St Helens A V Culcheth B
Unlucky Bees
The match against St. Helens was always going to be a challenge so I was keen to field the strongest team permissible, but in the end Keith Maudsley was not able to play so I stepped in to make up our numbers.
On Board 1 Ilya battled hard against Martin Brown but was finally overcome by his much higher graded opponent.
But no matter, because Tom Vout notched up an excellent win over Barry Groves on Board 3 to level the scores.
Andy Coe’s Board 4 game against Steve Potter was a lively affair in which Andy had real winning chances but couldn’t quite bring the victory home.
My game on Board 5 against Andy Reynolds was fairly even for the most part, but a couple of inaccuracies put me on the back foot and Andy relentlessly built a winning position. We were both short of time when Andy played a move which should have blundered a whole Rook to a Knight fork. However I simply didn’t see it and duly lost. If I had played the correct move I would still have had a lot to do to actually win the game in the 90 seconds remaining on my clock. Andy said he would have offered a draw which I would have been well advised to accept in the circumstances.
The real drama of the match unfolded on Board 2 where Rob Furness was playing Mark Ellis. In a fearful time scramble with pieces literally flying off the board Rob ended up with a Queen & King v Mark’s lone King, but ran out of time which meant that an obviously won game ended in a draw and the match was lost 3-2. Unlucky? I really do think so; but it was a great effort to run such a strong team so close.
Winwick A V Culcheth B
Winwick Stung
Following two unfortunate defeats in our opening matches The Mighty Bees needed a good result against fellow-strugglers Winwick A in our Division 1 match. I was able to sit this one out as non-playing captain, which given my last effort against St. Helens was something of a bonus!
The first game to finish was Tom Vout’s against Richard Clissold on Board 2 where a draw was agreed in a decidedly gridlocked position where neither side had prospects of successfully breaking through.
On Board 3 Keith Maudsley was back from injury playing against Dave Stuttard. Keith skilfully neutralised Dave’s early middle game pressure to win a pawn which was quickly followed by the win of a second one and a forced exchange of Queens. This left Keith with a winning endgame advantage which he converted into victory without much difficulty giving us a key early lead.
A solid middle-order performance was capped on Board 4 where Andy Coe and Ken Johnson agreed a draw. There seemed to still be opportunities for either player to prevail when peace broke out.
On Board 1 thanks to the greater harmony of his pieces Rob Furness appeared to have a distinct initiative against his similarly graded opponent, Simeon Sakic. The critical moment came when Rob had the opportunity to win the exchange but at the risk of his Bishop becoming trapped deep in his opponent’s position. Rather than risk the complications Rob opted to repeat moves and accept a draw.
Last and late to finish was Jonathan Miller’s game against the Winwick captain, Mike Fleming. Early in the middle game Jonathan had opted to trade two minor pieces for a Rook and a Pawn. Given that there were still 15 pawns on the board, 8 of them Jonathan’s, this might not have been a wise decision. The rooks struggled to make any impact and Mike’s minor pieces had greater potential to flourish. However, in search of a breakthrough Jonathan managed to create a passed pawn on the 6th rank which soon afterwards became a protected passed pawn and a real thorn in Mike’s side. However, if Mike had contented himself with maintaining the blockade of the pawn with his Knight and shuffling his King around on the back rank it was hard to see how Jonathan could make any progress. However Mike moved his Knight and allowed Jonathan to break through on the Q-side activating his hitherto dormant Rooks. Unable to deal with the myriad threats Mike ran out of time resulting in a 3.5-1.5 win for The Mighty Bees.
St Helens A V Culcheth A
The A team made it’s way to St Helens for their first away outing of the season. St Helens are making a very welcome return to the league after a 2 year absence, it was good to see some old familiar faces, as well as a few new one’s!
Unfortunately we were missing our current top board and strongest player for this crucial fixture meaning the experienced Tom Vout came in to complete our line up.
It was Tom’s game that finished first on bottom board ending in a peaceful earlypoint halved 0.5-0.5
On top board Marek had built up a large clock lead against Martin Brown, when playing without an increment being down on the clock can bring about alot of pressure and this finally told as Martin made a tactical oversight which resulted in a fine win for Marek. Giving us the lead! 0.5-1.5
The match was soon level again as Ilya was ground down by the experienced Dave Hill. 1.5-1.5.
In own game (Damian) my opponent played a very dubious move early in the opening which I failed to punish, soon after that losing the thread I landed in a nearly lost position! We both missed some chances in the middle game then finally reached an ending where we both had very little time remaining. Non the less I tried vainly to keep the game going refusing 2 draw offers but Barry was able to hold on by finally sacrificing his minor piece for my final remaining pawn leaving insufficiant material for a result. 2-2
Finally Rob Furness’s 2nd encounter with Mark Ellis in a week gave the match’s final draw. This is the feature game and I will post this for you to play through below with annotations from Robert himself. 2.5-2.5.
Rob V Mark on the big screen : click to open
