1. Kevin Williamson 0.5-0.5 Gerry Nolan
2. Brian Valentine 0-1 Guiseppe Valerio
3. Peter Taylor 0.5-0.5 Peter Gill
4. Fred Dorn 1-0 Nigel Staddon
5. Robin Pound 0-1 Peter Housden
And so Bedford C trudged up the stairs to the airless garret that LB B calls home, expecting the usual ritual disembowelling by the division’s top team. The room was even more airless than usual, with both LB teams playing at home. It all started reasonably well, with everyone looking fairly decent and Peter G was the first to finish, fighting off some early pressure and earning a good draw.
On Board 5, Peter H was under tremendous pressure on the Kingside, but the next time I looked he was a Rook up, after fighting off the attack. Then he acquired multiple pieces against his opponent’s couple and it soon turned into a good win.
On Board 1, I developed a lot of pressure against Kevin and succeeded in winning a central pawn, but my isolated c-Pawn was weak and we soon agreed a draw, as neither of could make much progress. So, we just needed half a point from the two remaining games to draw the match (low expectations again from the league’s bottom team).
On Board 2, Guiseppe was under severe pressure with a vicious Kingside attack requiring him to retreat all his pieces to the first two ranks in defence of his King. Everything looked horribly tied up, until unaccountably Brian swapped off his attacking pieces, freeing the position and giving up control of the open e-file. At that stage a draw looked likely, as everything was reasonably balanced, but Brian succeeded in losing a Rook and resigned just before being mated!
On Board 4, Nigel was in difficulties after losing two pawns, but looked like he might be able to restrain the position with opposite Bishops and well-posted Knight. Unfortunately, his opponent was able to remove the Knight and the advance of the pawns was too much to be able to counter.
Overall, a great performance from the team against the Division leaders, which drags the C team from bottom of the Division to mid-table mediocrity. With two matches to come, who knows where we could end up…