Thursday 5 October 2017

Fortunes improve for B team at Solihull



Board 1 saw Ben try a new opening line which turned out to require further work and he ended up with a passive position. Black took the opportunity to sacrifice a piece for two pawns to open up whites king side but could not force anything decisive. Fritz style defending may have delivered the full point but Ben felt he had to return the material to neutralise the position and resulting opposite colour bishop ending was always going to be drawn.

On board 2 Geoff Stokes played a very solid Maroczy bind against Mike. The resulting middle game was very even and white accurate opening play had prevented b5 which would have led to active counter play. An attempt get b5 in last in the game just allowed white to play Nd5, forcing multiple exchanges and resulting in a drawn endgame. 

Phil on board 3 emerged from a queens pawn opening with an excellent bishop on a3 that prevented black from castling until the middle game. In the time that it took black to reorganise his position and get castled, white had claimed most of the board and nearly all of black pieces were stuck on his back two ranks. With double rooks, queen and opposite colour bishops on the board a simplified position would have been given black drawing chances. However white managed to exploit black cramped position and force two pawns onto the sixth. Black resigned when faced with the substantial loss of material.

Dave's objective was to get to the time control without ending up in a hopeless ending after his last game on board 4. This he managed to do against white's very solid queen pawn opening. However, even with a rook on the seventh, black could not make progress and game was drawn.

 So it's two out of three and this result puts the B team in third place.

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