Insurance V Commercial

Match report from the Insurance Chess Club archive

I tried to have the date of this match rearranged, as I knew we would be short of a number of our stronger players, but to no avail. Our resounding win against United Banks earlier in the season had, however, meant that we could lose narrowly to Commercial and still retain the Bronowski Trophy, as long as Legal did not trounce United Banks the same evening. Julian Farrand and our Wanstead & Woodford players were unavailable, among others, and Mark Rich had to cry off through illness on the day, but I arranged for Kevin Parrott and David Shipp to play at short notice. Kevin was happy to be a reserve, but I had promised him a game, so stood down myself. We had the edge on gradings on the higher boards, but Commercial had the edge on the lower boards. Some of the early results went against us, but Ian Calvert had a nice endgame win and David Sedgwick outplayed Brendan O'Gorman. Anthony Kent got a lucky draw, Mike Wickham missing a mate, taking a draw by repetition of position instead. I was regretting standing down when we trailed 4-8, with four games left. In these games, however, Stephen Berry and Stephen Humphrey outplayed their opponents in the quickplay finish, James Aldred agreed a draw (though this gave Commercial the match) and Ray Hamilton, who had looked to be clearly winning earlier, managed to draw his game, though conceding 20 grading points. So, 3/4 from the last four games and a 7-9 loss, when a bigger loss had seemed possible. I learnt the next morning that Legal had beaten United Banks 11½-4½, with the result that we had retained the Bronowski Trophy by 30 game points to 26½, both ICC and Legal having won two matches and lost one. A closer shave than I would have liked! -- Geoff Naldrett

Daniel Lindner