When all your games in a match finish after 10pm, you know it has been a long day in the office.
First to finish was Mike who was down to his last few seconds when he resigned. Playing Steve Willets in a kings Indian with the Kings castled on opposite wings he had to endure an attack against his king which took its toll on his time. His successful defending of this led him into a rook and pawns ending a pawn down with only two minutes on the clock. It always difficult to defend a position like this against board one opposition.
Next to finish was Dave although he did have the luxury of a full ten minutes at the end whilst his opponent had only a couple of minutes. Black had deployed a slow double fianchetto defence which left his centre week. With all major pieces on the centre files, white pushed with e5. Unfortunately, black didn't defend this well and lost a piece rather than an exchange. However, he did emerge from this with some attacking chances as his queen got into white position. Once again, time proved a decisive factor as whilst black captured queen side pawns white got his queen and knight into black kingside and black didn't defend accurately enough.
The remaining two board almost finished simultaneously with all players down to their last minutes. When the dust settled, it turned out that we had won on both boards and the final score was 1 - 3 to Kenilworth.
Phil had played yet another Scandinavian defence against a fourteen year old opponent. Careless play in the opening by white left him with doubled isolated centre pawns. Black won one of these pawns but white generated some counter play against the black king. Unfortunately, white was trying too hard to win and allowed black to skewer his rook and queen. With both side desperately short of time a massive time scramble ensued in white the chess clock took one hell of a beating! Note to Daventry - don't trust these players with expensive analogue or digital clocks ever again and consider buying a replacement Garde clock.
Ben had black against Andy Johnson and looked to be winning out of the opening. However, Andy defended well and reached an active middlegame position a pawn down. From this point on, both sides pursued their individual attacks and it was just a case of who would mate who first. Fortunately, Ben had sacrificed his extra pawn to gain the initiative, had an extra tempo and mated white just before he got mated. Quite impressive considering the sheer racket that was emanating from board two as they wrecked Daventry's clock!
At 10.10, the game could have gone either way. At 10.15 we had won. Well done everyone.
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