Apologies again for the lack of an update recently on this website. We left things after our narrow win away at Skelmersdale when the A team pulled off a narrow victory.
The next fixture of the year was our A team v B team match, the B team put up a brave fight but were heavily out-graded on all boards and fell to a heavy 4.5-0.5 defeat. Not withstanding a good draw for Tom Vout against Ian Dutton and a debut for youngster Shlok who gave Andy Coe a fair few things to think about during their game!
A much closer contest came at Winwick a couple of weeks later. Winwick have recently recruited Martin Carpenter who has added a touch of class to their line up on board 1. This match was a tight affair with the top 4 boards drawn, Andy Coe managed to nick it for us on board 5 resulting in another two points collected. If Winwick manage to keep fielding the team below next season, they may well be the ones to watch out for next year!
Then came the key fixture, our return match V Atherton chess club. Sometimes in sport the most keenly anticipated matches can end up being the most anticlimactic, I’m afraid this was the case here as 5 games in this fixture were drawn! There were a few absolute snoozer’s that don’t really merit a commentary, Keith almost managed to bring home a win in his game v Paul Dugdale winning two pawn’s early on. Dugdale had some dynamic compensation however and managed to create enough confusion with Keith low on time to grab the draw. I was happy with the result however as by now we had a healthy lead in the division.
Our penultimate game came with an away trip to Northwich, We were missing quite a few players for this one. Despite this Andy Coe, Nick Burriss and Alex Robinson performed excellently each winning their games. The result perhaps should have been even more convincing as Rob on board 2 had a winning position (from a complicated opening he has had quite a few times) the position was very double-edged however and Rob was to make a mistake giving Richard Betts the win for Northwich. Damian had been in control of his game and managed to obtain a piece up endgame with no compensation. He then went on to play one of the worst moves he’s ever played in needless time trouble, blundering a rook. Luckily after this horror the game was still drawn!
Then onto our final fixture where we were to play this season’s runner up side St Helens, so therefore expected a stern test. We were more then a bit disappointed that only 2 opposition players turned up for this fixture. The reason for this has not yet been established, Steve Potter was very apologetic after the match on behalf of his club. Two games were played and these at least were very competitive. I was watching Steve Potter’s game V Marek and was somewhat tickled to see that for a third game I think of the season V ourselves Steve had gone in for an early middlegame Na5! Clearly he is not a subscriber to the view “Knights on the rim are dim!” Marek in this game as Ian Dutton had done earlier in the season managed to exploit his extra central play to obtain a winning position.
Phoenix Lamb’s game V our latest debutant Andy Bak looked very interesting, Andy looked to be winning a pawn when Phoenix unleashed a positional Rook sacrifice with Andy’s King still being stuck in the centre. Despite the extra material Andy’s pieces were completely paralyzed and after the game Andy suggested he thought he was probably losing… Andy is an excellent player however and in the end he managed to unravel and bring home the full point in this game as well.
The B team also played a Key game v Winwick on the same evening. (Note Keith in the purple jumper cutting a frustrated figure, he was deprived of a game by St Helens not showing up, had notice been given he could have played in this match…) *Keith has been playing board 1 for the B team for much of the season.
So there we have it, Culcheth A league winners for the 2nd year running! Well done and thanks to everyone who has contributed this season.
