First Home Win

 It is that time of year when the nights are drawing in, and we are having to drive to matches in the gathering darkness. While there is yet to be a nip of frost in the air, Kenilworth v Solihull matches always generate a good competitive atmosphere to enjoy.

Both teams were a little depleted for yesterday's encounter. Solihull A were without Don Mason and Aksath Sivakumar. Equally, we were missing Mark and Bruce, and it looked set to be a tight contest. As it turned out, it was never a match that we looked in danger of losing, but whether we were going to win or draw went to the wire.

Rhys opened Kenilworth B's account with a fine win on Board 3 against Tony Sadler. While I was sitting next to Rhys, I must confess I didn't see much of the action. However, Tony didn't look particularly happy throughout the proceedings, and at certain points sighed a sigh that all chess players will empathise with. I wasn't surprised when he resigned.

I was next to finish on Board 4 against Matthew Allen. This was the game where we had the biggest ratings advantage, but Matthew is a very solid player, and my recent "exploits" for the C team (see Dan's recent post) meant that I was quite apprehensive. According to Fritz, the position was dead level in the middle game, with Matthew pushing on the Queenside and threatening to open the centre, while I was looking to consolidate. I eventually managed to find a tactic that won the exchange, but Matthew still had a lot of play. I negotiated his threats quite well, but at the expense of my clock, and found myself with three minutes to his thirty. However, the beauty of having played in the ECF 3/2 Blitz qualifier at the weekend was that this still felt like a lot. I held my nerve. Matthew made an illegal move and resigned, but I had a forced mate by this point. So 2-0.

Joshua's game against Andrew McCumiskey on Board 1 was another I didn't see much of, but Andrew seemed to force an unstoppable pawn through to the seventh rank moments after my game had finished, leaving Joshua with no choice but to resign. Having been destroyed twice by Andrew last season, Joshua had at least put up a much better fight than I'd managed in my games with him.

So it was all on Mike to get us over the line, against Ray Carpenter on Board 2. Mike was up by a piece to two pawns, with a lot of heavy wood (but no queens) still on the board, in a massively unclear position. They were both below 5 minutes by this point and when Mike offered a draw, Ray agonised before accepting the offer. 

So a 2.5 - 1.5 win for us, which could prove to be very valuable as the season unfolds.

We've got the return leg at Solihull next week. Hopefully there still won't be any frost, and it's not like the nights will have drawn in much further between then and now. Still, you never know... Doing the double over Solihull A would certainly count as a very welcome early Christmas present!