Lytham 3 V Preston 3

The first game to finish was

The first game to finish was board 4. Both players had castled kingside early on, but Graham allowed his g-file to be opened up with a swap of a bishop for the knight on g3. He then slowly manoeuvred his king round to the safety of e2, and a mistake by Guy led to the loss of the vital g-pawn in front of his king. He battled on, but eventually an endgame was reached of rook verses bishop with the rook swinging from side to side and eating up black’s pawns so Guy called it a day. On board 1, after reaching a fairly standard position out of the opening I was able to start a minority attack with 2 queenside pawns in combination with a strong knight on c4. The pawns continued to march down the board and Kenny was forced to sac an exchange. After all the other pieces were exchanged off the rook was again too strong against the bishop leading to another winning endgame for black. Colin and Becky had a close game on board 3 and played through to an endgame with even material. The decisive difference though was a passed a-pawn for Becky which began advancing on move 26. Colin was unable to find a defensive structure to hold the position, and a few moves later, with the pawn having reached a7, he was forced to resign. The final match to finish was a long battle between Richard and Geoffrey on board 2. Both players had used up a lot of their time on the early moves, and had reached a fairly closed but even position in the middle game. As the clocks ticked down though Richard made a mistake which cost him an exchange and from that point on black broke through. With a dangerous d-pawn a few steps from promotion and too many additional threats around white’s weakened king a resignation was made by Richard. A good fight back by Preston from being 2-0 down initially, to levelling the match by the end of the night.

Darren Pickering