However you slice it, Bedford C were highly unlikely to get much reward from three hours’ struggle in the vestry of Leighton Buzzard Methodist Church. Leighton Buzzard B are the runaway leaders and favourites for promotion this year, a juggernaut crushing all before them – if this match were a poem, it would definitely be Charge of the Light Brigade. And on top of that, no Callum this time! In such circumstances I’m even more grateful than usual for my teammates who took to the challenge with gusto.
Nigel on board 3 was the first casualty. Facing a player in Peter Taylor some 400 rating points stronger, it was always going to be difficult, and he duly got smothered by a classic king’s Indian mating attack without ever finding much in the way of counterplay. A painful but potentially instructive defeat – Nigel will doubtless come back stronger.
I didn’t see much from Cedric’s game on board 4 against Ian Woodward – but I did notice that he lost a knight and, having blundered a bishop earlier, waved the white flag shortly after. Once again, there is no shame in losing to a higher-calibre player.
And then, summing up our evening really, was bottom board, where Francesco played well above par against Fred Dorn, matching a player with 100 times his experience blow-for-blow, and taking him to the sort of bland ending where I might have offered a draw. And then, after all that effort, a single lapse in concentration allowed a pretty simple tactic and left him a rook down. His frustration was audible at the end – he’d done the hard work, but it’s never too late to blunder! So that wrapped up the match, the outcome never really in doubt.
My own effort on top board was quite a stodgy affair. I opted for an English opening, which Adrian Matthews transposed into a closed Sicilian. I wasn’t the biggest fan of my own play but did eventually get a little bit going on the queenside, offering a pawn to try and exploit Adrian’s back rank. He turned down the offering. Instead he went to a line where loads of pieces came off and the resulting pawn structure was totally symmetrical, so we figured there wasn’t much point either of us trying to push for the win. So no whitewash, at least.
Which left us with the talismanic Shiva on board 2, against Alistair Taylor (who I think is new? I’d never come across him before.) This one was a real tussle, Shiva having the early momentum and giving up a couple of pawns for a mating attack, but apparently missing an opportunity to sacrifice more material to seal the deal and leaving himself in a very weak-looking position, down those two pawns. However, he stuck calmly and doggedly to his task when others might have crumbled or even resigned; and as the material was traded off, he found himself with much more activity in the endgame, and Alistair’s king was permanently stuck to the back rank. Finally, with both players under a minute, Alistair accepted he wasn’t going to win and forced a draw by repetition. Quite the nail-biter!
That left the final score 4-1 to Leighton Buzzard, which is roughly the sort of scoreline I would have expected. But nobody disgraced themselves, we’ve got more winnable matches coming up – and, as they seem nailed-on for promotion, we probably won’t have to trek over to Leighton Buzzard for quite some time!