Tuesday 30 July 2019

Joshua fails to qualify for the British Championship (part 4)

And so we continue ...

Team Sprog

David recovered from yesterday's defeat, with a victory putting him back on plus 1. His opponent was only rated 1120, though with the erratic nature of junior ratings it's hard to be sure how much notice we should take of that. He'll definitely be back in the big leagues tomorrow though.

Team PAYE

I rather let the team down today, conspiring to lose both of my games. At least in the afternoon I just got outplayed so don't really have anything to complain about, but in the morning I was better out of the opening and for a considerable part of the game, before conspiring to lose by putting my king on the wrong square in the endgame. I remember thinking at the tie: "Kg1 or Kg2 - how much difference can it make?". Turns out a lot.

Fortunately my teammates made up for my incompetence, with Andy winning a fine game to move to 3/4 in the Major Open, playing well above his seeding. Ben also managed a win and a draw, with the won most notable for the fact he had a completely winning position after his opponents fifth move (see below).

Team Charlemagne

Roy has something of an off day today, going down in both his games, and for a long time it looked like both his teammates were going down with them. Bernard seemed to be down the exchange for absolutely nothing in his game, and Mark was hardly faring better, with only a solitary rook for his opponents two pieces. Experience came through in the end though, with both of them managing to hold on for draws, with Mark even managing to be up the exchange instead by the time it finally finished.

Team Eclectic

Bruce was in fine form today, outperforming all the remained of out club (Andy aside), with a 100% winning record (from the one game he played). David Howell also did his part, so a clean sweep means the backmarkers in the event have moved up to joint third place.

Current standings:

Team Sprog: 73% (11/15)
Team PAYE: 62% (8/13)
Team Charlemagne: 50% (6.5/13)
Team Eclectic: 50% (8.5/17)

There isn't much background necessary for Ben's game, other than to say he somehow managed to be one of the last games to finish, despite his opponent's best efforts to lose as quickly as possible.


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