Though we usually play the southern teams at Burneside Cricket Club, their function room was already booked so, unfortunately, we were forced to play at Barrow. It’s not that Barrow’s venue, the Navy Club, isn’t perfect for chess, it’s just that it’s such “a long way to go for a hammering.”, as Eggert so eloquently put it.
When we arrived, there were loads of parking spaces but with 2 hour limits on them so, before the match began, Eggert asked if it was ok to set his alarm for when he has to move his car and with that the match began.
My game on board 3 was first to finish. My opponent, Russ Hayley, had just played 20…Qd4 with a double attack on my Be4 but after 21.Qh4, adding a defender to my bishop and more to the point, threatening mate, he had to play 21…g6 preventing any bishop checks resulting in a discovered attack on his queen. However, Russ played 21…f5?? and resigned as, although at first glance it looks like black wins the bishop due to the pin on white’s queen, after 22.Bd5+, defended by a pawn on c4, he would lose his queen on the next move.
It was quite a while before the next result. Eggert was doing ok against Matthew, on Board 1 but wasn’t allowed to mount the same devastating attack as he did in their last encounter as Matthew kept his king well defended. Inevitably, Matthew found a move that forced Eggert to resign or lose a piece and face a futile struggle.
Richard was doing very well on board 4 after winning a pawn, earlier in the game against Jon Duffield. Having now reached the endgame, still a pawn down, Jon resigned a lost position.
Cameron, playing Dave Cole on board 2, now knew that if he could avoid losing, we’d win the match and although a pawn down, he had many threats that Dave couldn’t ignore, especially a nice knight planted on e4. So, unable to make any progress and not much time on the clock, Dave offered a draw. Naturally, Cameron accepted as it won the match for our B team.
Our B team, on average, were rated 175 lower than Barrow, so a bit of a David v Goliath story or more accurately, Goliath v David. You can see from the League table below, that our B team is doing very well in 3rd place.
