Southbourne Seagulls V Ringwood Waifs & Strays

10 players gain invaluable match experience

All the games were close and lasted at least an hour each in a match extended by one board due to demand to play from Ringwood players. Material blunders by their opponents, late on and after competitive games, secured wins for Southbourne's Zhongyuan and Jackson on boards 4 & 5. The last game to finish, after 2 hours play, saw Ben Sillence patiently hold off Matt Hull's attacking ambitions and win exquisitely by sacrificing a queen for rook to enable a pawn to queen. It was a fine finish to an excellent game. Ringwood's Ben on board 2 held the initiative for most of a complicated game and finished with a very good win, but full credit to Oliver who played his part well and will have gained great match experience from this tight game. On board 3, Poole's Jason eventually got the better of Alex by keeping calm and converting small positional and eventual material advantages in a game which could have gone either way. Well done to all the players on another very good evening of chess, which completely fulfilled the aim of the Bacchus League to give match experience to emerging and talented players. The match was played in the same room as the B&D 1, top of the table clash between Southbourne A and Poole A. The standard of many of the games in this Bacchus encounter suggested some of these players could well be playing at that B &D 1 level as they gain experience in the years ahead. Finally, many thanks to Nikki Forster for all the arrangements and especially agreeing to a 5th board just hours before the match was due to to start.

Mike Jay