And there was no question that we deserved the victory (I say we, because I was in the team!), as we never looked to be losing at any stage of the evening. Although the scoreboard got moving in the wrong direction to begin with. Andy repeated his recent trick of getting a winning position out of the opening, and then collapsing due to a tactical oversight. This time the beneficiary was Georgs Vikanis, as Andy's extra pawn became irrelevant when the Black heavy pieces invaded the White kingside in a distinctly vicious manner. But the accident on Board 3 was about to be balanced by a reverse slip-up on Board 2 which went very much in our favour. Joshua played a very enterprising opening against Tom Day, sacking an exchange for some very threatening looking connected pawns. Tom decided that discretion was the better part of valour and gave the exchange back to eliminate the connected pawns, and for some unfathomable reason Josh failed to take the fat, juicy White e pawn in return. So he was just a pawn down. But then the legendary Pink magic (or is it luck?) kicked in and the next thing you know, Tom has dropped a whole piece. Joshua's technique in winning with rook, knight and three against rook and three wasn't the best I've ever seen, but it was good enough in the end to queen the last remaining pawn and level the match scores.
And then we were in the driving seat when Mike, who has also been having a rocky time of things over the last few matches, played a very powerful game with the Black pieces to overcome Gary Jackson. Indeed, White looked almost totally busted straight out of the opening with his king wandering around in the centre and Black having very active pieces and a big central pawn. I missed the middlegame phase, but it eventually came down to a double rook ending with Mike a couple of pawns up and when he got a pawn to the seventh rank, Gary had to concede. Which put us 2-1 up, and in possession of at least one match point, with my game against IM James Jackson deciding whether we got both.
Now normally you'd bet long odds on that I would lose, but this was one of those nights (song clue there, by the way!) where I managed to avoid any blunders or major inaccuracies. James sacked a pawn in a line of the Spanish that was completely new to me, and got some play for it, but the engine says I was much better, even when I mistakenly simplified the position, leaving him with a rook and a pair of bishops against my rook, bishop and knight. I still had my extra pawn - passed! - though it was sat on a2, so had a long way to go before it became a factor in the game. I defended sensibly, but as time pressure grew, James started ramping up the pressure and managed to open the position for his two bishops and get himself a passed h pawn. But I defended quite well, and although I eventually lost all my advantage the position was never worse than equal - and I still had an extra pawn - as he also ran short of time. And then he prodded his passed pawn one square too far and with the aid of some elementary tactics I was suddenly completely winning. I suspected as much, but had too little time to calculate things. I saw a way to eliminate all the Black pawns and draw and just headed for the safe solution to win the match.
A brilliant win for the B team, then. One point at Stratford in our final match of the season will seal second place, as Warwick University could still overtake us on game points if they win their last two matches. But its third place as a minimum for the B team, after a splendid season.
So did you guess the song? Not that it matters, coz' here it is anyway!
No comments:
Post a Comment