……. that we won a Coventry League match last Tuesday! Playing away to Coventry B, we recorded an ultimately comfortable 3-1 win over last season's Division 2 champions, who are finding life in Division 1 rather tough.
The match, however, was actually quite competitive for virtually the whole evening. I finished first on Board 1, winning with White against Sam Cotterill, despite a definite opening slip by me. Even though I knew the line quite well, I carelessly waited one move too long to play g4 driving the Black bishop away from h5, and ended up in a distinctly awkward position for a few moves. But after playing the opening very well, Sam rather drifted in the middle game, and once he recaptured the wrong way on e4 the tide turned very quickly in my favour. I won an exchange which then became a whole piece.
But we weren't ahead for long. Despite having a population of well over 300,000 compared to our 25,000 or so, half of Coventry's team were Kenilworth residents, and one of them, former KCC star Kate Donegan, struck back decisively by beating Ben on Board 2. At some point Kate sacrificed a piece for 3 central pawns, and when it came down to rook and 5 v rook, knight and 2, it looked decidedly dodgy for Ben as the White king had got into a strong position supporting connected, passed e and f pawns. Ben was trying franticly to blockade/attack them, but in the time it took me to blink, Ben's rook simply disappeared from the board - while the White rook and all the pawns were still there! Our fate was sealed and Kate had an excellent win.
While all this was going on, Dave was having a very strange game against Nigel Morris on Board 4. Mainly because the board and pieces were totally mismatched - the squares were small, and the pawns & pieces were giant. And with few exchanges, the board looked over-crowded for the whole game. I found it all very disconcerting and would have declined to play, but Dave is clearly made of sterner stuff and took it all in his stride. The position was almost totally blocked, but when I had just about given up any hope of progress, Dave found a killing piece sac which opened up the White king, and his queen and rook then powered into the position to deliver an unstoppable mate.
But still the match was not won, with the clock a big enemy for us on Board 3. Drago, who had stepped in late to replace an unwell Mike D, was an exchange up against Kenilworth resident number 2, and ex-KCC stalwart, Mike Johnson which then became a whole rook. But Drago's time was slipping away well below 5 minutes (no increment) and to my consternation he was still writing all the moves down. In contrast, and despite the rules, Mike - who had about 20 minutes left - was recording about one move in every four! I almost couldn't bear to look, but thankfully Drago had it all under control and got the job done with a couple of minutes left on his clock, to wrap up a 3-1 win.
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