After two successive defeats the C Team returned to winning ways with a comprehensive victory over the Open University. It looks like a battle for second place in Division 2 between our C and D Teams.
After a series of exchanges Oscar quickly and efficiently engineered an endgame a pawn up with Rook and Bishop against Rook and Knight. The Bishop was better than the Knight and with Oscar bound to add a Queen, the OU Captain resigned.
Callum charged his pawns up the board in front of his uncastled King but lost his Queen’s Rook, still on its home square, for Bishop. Also a pawn down he looked likely to lose his 100% winning record for the season. However his Queen, despite spending most of the game on a1, having captured the Bishop, was joined by her own white squared Bishop, gained total domination of the long white diagonal and crashed through, making it 7 wins out of 7 for Callum.
NeIther Richard nor Dave Wells could get an advantage and with only Rooks and 6 Pawns each they agreed a draw.
Meanwhile Robert had won the exchange for a pawn but his King got stuck in the centre and he had to tread very carefully until it was clear that neither side could make any progress.
As I predicted Joe returned to winning ways. He opened lines on the Queenside and after both Knights gobbled up major pieces the dust settled and Joe came out on top. I was so excited I can’t remember exactly how but Joe still wasn’t happy!
Robert Walker 0.5 – 0.5 Luke Singleton
Ricard McMorran 0.5 – 0.5 Dave Wells
Callum Shields 1 – 0 Dave Webber
Jo Valerio 1 – 0 Dave Phillips
Oscar Tucker 1 – 0 Steven Wayne
4 – 1
Peter Gill, 15th April 2022
Excellent victory for C Team. I wonder if Callum’s run of 7/7 in the league has been previously achieved by any Bedford player in any Bedford team? He was Black in this match so his queen was on a8 of course.
If only the editor picked up on this sort of stuff!! – thanks Paul