Bournemouth C V Poole C

Press / Admin Comment

4 interesting games and 4 decisive results. Board 2 was first to finish, this was probably the best game I have played in the last 12 months. I got initiative out of the opening with an octopus knight in the centre and then managed to transform this smoothly from a strategic advantage to a material advantage with nothing left to be done. The next game to finish was board 3 in what initially looked like a double-edged position until Stefan missed a check in his calculation and it all came crumbling down. The final two games both went to the endgame so these finished much later. Board 4 was an even game with white having a small advantage out of the opening, but then he had to come up with a plan for the middle game. He made the wrong plan and it eventually went down to a queen and pawns endgame where white's king got trapped and when the dust settled black had several more pawns so white resigned. The final game was a fascinating game with queen and knight versus 2 rooks and a knight. Since my game finished early I had to conceal (barely) my anguish as Paul had a chance to win a rook for a knight making it rook and minor versus queen (still anyones game but black would have had winning chances). In the end Ellis had a rook protecting a passed pawn on the 7th rank against Paul's Queen. There may have been some form of perpetual, but Paul allowed Ellis to dance his King all the way up to the pawn to help usher it in and Paul ran out of checks so had to resign. Well done Poole for the win.

Daniel Miles