Press / Admin Comment
BDCL 1 - PooleA vs RingwoodA
The final match of the season and on paper PooleA should be safe as league champions. Only two extreme results could deny this outcome. Sadly, Martin Clancy had advised me a couple of days previously that Ringwood could only raise three players, which, on the positive side, would give me an evening off!
Board 3, John Weatherlake (b) vs Rob Davenport was a nice Grand Prix Attack! It all looked pretty reasonable to me but suddenly a draw was agreed. Ah well.
Board 1, Mike Waddington (b) vs Richard Ormesher was a quieter Italian affair with much manoevering around e4/e5 pawns and looking about even. I looked away for a second and the position opened up with a nasty attack by the black pieces. A nice tactic won the white queen and it looked all over. Bad luck Richard.
Board 2, Nick Lee (w) vs Niall Woodger saw a QGD position where black to sacced a pawn for some queenside piece activity. Suddenly the position seemed to slide and the white position became overwhealming and Niall conceded.
Bad luck Ringwood missing three players tonight.
Have a great summer and see you all in the near season.
DF
David M Fuller
Poole A vs Ringwood A
A match between the team at the top of the league, where each member is rated above 2000 and the team at the bottom of the league, where following the (hopefully temporary) lack of our 2 best players mid-season, the criteria for team selection are:
1. Do you know how to play chess?
2. Do you have a heartbeat? and
3. Are you able to drive?
I received the call-up email from Admiral Clancy last week. I confirmed I could play, but hoped for everyone's sake that he would be able to find someone higher graded. Alas, he couldn't. Just when we thought we had the makings of a team, things took a further turn for the worse when squadron leader Willetts went AWOL. That left us with Richard, Niall, me and our new, fourth member, D Fault to fly the flag. As Admiral Clancy signed us off, it felt rather akin to the Admiral shaking the hands of the last 3 kamikaze pilots to leave the aircraft carrier.
Things started well. 11 moves into my game with John, with the position seeming even, he offered me a draw. I considered the 400-point grading difference between us, then the position, then the 400-point grading difference between us, and shook his hand before the offer could be retracted.
Richard and Niall seemed to be holding their own. I came back from the bar with a pint. Foolishly, I radioed back to Admiral Clancy to report that the mission was going sort of okay (that was as good as I could make it sound - I did try): I had drawn and now 'ALL' that needed to happen was for Richard to beat Mike and Niall to beat Nick for us to be home and dry. That proved to be the kiss of death as shortly afterwards, the pair of them went down in flames over the Pacific.
Never mind. No one actually died-and we ended up getting home much earlier than usual. So, silver linings and clouds etc.....
Thanks to Poole for a fun and sporting evening of chess.
Rob Davenport