| Home Team: Leighton Buzzard A | Away Team: Bedford B | ||||||
| Board | Name | Grade | Score | Score | Name | Grade | |
| 1 | Evgeny Tukpetov | 229 | 1 | 0 | Andrew J Chapman | 175 | |
| 2 | John R Sharp | 190 | 1 | 0 | Alex Taylor | 165 | |
| 3 | Kevin J Williamson | 181 | 1 | 0 | Ravi Arulnandhy | 157 | |
| 4 | Brian J Valentine | 166 | 0 | 1 | Marc ON Obi | 161 | |
| 5 | Stephen Law | 168 | 0.5 | 0.5 | Steve Pike | 162 | |
| 3.5 | 1.5 | ||||||
| Played: 18/04/17 | |||||||
The B Team headed to Leighton Buzzard with a chance deny the host the championship, although the odds were heavily against this.
Initially prospects looked bright. Andy was heavily outgraded by his opponent. However, after an early exchange of queens he had managed to push forward in the centre and on the kingside and seemed to have all the play. Meanwhile on board 3 it was much the same story with Ravi making progress against Kevin in the centre and the queenside following an early exchange of queens. On board 5 the battle of the Steves was looking level after an early exchange of (you know the rest).
Board 2 was a cagey opening, after, you guessed it, an early exchange of queens, but I had managed to obtain the bishop pair and had built up a bit of pressure. Marc however, was under pressure after Brian had sacrificed a pawn in the opening. The position looked messy, but there was no obvious way for Brian to break through.
Things were looking promising, but things started to unravel. Andy had a draw offer refused, and in slight time trouble overlooked a way his opponent could release his position and the tables turned. The Steves were into a double knight and pawn ending which petered out into a draw (but see below if endgames are your thing!? – Ed).
Ravi’s position looked almost overwhelming in a bishop and rook ending, but the time limits once again befuddled him (more training required!) and he lost on time. My position turned from very promising to OK to struggling in a 2 rook v rook, bishop and knight ending, where despite the bishop and knight looking out of place, they somehow controlled all the key squares. A loss duly followed.
The only bright spot was Marc who saw off Brian’s attack and made the extra pawn count in the ending.
A 3.5-1.5 loss in the end, but it could have been different!
Ed – Alex is correct that board 5 did end in a draw but not without a few hiccoughs along the way! After my customary slightly flakey Spanish pseodo-Gambit (5.d4?!), Mr Law comfortably quashed any imagined initiative and swapped off into a fairly promising (for him!) endgame as follows:-
Link to Tablebases online
Note, I have also added a couple of improvements to the notes from Steve Law at moves 39 and 41.
From https://sesquiotic.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/hiccough/
… do bear in mind the admonition of the Oxford English Dictionary: “Hiccough was a later spelling, apparently under the erroneous impression that the second syllable was cough, which has not affected the received pronunciation, and ought to be abandoned as a mere error.” In the end, though, it is ough to you…
I will bear it in mind
improvements to the notes from Steve Law at moves 39 and 41.