And my goodness, what a performance I have to report. A fifth successive Open KO Cup for Kenilworth was secured on Tuesday (albeit spread over 7 years due to Covid!), when we beat Stratford 4.5-0.5 at Olton. This still leaves us some way behind Rugby's record 7 wins in a row, but as long as the run continues, there's always a chance we might get there! We have now won the Open KO Cup 11 times in total.
Having beaten Stratford A in our recent league match, we were bound to start favourites, as although we were missing Javier from that team, Captain Fantastic Andrew had managed to secure the services of Jude and Billy to make up for his absence. Not a bad trade, you'd have to say! What they lack in years they more than make up for in ability and rating! And as if that wasn't daunting enough, Stratford had the misfortune to be missing their top board, Ben Larkin, and to arrive with only 4 players. Consequently, all I had to do to claim the first point of the night was stay alive until 20.30, and thankfully I managed that.
The first real game to finish was on Board 2, where Jude overwhelmed David Gardner in what looked like a very convincing win - though he did confide in me afterwards that there was one moment where David could have made things considerably more difficult. But once this tactic was missed, Jude started collecting a lot of material and won quickly. Soon afterwards Andrew won against Richard Dobedoe on Board 5 to clinch the match. A Black bishop appeared on h5 attacking a White rook on f3, and unfortunately for Richard there was another White rook on d1, so he was just dropping an exchange. Rather than prolong the suffering he decided to resign on the spot.
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| Jude won too quickly for me to capture him in action! Billy, meanwhile, looks absolutely thrilled to be playing on Board 1 |
At which point I took this as my cue to depart for home, leaving Billy and Keatan both in action. Keatan's position against Alexander Roberts was looking rather ropey to me, as he was a pawn down without much/any compensation that I could see. But what do I know - not much later Nash messaged me to say that Keatan had drawn. In contrast, Billy, after a quiet opening with Black, had started to make inroads into Richard McNally's position on top board, posting a very dangerous looking bishop on e4 attacking a White king that was completely lacking any close pawn cover - the g pawn having disappeared and the f and h pawns having marched up the board. I don't know how Billy engineered the win, but it was no surprise to learn that he had found a way and wrapped up a very convincing win, which gave us our fourth consecutive Div 1/Open Cup double.
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| Keatan (top) thinking hard; The Invisible Man winning on Board 4; and Andrew getting ready to pounce on an upcoming oversight. |
Our recent trophy record is getting to ridiculous proportions - it is now 17 trophies in the last 4 seasons with, I think, 15 of them coming in the Leamington League. Kenilworth may be the smallest place to have any teams in the League, but we can certainly punch above our weight! Which is a rather convoluted connection to our song of the week!
Congratulations to every one who played in our latest successful Cup campaign - 4.5-0.5 v Shirley; 5-0 (by default) against Coventry; and 4.5-0.5 against Stratford.
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