A victorious army needs quality NCOs, and a decent chess team needs decent middle boards. The NLC didn’t win at the Atheneaum, but its middle boards pulled through to save the blushes.
It was a tough night, with blunders abound. The board 1s swapped mistakes on consecutive moves, the board 2 Lib lost all in one move, the board 5 Ath sealed his own fate with an errant pawn move, board 6 was all round madness and the board 7 Lib lost a piece for nothing and with it the game.
4.5 – 2.5 to the Athenaeum at the final whistle, with the Lib victories coming from boards 4 and 5. It was an evening of swashbuckling chess at the end of Pall Mall…
Board 1
Another Doctor Kirby – Peter Lee clash, with the Doctor taking black. These games are always hard fought and often highly theoretical. This time the Doctor was on his home territory of the Caro-Kann and he held the strong white player to the draw, although he required white to overlook a winning pawn push on move 24.
Board 2
A harsh result for Mister Whiteley, who lost with white on board 2. He played well and held a good position right up until a wayward move 25 (upon which white is behind but can still fight on) but then blundered further and irretrievably on move 26. A swift and cruel blow at the end of such decent effort.
Board 3
The Captain faced a tough assignment on board 3. David Shankland is a seasoned clubland warrior. Mister Chamberlain memorably got the better of him at the same fixture last year, but this time it was not to be. The Captain didn’t really get out of the starting blocks.
Board 4
A stiff fight on board 4. The pugilists fought each other to what looked to your correspondent a clear standstill. The black player made repeated draw offers. Mister Giffin QC MA (Oxon) took a view of the match position and felt duty bound to carry on. And well he did, because he managed to squeeze blood from a stone (or perhaps more appropriately, ‘make bricks from straw’ as Rumpole used to say) and gathered the full point after a scramble. Admirable resilience and tenacity.
Said Queen’s Counsel after the game: “I had to stop recording moves towards the end. In fact he missed a win at one point in the scramble at the end. But I think I was probably winning by the end. Think of my scoresheet as an unfinished symphony . . .”.
Board 5
Mister Widdicombe bore up fairly well in the early game, coming out about level. Then things got tricky, with black bishop going for a pawn but a counter punch pawn fork of two white pieces. It could have gone either way until Mister Widdicombe went all in with 31.Qe2 and white losing the thread and playing the crippling 32.h3. After that Mister Widdicombe was always just that one critical move ahead in the race to the finish.
Board 6
A rumbustious game on 6. Pieces flew, pawns went places they shouldn’t really go, and pieces were mown down in groups. When the carnage settled down it was black that was well up and despite some continued resistence from the never-say-die Young Master Jacobs, reality had to be faced, and white offered his hand.
Board 7
Mister Dias continues to impress with his rate of improvement. He played a solid KID as black for 14 or so moves, and his better opening knowledge delivered him a safe pawn up in the middle game. But disaster struck on move 28 when he let a piece slip for no return and the game slipped away from him. Chess hurts.
Dinner
Whilst some of the Lib chess was unappetising and hard to digest, dinner at the Athenaeum is always a treat. Let’s not forget the made it into the top three pie list.
And the meal did not disappoint. Doctor Kirby filed the following dispatch live from the scene: “Dinner good. Cured salmon with dill (superb). Lamb cutlets with veg and spuds (quite good).”
