Insurance V Banks

Match report Insurance

I had a great deal of difficulty in getting 14 players to play in this match, and could have put out a much stronger team from those who couldn’t play than from those that could! Fortunately United Banks were also short of some of their better players, so a very tight match seemed in prospect. I am very grateful to Kevin Parrott, Cyril Denis and Dave Shipp, who all stepped in at short notice, and to David Burford, who would have come along as our only extra player, to play in an emergency, had he not had to go to Wales instead. The Club is fortunate in having such players it can rely on – they are the salt of the earth and make my job easier than it would otherwise be! Because of continuing security problems over the new Conference Room the match had to be played in three rooms – boards 1 and 2 in the new Ombudsman kitchen, boards 3-8 in the new Ombudsman meeting room (both rooms on the 6th floor) and boards 9-14 in the ground floor room used for smaller matches and individual games. I had hoped not to have to play, but had to, on board 10. It was difficult knowing on the ground floor what was happening upstairs! United Banks were strong (on paper) on the top four boards, and Ian Calvert, Anthony Kent and David Malcolm did well to secure draws on three of these boards against higher rated opponents. Rob Thomas, the Banks’ board 2, failed to arrive, so David Sedgwick played instead against Dave Chambers, the Banks’ reserve. Dave Chambers did very well to secure a draw, though ¼ hour down on the clock at the start. The match looked pretty tight for most of its duration, with many of the early results draws. The exception was Martin Page’s quick win against David Tidmarsh on board 6. This was later countered by Ray Hamilton’s loss on board 11 in a pawn endgame against a higher rated opponent. An isolated pawn eventually told against him. Our only loss, as it turned out! I got short of time against Mike Jones and offered a trade of queens, though I thought he could win by sacrificing the exchange, then his queen. He would then either mate me or have an easy win on material. Still, I could see nothing better, so offer the exchange of queens. He exchanged queens, and the game soon petered out into a solid draw. I pointed out the ”winning” line to Mike, but my later analysis showed that I could have sacrificed my own queen, after winning his, for a position that slightly favoured me, but which might well have been drawn anyway. Hopefully I would have found this over the board, if I had had to! The match swung in our favour in the end, with late wins by Tony Paish, Brian Atkinson and Cyril Dennis, and a solid draw by Ian Calvert on top board (against a 199) in the last game to finish. By then the match was won, and we had triumphed by 8½ to 5½. Nine draws in 14 games! Well done to a weakened team, which pulled out the stops! -- Geoff Naldrett https://bronowskitrophy.wordpress.com/records/competitions/2006-2007/

Daniel Lindner