Another trip to sunny Barrow, this time with our C team and though we expected to get beat last time, this time it was a case of damage limitation as our average rating was about 460 points lower than theirs.
Nathan, playing with black on board 2, was having a hard time against Dave Cole from the opening. Nathan had lost a rook and the other was pinned to his king by a bishop and he was struggling to find a safe square for his queen. By now Dave was turning the screws and before too long, Nathan’s defences crumbled.
On board 4, Dave was holding his own, against Jon Duffield, until Jon won a piece. After that, though Dave fought on, Jon was always going to win.
Richard gave a pawn away in the opening, against Russ Hayley on board 3. Unfortunately, Richard never regained his pawn, nor did he gain any significant positional advantage and eventually, he went the same way as his team mates.
My game against Matthew on board 1, was not going so bad. In fact it was dead even up to the point when I blundered on move 59 with BxNf4. Up until that point, I had a bishop and 5 pawns to Matthew’s knight and 5. All I had to do was shuffle my king back and fore and allow my 30 minute time advantage do the work but no…I got bored and decided to push a pawn and exchange pieces and basically give the game to Matthew.
Oh well…It’s not as if it was the first whitewash we’d ever had but Barrow is a very long way to go for it. League table below:
