The B Team headed to Milton Keynes in good spirits after a good away win at Northampton. The mood was improved when we discovered that our opponents would be weakened slightly as Adrian Elwin was lost somewhere in Dorset.
Over the board the team had differing experiences:-
- The Richard v Richard (Bodily v Freeman) encounter proved to be a cagey affair and a grandmasterly draw was agreed relatively quickly.
- Meanwhile on Board 5, Joe’s (ungraded) opponent was in a generous mood, allowing Joe to pin the f6 knight to both the king on the long a1-h8 diagonal and the d8-h4 diagonal. Soon after Joe’s mating threats proved overwhelming, giving the B team a one point lead.
- Things were not quite so straightforward on the top boards. For much of the evening the games were pretty even, with Nick standing slightly better against Graham Borrowdale and Alex and Chris slightly worse against Graham Smith and Alan Heath.
- Chris’s game against Alan was level going into the middle game, but having overlooked some tactics Chris entered the endgame two pawns down and was unable to salvage anything.
- My game against Graham was, some might say, a typical sort of game. After an early exchange of queens, I lost the thread of the game and allowed Graham to open up the centre and tie the black pieces up. This pressure led to a loss of a pawn and a seemingly hopeless position. Graham decided to go for a mating attack, which led to his pieces becoming uncoordinated – particularly a knight on f8! Clinging grimly on, I somehow managed to swap all the pieced off, regain the pawn and enter a winning king and pawn ending. Graham resigned shaking his head at the change in fortunes!
- With Bedford now unable to lose the focus turned to the top match. Nick had built up a solid position and the game seemed to revolve around control of the e file. Entering the endgame with rook and knight v rook and bishop chances looked even. Nick managed to create a passed a pawn and then subsequently a further passed pawn on the king side. Some cool counting at the end (better than some of the spectators who feared it had gone wrong!) meant that white was going to queen with check and either checkmate the black king, or obtain queen number two.
| Home Team:Milton Keynes A | Away Team: Bedford B | ||||||
| Board | Name | Grade | Score | Score | Name | Grade | |
| 1 | Graham Borrowdale | 186 | 0 | 0.5 | Nick Collacott | 165 | |
| 2 | Graham Smith | 184 | 0 | 1 | Alex Taylor | 160 | |
| 3 | Richard Freeman | 174 | 0.5 | 0.5 | Richard Bodily | 164 | |
| 4 | Alan Heath | 159 | 1 | 0 | Chris Hill | 159 | |
| 5 | 0 | 1 | Joe Valerio | 155 | |||
| Date Played: 19/02/2015 | 1.5 | 3.5 | |||||
Overall an impressive 3.5-1.5 victory, in fact the first win by Bedford B over Milton Keynes A this century!
Next up the A Team – who can expect no quarter!
Alex Taylor 20/02/2015