| Bedford A | Bedford B | |||||
| Board | Name | Grade | Score | Score | Name | Grade |
| 1 | Steve Ledger | 192 | 0.5 | 0.5 | Alex Taylor | 164 |
| 2 | Michael Botteley | 186 | 1 | 0 | Steve Pike | 162 |
| 3 | Paul Habershon | 178 | 0.5 | 0.5 | Marc Obi | 161 |
| 4 | Raymon Gompelman | 177 | 0 | 1 | Ravi Arulnandhy | 157 |
| 5 | Qais Karimi | 136 | 0 | 1 | John Harbour | 150 |
| 16/02/2017 | 2 | 3 | ||||
Bedford A hosted Bedford B in the return match, following the A Team’s convincing victory earlier in the season.
Other commitments meant both teams were forced into changes, but it was not clear who this would favour.
Board 1 saw Steve face Alex. After an early exchange of queens, the middle game saw a lot of manoeuvring but in truth, not much happened. Perhaps white had a slight advantage at the end, but the game petered out into a draw.
Fortunately, there was more interest on the other boards. On Board 5, John and Qais were engaged in a titanic struggle and it was not entirely clear to spectators who had the upper hand. Qais had pressure on the queenside, but John committed himself to a kingside attack, hurling the pawns forward. Despite losing the exchange, John managed to force a pawn to f7 and ultimately this proved decisive. See game.
On Board 3 Paul and Marc were involved in a tactical game, with no pieces exchanged until move 13. Marc always appeared to have a slight edge, and managed to create weaknesses in black’s pawn structure. Despite being under severe pressure, Paul managed to hold on for a draw.
On Board 2 Steve and Mike had a typically understated game. Opening with the deceptively quiet 1. a3 Mike soon opened up an attack on Steve’s king, winning a useful pawn. This pawn was to prove decisive in the endgame, where despite tough defence Mike was able to crash through to queen a pawn.
Board 4 saw another interesting opening with 1 b4… a5 and an early exchange of queens. Ravi always seemed to hold the upper hand with bishop, knight and rook against 2 knights and rook. Having managed to win a pawn and pushing Raymon into a cramped position, Ravi still had to play carefully in order to push home the advantage. Eventually, the pressure told and Ravi was able to convert it to a victory.
Overall a 3-2 victory for the B Team. I am sure historians of the club will be able to confirm the last time (if ever) this happened. The upside is that this goes a long way to the B Team preserving their Division 1 status, but the downside is a dent in the A Team’s hopes of bring the Championship back to Bedford – which we all want to see!
As someone who contributed nothing to this tremendous victory, I would like to congratulate my team mates on their terrific performance!