Ringwood A V Highcliffe B

First match of the season

Always a pleasure to welcome Highcliffe and congratulations to them in winning the first match of the season. First to finish was board 2 where Madison overlooked a couple of tactics and lost a pawn and then a piece. There was opposite sides castling on board 4 but Matthew's king was much better defended than Richard's, the latter being hunted down early in the middlegame. On board 3 Ken always seemed to have an edge against Graham but a draw looked the probable outcome when Ken offered one. Graham had a quick look at board 1, decided Kevin was doing well and took the draw. However... Kevin had a typically messy modern defence position against Christian. Opinions varied in the post mortem about the evaluation of the early middlegame. However, Kevin soon got what was definitely a bad position and having thought he could give up an exchange was forced into giving up a rook. With active pieces he looked for swindle chances... Graham saw this stage of the game but hadn't realised Kevin was a rook down! Christian made no mistake and steadily closed the game out. So, a bit of early season rustiness showing on both teams... hopefully a bit smoother for the rest of the season!

Peter Anderson