John 0-1 Gerry – click here to peruse the game
Qais 1-0 Giuseppe
Danny 0-1 Peter G – click here to peruse the game
Jeremy 1-0 Nigel – click here to peruse the game
Mac 1-0 Peter H
3-2
A curious match. It all started well, but after a short period of time, Nigel’s King acquired the wanderlust and went for an early evening stroll up the board, only to be unkindly mated in mid-board.
Peter G had a good game and ended it with a textbook mating attack, following a Bishop takes Rook Pawn sacrifice, which evened the match score.
Peter H had a solid game and was the exchange up when he sadly place a Rook on a square where a Bishop could perform a sneaky backwards move and remove it from the board. It’s a great shame that Bishops are allowed to move backwards.
Then my game – a really odd affair. I had a lot of space and development advantage, while John’s pieces seemed to be suffering from severe homesickness and refused to leave the back rank. To try and help, I let him take one of my Knights for no compensation and then decided to take advantage of the homebound position of John’s pieces. By move 17 all of his pieces were back on their starting squares, which looked very pretty, but left a very vulnerable King, who duly expired with four of his potential defenders still not having moved from their original positions. So, match even at that point.
Giuseppe’s game had looked solid throughout and had come down to a Rook and two Pawns ending for both players. Sadly, Giuseppe misplayed a key position slightly, losing a pawn and with it the game and, sadly, the match.
So overall a poor result, giving the rating difference between the two teams, but as Peter G said, at least we can’t get relegated from Division 2.
Pictures courtesy of Tony:-
Get some pieces out John! (aka a random annoying caption)
Qais and Joe battle it out, with Peter already eyeing h7 in the background
Still all to play for here ….
Harrumph!!! Given the untenable position of Nigel’s king, I thought my mating attack was of the gentler kind. I even sacrificed a pawn and a knight to give him the comforting illusion of material advantage. Nothing unkind there at all!!
Send me the game Jeremy and then we can all see how compassionate you were!
Tony’s photo brilliantly captures the key point of the game. The next few moves are
1. … h6
2. h3?! Qxg5
3. f4 Qa5
A couple of moves later my knight is forced back to g8 by his pawns and my queen returns to d8.
My sad contribution to a fine D-team victory.