Thursday 4th February 2016
| BEDFORD A | MILTON KEYNES B | |||||
| 1 | 195 | Steve Ledger | 0 | 1 | Richard Freeman | 181 |
| 2 | 181 | Paul Habershon | 1 | 0 | Phillip Ekhaesomi | 157 |
| 3 | 171 | Richard Bodily | ½ | ½ | Ray Holland | 143 |
| 4 | 170 | Michael Botteley | 1 | 0 | George Ward | 136 |
| 5 | 170 | Ravi Arulnandhy | 1 | 0 | Richard Keane | 122 |
| 3½ | 1½ |
A much tighter match than it looks because on Boards 2 and 4 Bedford went perilously close to losing on time. In my position below Black still had 45 minutes to White’s 2 minutes when he blundered with 46…Kc7?? allowing 47 Nd5+ and Kxd3 leaving White a rook up.
Mike Botteley, with fewer than 2 minutes left against 33 just managed to simplify into a trivially won K and P ending.
Richard Bodily had earlier drawn quite quickly. Ravi gained total central control and had the enemy king exposed and on the run. With the match already won Steve succumbed to a nice mating finish.
Paul Habershon