Yet another reverse for Jude on Board 1, this time against Phil Purcell, took some of the shine off proceedings, as his bad run of results continued. But as we all know, form is temporary, class is permanent. Like General Douglas MacArthur, he will return! And rather sooner than MacArthur, I predict!
My game against Darren Whitmore on Board 3 was also nothing to be too proud of. I was taken aback when he sacked the exchange for no obvious reason, but one or two inaccuracies on my part soon gave him full compensation as a White knight on f5 was more than a match for my rook. But quite sensibly - yes, it surprised me too! - I found a good way to return the exchange for a better ending. It should have been a draw but in defending all his loose pawns Darren went very passive and allowed me to put him into a virtual zugzwang, and my passed e pawn soon won a whole rook and the game.
Bruce was hardly more convincing on Board 4, though he also eventually brought home the full point against Dave Thomas. After giving up two knights for a rook and pawn right out of the opening, he was clearly leaving all 3 results on the table. When a White rook got onto the 7th rank, though, the Black position started to creak at the seams and a timely exchange sac let the White queen in with decisive material gain.
But standing well above all this dubious play on the other three boards, Javier was in complete control against Jonathan Dale on Board 2. Somewhere in the middle game, he turned back a hopeful Black kingside attack and just started collecting pawns. By the time he reached a queen ending he had 4 or 5 extra pawns. Never one to be accused of resigning too early, the Shirley player played on until Javi's two queens delivered checkmate.
Twenty four hours later, three of the team reassembled for another home match, this time in the Coventry League against Nuneaton A. Elevated to Board 2, Bruce played a wholly convincing game against Maurice Staples, gradually taking control of the centre and queenside (where the Black king had optimistically sought shelter) and then totally routing the Black position. I followed suit not long after when time pressure saw Tony Green collapse against me and blunder a piece, after a very interesting game in which I stood slightly worse for some of the time. Ben then went under against Colin Green after needlessly converting his light squared bishop into a big pawn by pushing d4-d5. Colin occupied the half open e file and trained all his sights on White's e4 pawn while also finding squares for his two knights and eventually Ben's position collapsed. But fear not, because for the second night running, Javi played a high quality game, this time against Phil Brigg's typically unorthodox play, and exploited his better pawn structure and more active pieces in the ending to wrap up another 3-1 win. Unfortunately, our chances of retaining our title are virtually zero, as we have already dropped 3 points and still have to play Warwick Uni A twice, but it would be nice if we could at least come out best of the rest, so this was an important win against perennially strong opponents.
On Monday night I wasn't able to pay much attention to the Division 4 table-topping clash between Kenilworth E and Daventry A while it was in progress, - if I had been, this report could have been a threefer! But - alas - I did see enough to notice that our 100% record went down the drain, as Nigel and Roy lost, meaning Patrick's victory was in vain. We still lead the division, but Daventry A (and Stratford C) are now only 1 point behind, though we have a match in hand on both of them and remain in the driving seat.
Let's finish with a musical offering. It suddenly dawned on me that I'd never featured a song by the late, great Tom Petty, so its clearly time I corrected that omission. Lots of fantastic songs to choose from, so why not this one? Before Suella Braverman or Robert Jenrick gets it banned because of its title!
No comments:
Post a Comment