After our unexpected glorious victory at the Chelsea Arts Club, the NLC approached the fixture vs the Reform with something approaching cautious optimism. Victory would lift the NLC off the foot of the Hamilton-Russell table and exceed our wildest expectations for the season.
The Lady Violet Room was laid out ready for chess, as the NLC band of brothers thought ‘maybe, just maybe’…
The optimism lasted until we saw the Reform team sheet, with last year’s Reform Board 1 Nicholas Cron (who downed Doctor Kirby) on Board 3. The Reform were going to bat deep. Dare we say it, it was déjà vu all over again. Lots of effort, a good performance overall, but the Reform emerged victors by 4.5-1.5. Still, we’re getting stronger. Next year – maybe, just maybe.
After tipping his hat to the longstanding NLC Chess Circle tradition of losing the toss, Doctor Kirby settled into his regular Caro-Kann against Peter Evans. It was an exchange variation, with White having a small positional pull, but with a long drawn out struggle in prospect. Peter Evans decided with 10 minutes on his clock vs 17 for Doctor Kirby, that a draw by repetition was the better idea.
Mister Whiteley provided the highlight of the evening with a win against Danny Rosenbaum. Mister Whiteley’s now trademark King’s Indian attack moved into gear and triumphed against the Hamilton Russell convenor. Surely his HR scores put him in contention for player of the season?
Mister Giffin QC had a hard job against Nicholas Cron. This was the last game to finish and stretched beyond nine o’clock. Eventually our legal star was ground down by a good player. It’s not often the black king ends up in the bottom left corner!
Mister Widdicombe had an odd game against Robert Forrest. He was a pawn to the good in a comfortable position after his opponent declined the b2 poisoned pawn. But in an ironic twist, Mister Widdicombe’s determination not to fall in to time trouble led to him blitzing out a quick, and almost fatal, 25. Rd2. The outcome was that Mister Widdicombe was now well behind and fighting for a draw in desperate time trouble. There’s a lesson there (but one unlikely to be learned by Mister Widdicombe it would seem). Despite being the exchange down and facing two advanced passed pawns, some nifty knight work had Mister Widdicombe back to a drawn position of knight and two pawns against rook. But no time. Black played to the clock and Mister Widdicombe offered his hand with three seconds left.
Mister Trivedi was the first to finish against Mark Glover. Mister Trivedi was never quite in the game and went down to a knight forking his rooks.
Doctor Schady was a late substitute for the match and played David Saunders. Unfortunately Doctor Schady lost a piece and went down to defeat.
And so to dinner. The Reform are our great friends on the social chess circuit so a fine time was had by all.
