After the U-8750 Cup team defied very unhelpful eligibility rules last week to power past Daventry and into a Final against Banbury, it was our Open KO Cup team which took centre stage last night. And the boys didn't let the club down - though some tried quite hard! - as a 4.5-0.5 win over Division 2 Stratford secured us a chance to defend our trophy against Olton or Banbury on Finals night.
Mike was a very convincing winner on Board 5 against Peter Stiff (the man who nearly cost us the league title in 2014 when he beat Phil from a piece down position!), an early pawn sac activating all his pieces for a big attack against White's queenside castled king. Jude played what looked like a model Spanish torture against former Coventry player Sam Cotterill on Board 4. Very positional and very convincing. A really mature performance worthy of an old codger rather than a young whipper-snapper! If I hadn't already used the video of Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition sketch I would have used it now!
Andrew drew against Ben Larkin on Board 2 after Black optimistically sacked an exchange but managed to generate plenty of play. I felt sure we would be winning this board, but as my own game showed, my judgment on the night was pretty poor, and Andrew had to give back the exchange for a drawn ending. I did manage the full point against Richard McNally on Board 1, but I have to admit it was a rather iffy performance, as both players missed quite a few tactics. Its an age thing I guess! In the end I ran my king right up the board to h2 to hide from queen checks, whereupon there was no way for Richard to stop my e pawn queening.
Perceptive readers will have noticed that this review has so far skipped the events on Board 3. Well, I am finding it difficult to explain what happened there, but suffice to say it was a Pink Special! I don't know what went wrong against David Gardiner, but from what already looked to me like a dubious rook and pawn v 2 minor pieces imbalance, the position degenerated to a whole piece down, with two very ineffectual extra pawns as nebulous compensation. On top of this White had a passed pawn on d5 which looked like it would just win the game by itself. Joshua went into trickery overdrive and kept finding resources - not easy when all you've got is one piece against 2! But still all seemed lost - and should have been - but White managed to miss a clear win by delaying pushing his d pawn, and that cost him the game as Joshua somehow got one of his own pawns through to queen. You've got to have sympathy for David, but that was a remarkable comeback by Joshua.
Our U-1600 Cup team have their semi-final next week against Rugby, so there is still every chance that we could be represented in all 3 Cup Finals - and let's rfemember that unlike some teams, none of our sides got a first round bye. That would be one hell of an achievement. Go for it, Kenilworth!
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