| Home | Bedford A | Leighton Buzzard A | Away | |
| 2145 | Ledger, Stephen C | 0 – 1 | Tukpetov, Evgeny | 2202 |
| 2085 | Cox, Toby | 1 – 0 | Kenworthy, Gary | 2169 |
| 2023 | Gardner, James | ½ – ½ | Hunt, Peter | 2011 |
| 2010 | Botteley, Michael T | 1 – 0 | Williamson, Kevin J | 1953 |
| 2020 | Collacott, Nick | ½ – ½ | Matthews, Adrian MS | 1830 |
| 20/10/2022 | 3 – 2 |
The A team opened the season with a match against last year’s rivals Leighton Buzzard A. They were fielding a strong top two boards, although we had a bit more depth in our squad.
James’s game finished quickly. Having the black pieces, he was taken into an equal endgame from the opening and agreed a draw after about 10 minutes.
Nobody had expected Tukpetov to show up, so Steve ended up using a Scandinavian that he had prepped for a different opponent. Taken out of theory quickly, he ended up in a passive, although solid position, and was slowly ground down in a major piece endgame.
My game (below) got off to an explosive start. I sacrificed two pieces from a Morra gambit and got lots of activity on the open e file, while his king was still uncastled. I won back the material I sacrificed and more, and used my material advantage, and his exposed king to exchange off and win.
I didn’t see much of Mike’s game, but it looked like he transformed a spatial advantage in the middlegame into a good knight vs bad bishop endgame. He converted this endgame with class.
Nick had full control of a queen and pawn endgame, and had a material advantage when he found out he only needed to draw to win the match. Not wanting to take any risks, he let an opportunity to win his game slip, and settled for a draw.
Toby, 23 October 2022