Wednesday, 25 October 2017

No luck with the black pieces


Quite a disappointing evening for the B Team against a strong Banbury side which saw us lose both of our games with the black pieces. Banbury have strength in depth at the moment as so the C team is as strong as their B team. The only plus of the evening was Banbury’s appalling use of the match score sheet which became a beer mat and was consequently disregarded - not sure if they have the match score or not!

Board 1

Ben had the black pieces and emerged from the opening with an even position. Unfortunately, during the middle game he miscalculated a tactic and in order to regain his sacrificed piece he had to allow white to double up his rooks against his queenside castle position. White won the game with a very neat rook sacrifice.

Board 2

Mike's game featured, for the second week running, another new idea at move 4 in an established opening. Subsequent research showed that it was not in the latest opening books but had been played by several IMs/GMs recently and the Chessbase site shows it has been analysed by hundreds of people/computers. The move featured a Benko style gambit against an English set up but White preferred nagging pressure on the long diagonal to snatching the offered b-pawn. White defended very well against the numerous promising lines at Whites disposal and missed the best line to retain a large edge. A draw was agreed when Black was slightly better.

Board 3

Phil played the Scandinavian and emerged from the opening with a slightly inferior position. Unfortunately having lost a pawn on move 9, black's attempts to regain the material resulted in him getting his queen trapped and having to give it up for a rook. After this, white won without too many problems.

Board 4
Dave picked up blacks c pawn in a French defence opening and obtained a good position forcing all of black pieces onto his back two ranks. However, black defended very well and white was unable to capitalise upon his advantage. The game was drawn shortly before the time control.

No comments:

Post a Comment