Although we had many players unavailable for this match, we still managed to populate 4 boards and as you’d expect, our A team out-rated our C team by quite a margin.
Board 2, between Yousef, playing in his first ever over the board match and Eggert, was first finish after Eggert gained control of the open ‘h’ file with both rooks bearing down on Yousef’s king. That, combined with a bishop pinning Yousef’s rook to his queen, was to prove too much for Yousef to defend against.
Board 1, with Michael defending with black against Jacob who is almost 400 rating points higher, was next to finish after Jacob forced his ‘b’ pawn to the 7th rank supported by his Queen and Michael couldn’t find a way to prevent it from promoting.
Next to finish was Richard and Andrei’s game on board 3. Richard looked to be keeping Andrei at bay but eventually, Andrei found a weakness and it was all over.
Board 4, between Dave Hood, with white and myself, kept going for some time. Dave dropped a pawn in the opening but managed to come up with some strong counter-play in the form of a protected passed pawn on c6 and threats against my uncastled king. Eventually, after ensuring that all Dave’s threats were covered, I came up with an attack of my own which Dave was unable to parry.
So, another whitewash for our C team who are now propping up the table while our A team increase their lead at the top.
See below for the latest table: