Penrith B’s league campaign got under way, on Saturday, with an emphatic win against, club mates, Penrith C.
The match was to be a 4 board match but as there were 10 of us keen to play, it ended up a 5 board match with a time control of 2 hours for all the moves.
Our C team were rated well below our B but we played our best. Unfortunately, in most of the games, our best wasn’t good enough. I was first to lose. Playing black against Dave Siddall, I got into a position where I had to choose between losing a knight or losing a rook. I probably made the wrong choice but either way was losing the game and after losing the rook, I played a few more moves before resigning.
Richard and Eggert, on board 3, were next to finish when Eggert found a chink in Richard’s armour and exploited it to the full.
Then came board 4, Steve made it 3-0 to the B team after winning a tough game against Nathan, who was playing in his first ever match. Nathan, playing with black, looked to have an unstoppable mating attack but an unperturbed Steve, calmly played all the right moves to fend off Nathan’s threats and shortly after, won the game.
Ciso, black against Dave Hood on board 5, won a pawn early in the game and after forcing the trade of all the pieces, accepted Dave’s resignation.
Another player making his match debut today, was Devon on board 1 for the C team against Andrei. The game was very close for most of it but gradually, Devon built up an attack utilising most of his pieces and Andrei found it impossible to defend against all the threats.
So, a consolation point for the C team but a great start for the B team. Final score Penrith B 4 Penrith C 1.
The League table looks like this:
