Insurance V Banks

Match report from the Insurance Chess Club archive

For Insurance, Stephen Berry, Julian Ward and Julian Farrand were unavailable, and Ian Reynolds had to withdraw on the day. So we had the bare 16 with Geoff Naldrett playing rather than acting as reserve. None of this was of any import, however, as the Banks were, for once, in disarray; two boards short and with only a shadow of their available forces. The outcome was slightly clearer than the US election! The start was delayed 10 minutes to 6.40 pm (default time 7.10 pm). Geoff stood down Ray Hamilton and himself to take the bottom two default wins and promoted Jim Roberts to his debut for the Club on board 14. Travel delays caused further disruption: Sam Essen and Paul Barclay arrived just before default time, but the [Insurance Chess Club] Webmaster, delayed by the same problem on the District line that affected Paul Barclay, did not arrive until 7.15 pm. Sean Upjohn arrived at 7.25 pm, but two other Banks players did not show at all. So after half an hour, the score was 5-1 to Insurance! Martin Page won quickly after gaining a rook in two instalments. Tony Paish pinned his man down in his back three ranks with a central pawn roller and finished him off with a knight incursion. Ian Calvert won a knight and pawns ending, and Anthony Kent got murderous pressure with doubled rooks on the f-file allied to a bishop check on the a2-g8 diagonal. Derek Harris made strides on the Q-side, penetrating a pawn to a2 and picked up a hatful of pawns as a result. The only scores that Banks achieved over the board were three draws in the top five boards. Boards 2 and 3 were the last to finish and on both we were a pawn down. David Sedgwick in fact went two pawns down, but in the process material was reduced to Q+3 v Q+5 and David had a series of checks that Black could only avoid by giving back the material. This left the [Insurance Chess Club] President defending B+2 v B+3 against Kevin Bailey, same square-colour bishops, all pawns on the same side of the board. Play went on for some time with the draw looking inevitable, but the President was able to achieve the draw on the board, before his flag fell and before it was necessary to claim a draw under quickplay finish rules. -- Ian Hunnable

Daniel Lindner