Insurance V Legal

Match report Insurance

In the end I did well to get out 16 players, with no reserves, as we were short of Stephen Berry, Julian Farrand, Mark Rich, Roger de Coverly, Ian Hunnable, Paul Barclay and John Philpott, Derek Harris and Anthony Kent, plus a number of lower-rated players. We did not start until 6.40, so default time was 7.10. Michael Wiltshire arrived a good five minutes before the default time, and David Sedgwick a little later, but Ian Calvert only had about a minute to spare. David Malcolm’s opponent arrived just after 7.10 but, as Ian Calvert had only made it by the skin of his teeth, I thought it would be a bit churlish to claim a win by default. David clearly wanted to play anyway. I did not realise for some time that Tony Paish’s opponent had not turned up and that we had won his board by default. Before then Ian Calvert, being our last player to start, was also the first to finish, with a steady draw after 50 minutes’ play. All the other games lasted at least two hours, except for draws by Stephen Humphrey and Ray Hamilton, which lasted a bit less than two hours. Then James Aldred lost, but Gary Callan won, to restore our one point lead. William Diffey then drew. Then David Malcolm and Colin Bartlett won, Ian Reynolds lost on top board, Michael Wiltshire won, but Martin Page lost. Brian Atkinson and David Shipp then drew, to give us an 8-6 lead. I was playing David Auger, their captain, who was surprised to learn that he now had a grading – 159. He played quickly, and I was in time trouble for most of the game. I had R, N and P v R, B and 2 Ps in the quickplay finish, with less than five minutes against over half an hour, but sac’d the rook temporarily for a K-R fork, and eventually managed to draw the ending a pawn down. This gave us the match! In the final game to finish David Sedgwick had K v K & R, but his opponent’s flag had fallen, so the game was a draw, and we won the match 9-7. A bit too close for comfort! -- Geoff Naldrett https://bronowskitrophy.wordpress.com/records/competitions/2003-2004/

Daniel Lindner