Legal V Insurance

Match report from the Insurance Chess Club archive

The match was played at S.J. Berwin & Co; Legal won the toss and chose white on odds. The match started at 6.45, by which time everyone had arrived! The ICC team was to have been the one that drew 8-8 with the Commercial League, with the inclusion of Anthony Kent and Brian Atkinson, but minus our top two boards, Stephen Berry and Mark Rich, who had both played in the 4NCL at the week-end, and also on Monday evening. David Cannan then pulled out with flu, so I got a rare game on board 16. The Legal League had beaten us narrowly in recent years, but on this occasion their stars were missing, many of their players were ungraded and a comfortable win seemed likely. Brian Atkinson was the first to win, closely followed by Ian Reynolds. Ian Calvert then asked if he could accept a draw offer and was delighted when I said he could! As he is difficult to beat I had put him up to board 5. No more results came for another 20 minutes, but I then won, having won a rook and a pawn early on. James Aldred then mated their captain in 28 moves and David Sedgwick also won, having earlier turned down the offer of a draw as we needed as many points as possible. David Malcolm then won, having been two pawns up. Martin Page then also won, Anthony Kent drew a well-contested game and Tony Paish and Ian Hunnable also won. Julian Farrand then won on board 1, having been a passed pawn up in an endgame and having his opponent in Zugzwang. He had also been well ahead on the clock for most of the game. This left us 11-1 up and the only question left was whether we could accumulate enough points to regain the Bronowski Trophy, even if Commercial were to beat United Banks 16-0. Paul Barclay offered his opponent a draw, as they had had a close game in the London League three weeks earlier. His opponent refused the offer, then promptly blundered away a rook and resigned. John Philpott then managed to draw, admitting that he had been lost earlier on. Michael Wiltshire had been two pawns down for most of the game, with no compensation, but finally reached a position where he had B + pawn v 3 pawns. This should have been drawn, but Michael's opponent missed the best continuation and resigned! "Michael came up with a whole string of swindles", the [Insurance Chess Club] Chairman said! In the last game to finish Colin Bartlett promoted a pawn to a second queen, but his opponent did not resign until a queen check could be countered by Colin interposing one of his queens with check, forcing off the pair of queens and leading to an easy win. So, an emphatic win, with only three draws conceded, though we were somewhat flattered by the final score. This win regains the Bronowski Trophy, so congratulations to all concerned! James Aldred and Michael Wiltshire each scored 3/3 in the Bronowski Trophy, althougth James had a default win against United Banks. Michael was perhaps somewhat fortunate to record three wins! It was a pity that this season both United Banks and the Legal League were nowhere near as strong as they usually are and that we only had one competitive match. -- Geoff Naldrett

Daniel Lindner