Insurance V Commercial

Match report from the Insurance Chess Club archive

I had all my regular strong players available for this match, except for Sam Essen, Anthony Kent, Derek Harris and Brian Atkinson. It looked as if I would get a game on board 16, but Mark Rich became available at short notice, so I acted as non-playing captain. I won the toss and chose white on odds, an inspired move, as it meant that David Sedgwick and Paul Barclay were black and that their opponents, who were also late, lost time on their clocks! Fortunately for Commercial they had named 17 players, so substituted S. Barr for J.W.F. McAllister on board 12. When their board 9 failed to appear Mr. McAllister then got a game, having lost half an hour on the clock, against Martin Page. Commercial were not as strong as in previous years. Their top board, for example, had played on board 5 in last year's match. ICC outgraded Commercial on every board, but only marginally so on most boards. A close match looked to be in prospect! The first result took nearly two hours to arrive, when Julian Farrand won. Julian won his opponent's advanced pawn and good technique converted this into a win in due course. Ian Calvert drew soon afterwards. He was a pawn ahead in a queen and pawns endgame, but allowed his opponent a perpetual check. Perhaps I should have put him higher up the board order. Mark Rich then lost, to even up matters. He lost his g7 pawn and got no compensation for it. At the end, when he thought he was already lost, he left a rook en prise. Shortly afterwards Colin Bartlett was fortunate to draw on board 16. He was two pawns down in a bishops of opposite colours endgame, with his bishop holding back white's passed pawns on g6 and f7. His opponent could have promoted the f7 pawn to win Colin's last queen side pawn, and might well have then gone on to win, but chose a drawing line instead! Then David Sedgwick "managed to swindle a draw". He was the exchange and a pawn down, but his opponent only had a minute left on his clock, so agreed to a draw. Shortly afterwards Stephen Berry and Martin Page both drew. Stephen had been a doubled, isolated h-pawn down for a long time, but seemed able to win it back, whereas Martin could not take advantage of his extra half an hour on the clock - this was soon whittled down to 10 minutes. The match then swung in our favour, when James Aldred and Michael Wiltshire both won to put us two points ahead. James said it was his first win with white since 1999. I'll have to put him on lucky board 13 more often! Our lead then evaporated, when Tony Paish and Ian Hunnable both lost. Tony said his game had drifted from a win to a draw to a loss and Ian said he wished he could have said the same! Then David Malcolm and Paul Barclay both drew. David was a pawn up in a queen and pawns ending, but this was not enough to win. Ian Reynolds then won to put us a point ahead, but John Philpott lost to even up matters. This left the score at 7½-7½, with David Cannan's game left to decide the match. David had earlier been two pawns up, with a supported rook on d3 in the heart of his opponent's position, but also with tripled isolated pawns on e4, e5 and e6. Eventually David's king became exposed and all the e-pawns disappeared. Finally, both players had a rook, four pawns and bishops of opposite colours. His opponent had an advanced passed pawn, which could not make any progress. With four minutes left versus three his opponent offered a draw, which David was happy to accept! A game (and a match!) of fluctuating fortunes, with honours even at 8-8. We may later regret not getting the extra half point, but could easily have lost the match. We now have to play the Legal League on 21 March, whereas Commercial have to play United Banks a month later. We have 2½ game points advantage over Commercial, but Commercial ought to beat United Banks fairly easily, whereas we have lost narrowly to the Legal League in most of our recent encounters. -- Geoff Naldrett

Daniel Lindner