MK A 3-2 Bedford B

With me as stand-in captain, the B team never had a chance!

Qais was first to finish after a wild opening, where he sacrificed a Knight for two Pawns and a decent looking attack. As the attack progressed, though, he managed to manoeuvre his Queen into a position where he was forced to swap it for a Rook. After that, the attack fizzled out and with it the game. So not the best of starts to the match.

Andy’s game concluded shortly afterwards, following a lot of cautious play and no real advantage to either side, resulting in a draw being agreed.

Marc’s game looked interesting with both sides having chances to pressurise, but it also fizzled out into a draw.

 My game was next. I was under a lot of pressure from early on, but managed to overcome the worst of the threats and ended up in a King and Pawn position which was probably lost. However, my opponent made a poor move, which should have resulted in a dead drawn position, had I been wise enough to make the right move. But, true to form, I missed this obvious move and was lost shortly afterwards. So the match was lost and the only question was by how much.

Ravi’s game was fascinating. No Pawn was taken until around move 20 and there was a curious position of two banks of 8 Pawns confronting each other in the centre of the board. Things developed and both sides had real pressure and threats abounded for both. Finally, in an equal Rook and Pawn ending, with the clock counting down especially for Ravi, he was able to find a winning sequence which forced the Queening of a Pawn. An excellent game and well worth publishing (I agree – Ed).

So the final match of the season was not a great success, largely as a result of the poor play of the captain, but at least relegation has been avoided!

Gerry Nolan 05/05/2017