A Tale of Two Londons

Kenilworth ‘B’ was in action last night against Coventry C. Here is what each of our players had to say.

First Stuart on board One. He is a little miffed at the strength of his opponents!

“I see Ed played on board 3 last year for Cov A!!! I opened with a very modern London system, and got good development of my pieces, eventually I ended up blocked and retreated backwards. Losing a rook for a Bishop was my one mistake while obsessively protecting an isolated pawn. Came close to a draw as he was running out of time with only 2.5 mins left to my 12mins, but alas it wasn’t to be. Quote of the year 2018 by Watson.R. “Cov B division is easy!! Mainly low graded players!!! Played two games against 169 and 154 so far.....!!!”

Moving on to yours truly on board two:-

I played a Scheveningen Sicilian but played the correct moves in the wrong order against Bava. I ended up with much less space, got squashed but had endgame chances with two bishops v Knight and Bishop on an open board – but two pawns down. But in the event I could not prevent Bava exchanging his knight for my Bishop – game over. And I have to show this to Mr Lam tomorrow and justify myself! Hmm.

Edit – post lesson analysis.  I got a good position from the opening but then played too passively (of course the Sicilian is a counter ATTACKING opening) and, with limited tactical awareness blundered my first pawn – then my second. THEN game over.

Jude was on board three. Told by Jude what to write, here is what his mum, Leanne, writes:-

“Jude’s game against Howard Jones – Jude played the London system and later in the game did a pawn sacrifice to make his opponents pawns doubled and isolated and he went on to win a pawn. Jude took advantage with the bishop pair but his opponent forced him to trade bishops and his opponent centralised his knight meaning he was forced to win the exchange. Jude traded a rook for a bishop and the position was blockaded. Jude could have put his knight in an outpost but stopped his opponents king from entering and winning pawns. Jude accepted his opponents offer of a draw and was happy with this in the position.”

And finally on bottom board, Algis who writes:-“Algis had a tedious game with a breakthrough and victory in the very last seconds.  The opponent played a standard Queen’s Gambit opening with a fairly boring development from both sides. After a number of exchanges and a deviation of the ‘d’ pawn, Algis’ opponent had to defend 2-against-1 pawns on the ‘g’ and ‘h’ lanes. However there were only 3 minutes left for Algis (and 40 minutes for the opponent…). The breakthrough came after Algis switched the attack with the knight on pawns on the other side, opponents’ knight, a pawn and the king trying to stop those 2 pawns. Soon, there were 3 pawns marching for the queen on different parts of the board and one finally made it. The opponent resigned with a whole 35 seconds left on Algis’ clock.”

Captain Roy suspects the board order may very well be different in the New Year.