Highcliffe C V Wimborne B

Our first trip to Highcliffe…

Our first trip to Highcliffe this season, with a relatively new Wimborne team, apart from me. Looking at the ratings, we out graded on all boards apart from board 2.

First to finish was Charlie on board 3. I was briefly watching as he baited Ron with a knight which was taken. Unfortunately the knight damaged the black pawn structure but worse still, the follow up, resulted in the loss of the black queen and a resignation. Board 4 was well into the end game and I was still negotiating the opening with Bohdan. Down to 3 pawns and a rook v a rook and bishop, it looked favourable for white. I missed the next few moves but when I returned to the end position of the game, I could see a queen promotion by white that effectively trapped the king and allow black a mating opportunity which was taken.

Susan and Will’s game looked very close, they’d even lined up their taken pieces against each other, so I could see how close it was. I genuinely couldn’t see an advantage for either but somewhere along the way, Will managed to get the upper hand and secure a victory.

I managed to negotiate my way out of the middle game a rook up and then set about simplifying the game by swapping everything off. Credit to Bohdan, who refused to give up even in a knight v rook/knight/pawn end game. On move 52 I missed the mate and blunder my knight, anything else resulted in stalemate. The knight harassed me for the rest of the game but with my pawn edging to the seventh rank, I swapped the knight for my rook and my passed pawn could not be stopped. 

Thank you to Highcliffe for hosting, see you in Wimborne for the return match.

Simon Young