1. Gerry Nolan ½-½ Neil Hickman
2. Guiseppe Valerio ½-½ John Harbour
3. Peter Gill 0-1 Qais Karimi
4. Nigel Staddon ½-½ Jan Laming
5. Peter Housden 0-1 Ben Pike
A fun evening of hard-fought matches went right to the wire!
First to finish was Qais v Peter G. Not much fun was had by the veteran, whose pieces were relentlessly pushed back virtually into his lap. Suddenly two connected passed pawns materialised on the king side and it was all over.
John v Joe was a tight affair. Joe missed his chance to double rooks on the open f-file, and instead went in for a knight journey (Ne2-c3-d1-e3-g4) that was more grandfatherly than grandmasterly. By its end the position was even and it stayed that way.
On boards 1 and 4 the D team was struggling a pawn down in difficult endgames. Neil managed to hold his R+P position against Gerry – I didn’t see the end of Jan v Nigel.
So it was 2½-1½ to the Ds, and Ben just needed a draw from a material advantage of BBNPPPPP vs RNPPPP. Not that it was ever going to end in a draw – either Peter would be mated or Ben’s flag would fall. The crowd of tense spectators were not making it easier for either player. In the end the result was checkmate with 12 seconds left on Ben’s clock.
So the D team avoided a season’s whitewash at the hands of the C team. Happy days.
John