug | |
| 5 | Nigel B Walker | 86 | 0 | 1 | Dominic Bartram | ung | |
| 1 | 4 | ||||||
| Played: 22/02/2018 | |||||||
After the C Team’s run of good results we went into last night’s match against the OU with hopes of reversing the narrow defeat in the away game.
We were outgraded by 20 points or so on each of the top three boards but with Walkers on four and five I was optimistic.
Every OU player opened c4 on the odd boards and we went for e4 on the evens. After that I didn’t see as much as I would have liked as Ray Holland played a line of the French that I hadn’t seen before which took all my attention. According to my digital friend Hiarcs I was fine after 16 moves (it didn’t suggest any improvements). I saw a simplifying combination which I played for the sole and not very good reason that I thought Ray probably hadn’t seen it. Afterwards Ravi told me that I had simplified to a losing end game, but Hiarcs still reckons I was slightly better. Not for long – Ray outplayed me in a Queen and Rook ending.
I’m not sure if Nigel Walker finished before or after me, and I can’t say what went wrong but he seemed to have an even middle game, with few exchanges, before going wrong. Robert was playing a newcomer with an estimated grade of 120 (a wild guess I was told!). He got just what you want against a Sicilian Dragon, with an attack down the h file, won a pawn and seemed to be cruising to victory. Somewhere however his opponent turned the tables and Robert had to hang on for a draw with Bishop against Knight and pawn.
Richard, having decided to abandon Black squared Bishop fianchetto lines fianchettoed his White squared Bishop instead and managed to get a pawn up in a blocked position. Richard does not give up easily but when he discovered that even a win would not save the match he offered a draw and a pint to James Alexander.
By this time the writing was on the wall for Joe, battling it out with Peter Clarke for the umpteenth time. With a good position he routinely allowed an exchange of rooks without really considering the consequences and Peter’s imposing pawns crashed through.
The C Team is down to a squad of 5 at the moment with Diego finding it hard to make Thursday evenings and Nigel Staddon, Mac and Tony all unwell. In case they are reading this we send them our very best wishes for their recoveries and hope to see them back at the club before long.