It’s becoming a habit. The Hamilton Russell champions put teams up against the NLC, only to have them knocked down in perfunctory fashion. Following on from the late season Cup win against the champs, the NLC met the RAC for a friendly. And the Libs ran out 3.5 – 2.5 winners.
Board 1
A trying night for the Doctor, who played a Samich variation to Black’s KID, and got a promising kingside attack rolling. But running low on time the Doctor faltered and allowed black (who was a rook down at that point) to run two connected passed pawns to the seventh. I fear for the safety of Doctor Kirby’s cat.
Board 2
The Whiteley winning machine powered on. He demonstrated how the black side of the KID should work, with a lovely use of the two knights to wreak havoc in white’s king position. Also notable was the cool handed shifting of the black King across to safety. Classy.
Board 3
Mister Chamberlain may have been very slightly lucky to get the draw on Board 3. He was the clear exchange down when his opponent offered him the draw, not fancying the long road to a grinding win (or perhaps just fancying the bar more?). Anyway, turning losses to 0.5s is what solid chess play is all about, and none come more solid than Mister Chamberlain.
Board 4
Mister Widdicombe benefited from a slightly over ambitious attack from white to go a piece up, but at the price of (at one point) 3 pawns. The game hung in the balance for a while, but so long as the queens stayed on Mister Widdicombe fancied his chances. Eventually, he broke through.
Board 5
Mister Giffin QC had white and faced a petrov (perhaps the first seen in NLC competitive play?). He handled it well with the game ebbing and flowing although mostly Queen’s Counsel had the upper hand. If black had managed to find 25…Rd2 it might have led to an even game, but 25…Kd7 was effectively curtains.
The RAC venue was excellent. Here’s a picture of the end of the room we were playing in. We tried to get by…
Move 35 was the problem. H5 was fine if the queens were on the board, but I’d just exchanged them.
Rd1, or probably even better c7 and black is going nowhere. The knight is stuck in the corner. White then moves the knight to d5 and Black is toast. Instead i kept the plan of a K-Side attack…
Congrats to Mr Whiteley, that was very good.