Commercial V Insurance

Match report from the Insurance Chess Club archive

Although without Messrs Tozer, Garner, Rich, Ward, Bennett, De Coverly, Harris, Kent, Peters and Atkinson, among others, we still put out a fairly strong side and a close contest seemed in prospect, although we were outgraded by about 10 points on half the boards. Commercial had to default boards 7 and 8, when their players failed to arrive, so we started 2-0 up, and their captain, Mike Wickham had to fill in on board 2 and lost in due course to David Sedgwick. Before the quickplay finish Kevin Denyer and Ian Hunnable had also won (after his opponent had turned down the offer of a draw and given Ian a piece instead!), John Philpott and Stephen Humphrey had drawn and Colin Bartlett lost, so we were 6-2 up and looked like winning the match comfortably. At this stage we should have offered draws on all the remaining 8 boards, but my instructions didn't get through! Instead, things started to go pear-shaped! We were well down on the clock on nearly all the remaining games in the quickplay finish and managed to lose all eight, turning a 6-2 lead into a 6-10 loss! Quite a traumatic half hour! Julian Farrand on the top board probably had a win, with united, well advanced passed pawns, but turned down a number of draw offers and lost on time. By then the match was lost, however. Ian Hunnable arrived hot-foot from a long lunch, yet still won - perhaps some of the others should have done the same! If we are to retain the Bronowski Trophy we must now beat the Legal League and hope that Banks narrowly beat the Commercial League. All is not yet lost and any of ICC, the Banks or the Commercial League could yet win the trophy. We must hope the gods favour us, as they did last season! -- Geoff Naldrett

Daniel Lindner