(Alex continues to write his own headlines – other captains should note that this is a good(!?) way to avoid my feeble puns!)
Just a few weeks after our last encounter, the A and C teams met again. The circumstances were rather different though; this time us C’s were able to put out a full-strength side as opposed to the extremely makeshift crew that turned out in January. Meanwhile, for the A’s, Ravi sneakily ducked out so that Steve Pike’s preparation against him would be ruined, but otherwise they were also at full strength.
Board 5 was something of a nonevent; Peter and Rob agreed to a draw after fewer than 20 moves, with no real action taking place. Still, credit must go to Peter who neutralised a strong opponent in good form, and kicked his losing run. Perhaps Rob was still worn out after his stunning exploits for the B team on Tuesday, and didn’t fancy another long struggle.
I know very little about what went down on board 2, other than that James seemed to win against Steve Pike with relative comfort. Such is the luxury of having the website editor on board that I can get him to fill in the gaps! Ed – it was a bit more exciting than that, or at least it might have been if I had not lost my way playing a rather speculative line that actually should have won a rook, knight and pawn for my queen where I was probably still worse but in an interesting way, rather than the way i played it which just lost a piece!
Board 3 featured Paul against Callum. Callum seemed to equip himself rather well for a while, but Paul was able to win a pawn in the middlegame, and as the pieces came off it looked like a tricky task for Callum to hold the draw with a knight and five pawns versus bishop and six. He probably put himself out of the misery of having to struggle on for another twenty or thirty moves before losing anyway, with an unfortunate lapse which allowed Paul to get an unstoppable passed pawn. Callum saw the funny side, at least.
That left myself on board 4 and Mike on top board the nigh-impossible mission of both having to win our games to salvage anything from the match. My own game against Nick did not get off to the best start it must be said, reaching out of a Grunfeld defence a very passive position that seemed practically lost even if the engine evaluation wasn’t that bad. But somehow, the decisive blow never came, and I was able to generate counterplay by marching my c-pawn so far down the board that Nick felt compelled to sacrifice the exchange just to stop it. Thereafter, in a frantic time-scramble, we both went for each other’s king, with my own attack somehow crashing through just one tempo ahead (analysis below). So that kept the match alive with only one game still to finish.
After I had regathered my breath I wandered over to see how Mike was getting on against Steve Ledger. It seemed Steve Ledger had done Steve Ledger things, gradually accumulating small advantages and reaching a rook endgame one pawn up, meaning Mike had no winning chances and was playing for a draw. Shortly thereafter Steve used his more active rook to win a second pawn and clinch the win, both for himself and his team. (Ed – from what I saw in the bar afterwards, had Mike sacked a knight(?) for a couple of pawns at one stage, things would have got very tricky for Steve – see game below)
(Apologies for not featuring more details on others’ games – part of the reason being that my position was so miserable after 15-20 moves against Nick that I was expecting to lose quickly and have plenty of time to assess the state of play elsewhere. But it didn’t turn out like that!)
Final result: Bedford A 3 ½ – 1 ½ Bedford C
Steve Ledger 1 – 0 Mike Botteley
James Gardner 1 – 0 Steve Pike
Paul Habershon 1 – 0 Callum Shields
Nick Collacott 0 – 1 Alex Potts
Rob Walker ½ – ½ Peter Gill
Alex Potts, 23rd February 2024
Ed – Alex sent me his game to which I have added a few random comments (“annotated” would be overstating it!). If either player would like to supplement or correct my efforts, please do so and I will amend – in particular, I don’t really know the state of the clocks at any given moment. Any which way, it was quite wild to say the least!