The early November fixtures saw a friendly game away to the Reform. A very select affair consisting of a mere four boards, with Doctor Saldanha making his debut as Lib Chess Captain for the night.
Captain Saldanha started by losing the toss – a requirement for any Liberal chess captain – thus showing his great potential for filling the role on a more permanent basis in future.
Board 1
Top board saw that pillar of clubland chess Danny Rosenbaum take on the wily Young Master Jacobs. Danny opened with an aggressive Italian set up and a quick attack on f7, but Young Master countered well enough. But White’s rooks were the more active and the Reformer probed Black’s weak pawns. By move 35 things were looking tough for the Lib, who was by then three (past) pawns down in a rook and knight ending. White pushed the connected passers and Black had to give in.
Board 2
Captain Saldanha opened with a Spanish and Black held his ground. By move 31 the game had arrived at a Queens and pawns endgame and most would have shaken for the half point. But Captain Saldanha, feeling the full and awesome weight of the Liberal Chess Captaincy upon his shoulders, refused to settle. He fought on and was alert to spy his chance, the axe falling swiftly when it came.
In his post game interview Captain Saldanha said that he considered himself rather fortunate to get a full point as he thought his game was probably heading for a draw. Said Doctor Saldanha: “I really should have pressed my opening advantage. Instead, I allowed Mr Mehdi to equalize by move 27. and nearly blew it with 40. f4. Still, I absolutely willed my opponent to play 45. … Qxh3 knowing full well that if Mr Mehdi did take the pawn on h3, it was curtains for him”. Good stuff.
Board 3
Mister Ioannou played someone called Gordon Hamme. Mister Ioannou adopted the rare strategy of not thinking about his moves but instead just knocking out the first thing that comes into his head, each of his moves taking around 3 seconds of thought. This approach must have baffled his opponent, who perhaps thought Mister Ioannou was a super-GM playing the whole game from memory. The result was that Mister Iounnou won on time having used only 7 minutes of his own versus an hour for his opponent. And 3 of these minutes were spent getting a drink and 2 wondering around looking at other games. Remarkable.
Board 4
Mister Jaing made a welcome return to the Lib side after a fair few months out. He showed what we’d been missing by dispatching a Mister Saunders fairly comfortably. Doctor Saldanha noted that “Daniel had tougher game but his massive passed pawn on the f-file (if memory serves correctly) heading out of the middle game proved far too taxing for Mr Saunders, who lost on time”.
It’s always a pleasure to visit our very best friends on Pall Mall. A good night, and we look forward to having them back at ours soon.
The Reform absolutely live to fight another day.
A very nice write up Ben – thank you.
Richard