Bedford B continued their recent good form against other clubs’ A teams by beating Luton A on Tuesday 21st. The result moves us up to third place in the County League Division 1.
The results in full:
| Board | Rating | Luton A | V | Bedford B | Rating |
| 1 | 1914 | O’Brien, Thomas P | 0 – 1 | Bodily, Richard T | 1968 |
| 2 | 0000 | Nelson, Abiodun | ½ – ½ | Hale, Jack | 1750 |
| 3 | 0000 | Oki, Jonadab | ½ – ½ | Habershon, Paul F | 1947 |
| 4 | 0000 | Onyeji, Eustace | 0 – 1 | Pike, Steve C | 1863 |
| 5 | 1661 | Ozdemir, Kamil | ½ – ½ | Walker, Robert S | 1726 |
| Total | 1½ – 3½ |
First to finish was Richard, playing top board in the absence of Mike Botteley. He sacrificed the exhange to break through on the king side for a winning attack.
Steve enjoyed himself again, tying his opponent up in knots.
This left the rest of us just needing to avoid disasters, to win the match.
In my game, I was white against a Petrov. The centre pawns were swapped off, along with the minor pieces, with my heavy pieces dominating the centre. At the finish, I had a slight advantage but didn’t want to risk messing it up and settled for a draw.
Jack had a difficult game and defended well. When they got down to an endgame with opposite-coloured bishops, his opponent conceded the draw, to clinch the match for us.
Paul’s game dragged on. He lost a pawn in a rook and pawn ending, but manged to hold on for a draw.
Rob Walker, 24th April 2026