Opening the C file

This season has opened for the Kenilworth C team with two away games at Banbury and Stratford.

The Banbury game saw the father-son combination of James and myself taking the black pieces on boards 4 and 2 respectively. Ben was on board 1, and Mark Senn on board 3. Everything started well, and at one point I was pretty sure we had winning positions on all four boards. But chess can be a cruel game!

First up, Ben somehow threw away his lead and left himself in a position that looked totally lost. I thought it was all over, but somehow Ben fought on and managed to pull off a draw. A very good result given how lost it looked. Then Mark tried a bit too hard to attack, but it did not come off, and that left him lost on board 3.

James and I continued to play on, and then I found a tactic that won me a couple of pawns and an overwhelmingly strong position. We played on for a bit, but the game was effectively over with fairly simple play from me, and the team score was now 1.5-1.5. Just James to finish.

James had a great position, and it really looked won. But it was his first league game, and he soon found himself in very serious time trouble in the endgame. Everything fell apart with only seconds left on the clock, and the game was lost. So it ended as a 1.5-2.5 loss for us, but there was lots of good chess to build on.

For the Stratford game, I moved up to board 1, and we had Gregory, Steph, and Mark Senn making up the rest of the team. Gregory got off to a flying start and began chasing the white king around the centre of the board. He quickly won a substantial amount of material and finished off the game with plenty of time to spare. Gregory is going to be an important asset for us this season, I am sure.

I did not get to see much of Steph's and Mark's games, but they appeared to be in very solid positions from early on and just kept up the pressure, winning material and maintaining strong positions. Before I knew it, they had both secured victories and we were 3-0 up.

Unfortunately, I was not able to complete a clean sweep. I had a good game but missed a key defensive move halfway through, which allowed my opponent to create a very strong passed d-pawn. I fought on, but I really needed a mistake from Black, which just did not happen. So we ended the night with a 3-1 scoreline.

A great win, and well done to Gregory, Steph, and Mark!

Next up we have our first home game, against Leamington C on 5 October.