Burneside Cricket Club hosted Ulverston II v Penrith I in the first round of the Whitaker Handicap Knockout on Sunday.
After all the calculations were made, Ulverston had a half point handicap which meant that they had to win the match, a draw would not be enough. The match got under way just after 2 pm with 2 hours on the clock for all the moves. Penrith were white on boards 1 and 3.
Board 4 finished first, with a win for Penrith after I (Andy) won a piece, with a pawn fork, quite early in the game. Neil played on hoping that his pawn majority would compensate for the loss of his bishop but after realising that he was about to become two pieces down, Neil resigned.
Quite some time passed before the next result. Michael, on board 3 against Steven Bailey, emerged a pawn ahead after a tough, complicated middle game. Now in a king and pawn endgame, Michael had to make his extra, albeit doubled, pawn count. After forcing the exchange of centre pawns Michael’s king headed for the king’s side to create a couple of connected passed pawns and Steven resigned.
Michael’s win was enough to win the match for Penrith and just as well. Eggert on board 2 against Kit Hopkins, was over 250 points lower rated than his opponent and although he kept it close for most of the game, he couldn’t prevent Kit taking the full point.
Jacob too was struggling to make any headway against Barry Hymer, on board 1. In fact, Barry had a very strong attack going against Jacob’s king’s position. Jacob was also very short of time and eventually, stuck to find a decent move, his flag fell, bringing to an end his 35 game run of undefeated games.
So, it was a close one but Penrith are still on track to retain the Whitaker Trophy.
See below for the Whitaker table:
