The friendly fixtures come thick and fast. This time the Libs hosted the Artists on Wednesday 16th October. Both teams fielded slightly weakened teams, as befits a friendly fixture, but the chess was no less cut throat.
Pleasingly, the NLC won be a comfortable margin of 3.5 – 0.5. Less pleasingly, we couldn’t claim the whitewash due to Mister Widdicombe letting his opponent out of jail and having to concede a draw.
(Still, the Libs are rightly lauded throughout Clubland for their good manners in not embarrassing opponents with whitewashes, so perhaps it was just etiquette? Perhaps).
Board 1
Captain Chamberlain led the charge at the head of his troops. A tough game, very definitely one of two halves, in which the Captain had to see off a K side thrust before charging down the Q side to victory. His opponent had a chance to go well ahead at move 23, but thankfully the chess gods had other ideas.
Board 2
Mister Widdicombe followed the Captain, on Board 2. A decent game, he was up through most of it with black’s pieces hemmed in on the kingside. But a slip with a rook move (29…Rd7 in instead of Rd6) was all that was necessary to allow white’s queen and passed pawn to force the draw. The second game in a row that Mister Widdicombe’s rooks have let him down.
Board 3
Solid work on Board 3 from Mister Dias. Black pressed hard, and could have pushed through in the centre to great effect, but Mister Dias hung on, and managed to press through to a rook and pawn ending and found a mate. That’s the way to do it.
Board 4
Anchoring the team was Young Master Jacobs. He continued his recent strong form by seeing off his opponent in fairly short order. A strong initial attack with the black queen had his opponent on the back foot. White managed to slip the net and swap queens but it was a temporary respite as Young Master Jacobs hoovered up the pieces, and the game. Solid work – Young Master Jacobs is pressing hard for a regular HR competitive match place.
Dinner
Dinner always tastes better in victory.
Well done gents – lots of tight matches turned into points.