| Home Team: Bedford C | Away Team: Milton Keynes C | ||||||
| Board | Name | Grade | Score | Score | Name | Grade | |
| 1 | Giuseppe Valerio | 154 | 0 | 1 | Alan Heath | 152 | |
| 2 | Richard McMorran | 130E | 0 | 1 | Colin Solloway | 133 | |
| 3 | Robert S Walker | 117 | 0.5 | 0.5 | Dave Wells | 133 | |
| 4 | Nigel B Walker | 86 | 0 | 1 | John McKeon | 121 | |
| 5 | 1 | 0 | def | ||||
| 1.5 | 3.5 | ||||||
| Played: 26/04/2018 | |||||||
When our opponents turned up without a board 5 (flu) I thought we might finally get a win against another club without needing guest stars, but it was not to be. I opted to take the evening off. I normally enjoy watching other people’s games – it’s usually less stressful – but not on this occasion!
Nigel spent most of the evening on the brink of losing material. He just managed to cling on at the expense of getting his King stuck in the middle where it was chased from pillar to post by John who didn’t waste time castling either. Eventually Nigel’s position collapsed.
Richard built up a strong position, spearheaded by a bishop which settled on the sixth rank, and it seemed to be a matter of time before he broke through. Too hastily he picked up a Knight and then realised that moving it anywhere gifted Colin an overwhelming and unexpected attack.
I had high hopes of Robert’s game. He seemed to have all the pressure when he exchanged Queens in order to create a passed pawn. Unfortunately that left just a rook each and opposite coloured Bishops and he could make no further progress.
At this stage Joe still had 25 moves to play and ten minutes left before the time control. After appearing to prepare to fianchetto his Queenside Bishop Alan cunningly played it to a3 instead of b2. Joe, not content with a prosaic defence of his threatened pawn, hit the Bishop with Queen to a5 but soon had to make an ignominious retreat with his position in tatters. Miraculously he made the time control with only opposite coloured Bishops and two pawns down but the two pawns were passed and connected and could not be stopped.
We now must rely on the D Team to get a win or a draw away to MK C next week to stay in 4th place. Otherwise Bedford will fill the bottom two places in Division 2.
Peter Gill, 27/04/2018