Yesterday the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham produced a shock result - the starting prices of the first three horses were 25/1 (Golden Ace); 66/1 (Burdett Road) and 150/1 (Winter Fog).
And yesterday evening, the Coventry League KO Cup Final saw a shock that was arguably bigger still, when Division 2 Rugby A, who I would have made at least 10/1 outsiders in a 2 horse race, managed to hold off the might of KCC to lift the cup. Sure, we won the match 2.5-1.5, but Rugby had a 1.25 points handicap advantage, so they ended up edging us out by 2.75-2.5. Full credit to them, but this was an open goal - of Ronny Rosenthal proportions - missed by us.
Our rating advantage, by board, was 319, 417, 337 and 409, but on the evidence of this match, you need at least 410 points in hand to be sure of winning, and I was the only one on the right side of that thresh-hold!
Things started to go wrong when Mike bailed out on Board 3 with a timely draw offer against Martin Wilson - as he was a pawn down; miles behind on the clock and probably losing, this was a wise decision, and thankfully Martin was happy to take the half point. But it already reduced our margin for error, as we needed to score at least 3 points to overcome Rugby's handicap advantage. So we could have two small accidents, or one big accident and still win - and surely with such enormous rating disparities on all boards we could score 2.5 out of the remaining 3 matches?
Well, next to finish was me, with what - quite improbably - turned out to be our only win of the evening. Dave Riley sacked a pawn in the opening as Black to double the pawns in front of my king, but there was very little play for the material, and I soon annexed a second pawn, then a piece, then a third pawn and when I threatened mate and it could only be averted by giving up a queen, Dave had to resign.
But now that I had time to look at the positions in the remaining two games I started to get a bit nervous, as it wasn't obvious where our second win was coming from. Keatan was trying to push on top board against Mark Gilbert, but Paul seemed to be clearly worse against Leslie Williams on bottom board, with rook and knight against rook and bishop, with plenty of pawns. It looked like Paul's opponent could have forced a draw by repetition to me, but instead he went for a convoluted manoeuvre that saw his rook mysteriously end up on h8. So some hope for us yet. But then I glanced back at Keatan's game to discover that, short of time, he had dropped two pieces for a rook and things looked distinctly bleak here. But Keatan, in his typical fashion, gritted his teeth and dug in to get a draw - though he may well have been losing in the final position.
However, it ended up not mattering, as Paul's position had not improved - and in fact had seemingly become dead lost! He'd dropped a pawn somewhere along the way and ended up with a lone rook against Black's rook and g pawn. But Paul's king was cut off, and the Black king was in front of the pawn safe from any checks. And then the gods cruelly intervened and Black - with plenty of time - simply unprotected his last pawn and Paul was saved from defeat. But a third draw of the night meant we weren't!
So no Coventry League silverware for KCC this season, when the opportunities were right there in front of us to do the double. But thanks to a major cock-up in a league match against Coventry by me and this cup catastrophe (not guilty, m'lud!) we ended up empty handed instead. My sombre mood demands some suitably soulful music. And you can't get much more soulful than this epic blues rendition by the Allman Brothers. "They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday's just as bad!" In fact it was even worse!!
No comments:
Post a Comment