Olton A v Kenilworth A - Tuesday March 31st
The A team has not put up much of a defence of its title this season, but the last three matches have shown that rumours of its demise are much exaggerated. Fresh from wins over the teams currently in 2nd and 4th places in the table, it was now the turn of champions elect Olton A - sporting a record of Won 12, Drawn 1, Lost 0 - to face the revived Kenilworth juggernaut.
Deprived of our Captain by the call of a Cup Semi-Final for Coventry, we nevertheless managed to field one of our strongest teams of the season, and arrived to discover that Phil Holt had decided to take the night off for Olton. It looked for a long time that Alan Lloyd, deputising on Board 1 for Olton, had also decided to take the night off, but he finally rolled in around 8.15 after a bad travel experience. This prompted a quick hunt for a copy of the league rules, as no-one was sure whether he had lost or not. (Where is the LDCL Chairman when you need him?) In fact, default time is 8.30pm, so it was game on.
First to finish was Andy, against Mark Cundy, on Board 2. He had seemed to be under the impression that this was a blitz game, so quickly was he moving, but this didn't prevent him from reaching a winning position. Continuing to move at the speed of light, though, he missed the one move win of the exchange and suddenly the position was no longer winning. A draw was agreed, and a very annoyed team driver had to quietly seethe for the next hour or more while he waited for the rest of us to finish.
I had a big advantage out of the opening against Richard Smith on 3, but failing to find a good plan my position went steadily downhill. (I suspect I've written that sentence before.) I was pleasantly surprised when he offered me a draw, but after taking a quick look at the other 2 remaining games I decided I'd better play on as it looked like we were getting a point at best from them. I sacced a pawn to free my position, but luckily for me, Richard declined it and then gave up his strong bishop for my useless knight. This left a double rook ending, but after one pair of rooks came off, the resultant ending was winning for me as the Black kingside pawns were too weak. I missed mate in two at one point, but it wasn't critical as resignation followed a couple of moves later with me 3 pawns up.
By that time, Paul - fresh from a brilliant 4NCL win over IM Richard Palliser at the weekend - had duly delivered a win on Board 1, though not before overtaking Alan on time, despite his 30 minute head start! Alan chose a dubious opening variation that exchanged queens but left his king on d7 on move 8. A bit later it went back to e8, and then a lot later it castled king side! Luckily, Paul noticed this attempt to "do a Phil" as its known in Leamington League circles, but by then he had jumped all over the black position and was winning comfortably.
This left Mike D. on board 4. He had been forced to give up his b7 pawn in the opening, and soon after the a7 pawn went west too. He got one pawn back and had a clear middle game initiative but his opponent defended well and it eventually came down to a bishops of the same colour ending, where white had 4 v 3 with a passed c pawn. The clock situation for both players was truly horrendous, and although the position looked lost for Mike, he defended like a demon and managed to force all the pawns off fractionally before both players lost on time.
So the match ended in a 3-1 victory for us, and the end of Olton's unbeaten league season, as well as taking our aggregate score in the last 3 matches against the strongest teams in the league to 9.5-2.5. What a shame that the season is ending, just as we have finally got started!
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