On Wednesday evening, Penrith C played host to Carlisle B. As a change, instead of the usual 90 minutes, all the moves, I suggested 60 minutes plus a 30 second increment from move 1. Unfortunately for me, it kind of backfired as my opponent, John Lydon, was down to 2 minutes on his clock but had gained an advantage in material. Had it have been the usual 90 minute time control, I could have won on time or at the very least, forced him to offer a draw but within a short space of time, John managed to regain lost time and his clock showed over 6 minutes with an easy end game to play.
The games were all very close but as time went by, Carlisle began to take the upper hand; Dave, on board 4 with white against, Carlisle captain, James Ovens, was on the offensive but James found a couple of strong moves, in succession, to win the exchange and never looked back from there. Board 3 finished next when Bill Burgess got the better of Richard in another tight game. This was closely followed by board 2 when I, finally, resigned to John’s overwhelming advantage in the endgame. A little earlier, I could have won a knight for a pawn but decided that, as my rook was hitting g7, I should play for a checkmate but all this did was lose me a piece and it all went down hill from there. Fortunately, I had the foresight to ask Andrei to play board 1. His opponent was, the wily old fox, Ian Mackay. Ian doesn’t lose many as he has an uncanny knack of drawing totally lost games. This time though, youth overcame experience as, despite every trick Ian could come up with, Andrei pressed home his advantage an Ian resigned when he ran out of tricks.
So, thanks to Andrei, Penrith C are still ahead of Maryport C in the Open League, which looks like this:
