Southbourne Seagulls V Highcliffe Castles

A bumper number of eager juniors and some great matches

Highcliffe Castles were unfortunately a man down due to illness so arrived with only 3 players whereas we had 7 players including 5 very keen juniors, all eager to play. It was agreed that I would 'lend' Highcliffe a couple of junior players and after some strategic thinking, and avoiding siblings playing each other, Eli and Jackson were donated to Highcliffe for the evening. Unfortunately for Southbourne, these donations proved costly with Jackson capitalising very quickly on an uncharacteristic mistake by Will and Sam managing to turn a good, perhaps winning, position into a loss following an inaccurate move. On board 2, Ken wasn't at ease coming out of the opening and a little while later was a piece down. But many thanks to Ken for kindly accommodating John's braille board. On board 3, it was a close match between Michal and Dan. Michal played a really solid mature game for such a young player and, unfortunately for Highcliffe, Dan made a small inaccuracy which Michal used to his advantage, nicely winning the game. This left the match on board one which was also very closely contested. Isaac gained the advantage, being a pawn up and took this into the king-rook endgame. A great endgame battle and over 70 moves, with Isaac winning through. So a 3-2 win for Highcliffe, although perhaps Southbourne can console ourselves by either saying that we won 2-1 on the boards where we didn't donate players, or by claiming a theoretical victory on boards 4 and 5 since these players were really from Southbourne! Well done Highcliffe (and friends) - and many thanks for supporting the juniors.

Nikki Forster

Away to Southbourne

Thanks to Southbourne for the loan of players to ensure all their members were able to get a match although the outcome appears to be a lucky win for the visitors

michael richard tew