Eight members dutifully worked through three of the remaining games in Division 2 while Alex and Chris played their Division 1 game.
Taylor-Hill drifted from the Caro into a reversed King’s Indian (I don’t think even Alex would describe it as an Attack) and eventually petered out into a draw.
Gerry successfully bamboozled Tony by playing a bad line against the Budapest, winning a piece just out of the opening and the game later.
Ben was extremely fortunate not to lose; Mac found the difficult moves in a tactical sequence that got his pawn to d7, and then couldn’t (quite) finish the job – see game fragment below.
John played the Anti-Valerio Gambit (play reasonably solid and stodgy stuff until Joe gets short of time, survive the cheapo, win the endgame) with a fair amount of aplomb.
Neil Hickman 04/06/2015
These results leave Alex winning division 1 and Ravi and Nick being relegated as the most likely outcomes. Bizarrely however, were Richard to lose his last two games, he would be relegated instead of Ravi whilst two wins for Richard would see him as the winner of the competition!
Division 2 sees John in the box seat to join Marc in division 1. Joe and Ben must hope he trips up against Peter to give them any chance.
(N.B. these projections are only based on the Editor’s vague grasp of S-B – no comebacks if I am wrong!)