Bedford A rode their luck a bit before edging to a 3-2 victory over LB B on 15th April.
This completes our season, ending with a rather splendid record of played 10, won 9, drawn 1 (generously donating a point to our B Team 🙂- )
| Board | Rating | Leighton Buzzard B | V | Bedford A | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1809 | Matthews, Adrian MSG | 0 – 1 | G Ledger, Stephen C | 2125 |
| 2 | 1810 | Taylor, PeterG | ½ – ½ | N Arulnandhy, Ravi | 2065 |
| 3 | 1781 | Woodward, Ian PG | ½ – ½ | G Habershon, Paul F | 1957 |
| 4 | 1746 | Dorn, C Fred HB | 1 – 0 | B Taylor, Alex | 1941 |
| 5 | 1604 | Gallagher, SeanG | 0 – 1 | G Hale, Jack | 1750 |
| Total | 8750 | 2 – 3 | 9838 |
I doubt anyone particularly wants their game published (!) so a quick summary is thus :
On board 2, Ravi’s was a pretty tame affair, with White never attempting to be that ambitious, and Black never managing to complicate things and a draw was duly agreed.
On 1, I played a somewhat ‘offbeat’ (rubbish!?) opening, whilst Adrian played sensibly, got his pieces out to sensible squares, tucked his King away then played a pawn break or two. I ended up with a pretty lousy position and an exposed King but Adrian used large amounts of time looking at the various tempting sacrifices on offer before finally choosing the wrong continuation and then fell apart, somewhat, when he had little time left and I won a Rook followed by a piece.
I then went to look at the 3 remaining games and was doubly pleased I’d managed to swindle my way to the full point.
On 4, Alex, filling in at short notice ( 8PM Monday !) probably wished he hadn’t put his hand up, as he blundered a piece away in the middle game, never really got much compensation and had to then throw the towel in.
On 5, Jack was in a same coloured Bishop ending with 5 pawns each. He had a better placed K and the pawns were on colours that suited him but I suspect Black should have been able to set up a fortress. Jack plugged away, tried a few things and his opponent eventually walked into something and Jack swept in to win.
Jack now has 3/3, filling in for the A team. the lad must play more often !
So we’d somehow scraped to a 2.5 – 1.5 lead and Paul appeared to have a pretty dominant position, a pawn up, but with both players down to a few minutes. Black, however, hung in there quite well and Paul ended up giving his pawn back to simplify the position whereupon his opponent offered the draw. This was duly accepted to give us the match though whether the LB team were so happy, with the draw offer, I don’t know, as they are facing a relegation fight and a half.
So a very successful season it was.
My thanks to the usual squad : James, Nick and Paul both for the successful season and for making the captain’s job pretty simple (!) and also to Jack, Steve Pike and Alex Taylor for filling in when required. I believe we only lost 5 individual games, across 10 matches, and myself, Nick and Paul managed to go the season unbeaten 🙂- Roll on next season.
Steve Ledger, 16/04/2025.