The Coma Cup II 1st leg took place at Lancaster Bridge Club yesterday. The Coma Cup, so called because Lancaster’s board 1 fell asleep at the board last year, is a 2 leg competition between Penrith and Lancaster, played over 8 boards.
The match got under way at 1 pm with Penrith playing white on odd boards. The time control was 1 hour 40 minutes with a 10 second increment. It came as quite a shock when, after just 45 minutes, our board 1, Holden, got up and left in a hurry. He had uncharacteristically lost a piece after his opponent Om Reddy Jayar, forked 2 undefended pieces with his queen.
My game, on board 6, was next to finish. I was black against Paul Jackson who played very defensively, considering he had the white pieces but his position was very solid and after several attempts to infiltrate were repelled, we agreed to draw.
Next was board 8. Jonathan Verden had a very strong attack against Dave’s vulnerable king and unable to find an adequate move, Dave resigned.
Meanwhile, Cameron pulled one back with Penrith’s only win of the match over Jack Davies on board 5.
Alice accepted a draw offer from Danny McMenamin on board 2. Danny felt that he had the better position but not good enough to warrant risking an attack.
Mike, on board 7, played a very good game against the higher rated, Neil Lawlor, to secure a draw in a very close game.
On board 3, Eggert, the exchange down, had a strong attack against captain Richard Walsh but his own king was also vulnerable. Richard managed to find just the right moves to defend his king whilst also threatening Eggert’s king so, as both were getting low on time, they agreed to a draw.
Board 4 was the only game still playing but Lewis was getting very short of time. With a rook and two minor pieces against Harrison Theobald’s rook pair, Lewis was technically winning but alas, the clock got the better of him.
So, most of the games were very close but Lancaster got the edge and go into the 2nd leg with a 5-3 lead. Let’s hope we can dig a little deeper next week when we play at the Crown.