| MKC | Bedford D | |||||
| Board | Name | Grade | Score | Score | Name | Grade |
| 1 | Ray Holland | 148 | 0.5 | 0.5 | Steve C Pike | 163 |
| 2 | Alan Heath | 140 | 0.5 | 0.5 | Andrew J Chapman | 160 |
| 3 | Dave Wells | 138 | 0.5 | 0.5 | Richard McMorran | 138 |
| 4 | Colin Solloway | 124 | 1 | 0 | Lucian Cox | 112 |
| 5 | John McKeon | 115 | 0.5 | 0.5 | R David Cox | 80 |
| 3 | 2 |
I wandered around the boards about an hour into this match and was fairly happy with all the positions – Lucian looked to have Colin Solloway on the ropes, his dad had got his Knight to f7 against John McKeon and the other games looked at least level if not better.
First to finish was Lucian – I didn’t see exactly what happened but I think he must have overreached because suddenly he was lost from what I thought was a strong position – this can happen when you play aggressively – its still a great way to play so keep it up!
My game was happening at quite a pace, Ray Holland only using 20 minutes for his first 25 moves! Against a Rubinstein French, his Queen had moved around a lot so I was way ahead in development. At the critical moment,
I played what I thought was a clever combination (20. Rxe6?!), only to find that I had swapped a good position with level material for a rubbish position a pawn up. I actually went into a pawn ending, still a pawn up, and nearly lost the game! – a draw was agreed.
Richard was next to finish. His Catalan type opening had given him a strong (imho) grip on the middle game but the heavyweight pieces rather cancelled each other out and a draw was agreed with neither side able to progress.
Andy had been making all the running against Alan Heath, both sides had R,B,N+6P but Andy’s rook had invaded with lots of tricks, but sadly no treats. A draw was finally agreed.
This just left David, who had managed to convert his opening advantage to a bishop ending, two pawns up. Nothing was simple however, both sides had chances but eventually all the pawns got swapped off and a peaceful conclusion was ratified.
All this left the D team just missing out but I felt that everyone had enjoyed good positions along the way so maybe with just a little bit more luck …?