After our humbling recent visit to Atherton where we were soundly defeated 4.5-0.5 we faced St Helens who were now tied with us at the top of the division. A reminder of how things stood going into the match below:
We made two changes born of necessity for this vital fixture, Marek Mazek and Rob Furness making way for Ilya Dubov and Tom Vout.
St Helens arrived with a strong lineup captained by Mark Ellis and Championed by the leagues strongest player Martin Brown on board one. This is how we both lined up:
The first result of the night came relatively quickly on board four, Ilya was facing Phoenix Lamb recent conquerer of Damian in our Peninsular Cup fixture. Ilya would have been more on his guard then Damian was in that game, with Phoenix having demonstrated his tremendous tactical ability. After an early central skirmish Ilya’s experience told as he steered the game to a decisive conclusion 1-0
The next result came on board two in the ‘battle of the Captains’. Mark deviated from his normal Scheveningan Sicilian going into a mainline Najdorf with e5. Mark’s early aggression came at the cost of a lack of kingside development and White soon had control of the position. Mark tried to breakout with an f5 lunge but in the end Black’s position was just too restricted and Mark resigned with 2 of his pawns about to drop off the board without any counterplay. 2-0
McCarthy V Ellis (Bigger Board)
The remaining boards took note of this scoreline…
On board 5 Tom Vout was facing Ray Smith, their game had reached a materially level, Rook and pawn ending with lots of pawns still left on the board. Tom spoke with the captain and after confirming that a drawn match would be good news for us given the board count +/- he offered a draw. Ray accepted in a position where afterwards Tom stated that he felt he might have had a good chance of winning. We very much appreciate Tom selflessly sacrificing a handful of his rating points to help secure the result in this manner! 2.5-0.5
Board 3 Jonathan was once again facing Steve Potter. Their opening followed a well trodden path between the pair where Jonathan first equalized as Black and then began to apply pressure. Steve was putting up stronger resistance then the last time the pair met however. An interesting moment in this game came when Jonathan played the temporary pawn sacrifice b5! This allowed him to sucessfully activate his rook to b2 and infiltrate White’s position. Finally a pawn fell and a second pawn was about to drop when Jonathan (again with the match score in mind) offered a draw rather then try to win the position while getting slightly low on time. “That’s Cruel!” said Steve faced with the prospect of a lost on the board position but knowing accepting the draw would cost his side the match. In the end the reality of the position on the board necessitated an acceptance which gave the team a decisive scoreline with 1 board to play. 3-1
On top board featured two of the leagues highest rated players Martin Brown V Thomas Quilter. This game was refreshing in the fact that most of us have played each other countless times over the years, however as Tom is new to the area it was the first time these two had faced off. A fierce battle ensued and by the time all the other boards had ended each player had 6 pawns and a rook however crucially Martin had two Bishops against Tom’s Bishop and Knight with the Knight lacking any advanced outpost. Martin is excellent in technical positions like this and he went on to probe and probe until finally a Black pawn fell. Tom didn’t give up and tried everything to complicate with both players low on time, but Martin’s play was flawless giving him the win 3-2.
So the match concluded in our favour once again restoring a two point cushion at the top with just two league fixtures left to play! Thanks again to everyone who took part, special thanks to Jonathan and Tom for offering draw’s in positions they would normally play on in to secure the match.
