Penrith I were at Carlisle on Saturday, to play their second team in the Whitaker Cup semi-final, in their new venue on Abbey Street. Our team had the higher rating on all four boards so, if this were a league match, we’d be expected to win. However, in the Whitaker teams are handicapped based on overall rating and so Penrith had a 2½ point handicap. This meant that we had to score at least 3½ out of the 4 available points.
On board 4, Nathan Rothwell had a solid position out of the opening but gradually, I was able to create weaknesses and eventually formulated an attack culminating in the win of a piece and the exchange.
Board 2 was next to finish after only 14 moves. Alan Hiatt opened with something akin to a Vienna Gambit and with Jacob’s king on its starting square, with only a pawn on e6 for protection, seemed to have a great position. However, Alan played a natural Bb5+ but when Jacob blocked the check with pawn to c6, he suddenly realised that he was totally lost and resigned.
Everything was going to plan when, out of the blue, Holden, uncharacteristically, blundered a piece, against Paul Rivers on board 1. Holden resigned and when asked if he might have been able to scrape a draw, he said that his position was hopeless after his mistake. Picked a bad time to end his run of 23 games without defeat.
Meanwhile, on board 3, Eggert was having a tough time against Bill Burgess but after Bill grabbed a pawn, Eggert broke through his defences, leaving the score line at 3-1 to Penrith, which sadly was a ½ point short of the score needed to win after the handicap was deducted.
Oh well, one less trophy to polish.
Meanwhile, our C team was playing at Maryport against their C team.
At about 2:30 pm, I got a message on Whatsapp from Cameron saying that he’d won his game on board 1 against Joseph Rowlands.
Shortly after, I got another message to say that Richard had beat Miller Bowes on board 3 and Steve had about half an hour left and Dave 15 minutes.
Some time followed before the next message saying that our C team won by 3½ – ½ and that they were all in the pub celebrating. When I arrived, I found out that Steve had won against James Todd and Dave got a draw on board 4 against Dennis Renney .
Doesn’t look like Penrith C will win the wooden spoon this year.
The current League Table looks like this:
