Wednesday 22 March 2017

Sent To Coventry


We are going to be spending a lot of time in Coventry over the next few weeks, with matches coming up against their A team in the KO cup and the C team in the Divisional Cup. Last night we were in action against Coventry B in the Divisional Cup and ran out 3-1 winners, to consolidate a pretty good run for us in this competition.

It probably wasn’t the most eventful of matches. I was the first to finish on 1, with a win against Drago. He walked into an opening trap and I pocketed a piece early on, but there were some imbalances and I had a pretty shattered pawn structure. It was all a bit messy, but in the end it was fine so 1-0. We had the Champion of all Hereford (I think that’s his official title now, and the most appropriate way for non-family members to address him) in action on Board 4 and Roy continued his red hot streak. I didn’t see much of the game, but once he’d got over the shock that Coventry had fielded an opponent against him (often opposing teams don’t bother to in this competition) he seemed to make pretty short work of John Conway to put us 2-0 up.

Mike’s game with Nigel Morris looked extremely boring. They got down to Queen, Rook, Bishop and five vs Queen, Rook, Knight and five, without obvious opportunities for either side. Mike manoeuvred around for a bit, before agreeing the draw around the time control. Dave’s game against Kate Donegan was a lot more interesting. I think Kate tried some sort of sacrifice early on, but Dave defended well and was up the exchange. It ended up in a heavy wood ending with Queens and Rooks still on the board and Kate’s Knight able to defend Dave’s two potential entry points on the a and c files. No question Dave was better, but equally no question that Kate defended well and had a lot of defensive opportunities. (One of those positions where proving the benefit of the exchange is far from easy.) With Dave better on the Board, but very short of time a draw felt like a fair result.

So a pretty competent night from us. Perhaps not one that will live in the memory, but we are much more consistently doing what we should be doing than we were at the start of the season. Coventry B also deserve credit for a good effort. Onwards!

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