When Penrith A arrived at the Social Club, Spencer Street, Carlisle, Carlisle’s new club venue, to play their A team, they found that Carlisle had a new board 1 or rather an old board 1. Mike Green had returned to the Cumbria chess scene after a six year absence.
The first board to finish was board 3 between Dave Siddall with white for Penrith and Steve Barnes of Carlisle. Dave was meant to be on board 4 but sadly our intended board 3, Alice has come down with the Flu. I didn’t see what happened but suffice it to say that Dave lost.
On board 2, Holden was up against captain, Paul Rivers. Holden last lost a league game in Jan 2019 so, it didn’t come as too much of a surprise when he won with his favourite, French Defence, making the match score line equal again and maintaining Holden’s impressive record of 14 league games without defeat.
Next came board 4 where I (Andy), as last minute replacement for Alice, was black against George Glover. I’ve played George 4 times in the past, the last time being March 2017 and lost all 4 so, after a tough game, I was happy to come away with a draw.
This left board 1 to decide the outcome of the match. Jacob and Mike played a tight game which eventually arrived at a queen and pawns endgame. Jacob had a couple of connected passed pawns on the queenside but was unable to push them safely. Having already declined a draw offer, Jacob was now getting short of time and realising that his ‘passers’ were going nowhere, he offered a draw which Mike was happy to accept.
So, 2-2 the final result was enough to put our A team on top along with our B team.
The League table looks like this:
