Preston 2 V Bare Village

Comment for organiser

I was stand in captain in the absence of Carl Tillotson in an eventful encounter with some very close games. The result was finally decided at the end of the night when Hanbel Willow drew against Peter Thompson to seal a victory for the home team. It was a nerve wracking battle as the game neared a climax with Hambel extremely short of time, yet still hoping to win as her passed pawn was nearer to queening than Peters (who at one stage had about 20 minutes in hand). However she could not find a route to victory and a draw was agreed with seconds to spare probably. On board one Phil Seery played with a draw in mind against the highly rated Jim Sumner. Fairly early on lots of pieces got traded and a sterile position petered out into a draw. I managed to get a slight edge against Alan Giles on board two and eventually won a pawn with a tactic after Alan pushed forward his c pawn to gain some space. After this he tried to drum up an attack against my king, but eventually got his knight trapped and his attack came to an end. With extra material I managed to convert it into a win. It had been very tight until his oversight with the c pawn. On board four an even endgame with blocked pawns and one knight each lead to a dead draw in the game between Conor Reaney and Peter Barrow. So a fairly even contest went Prestons way in the final seconds.

Phil Taylor