Lytham 3 V Lytham 2

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Board 2 New Player - Graham Smith Board 3 New Player - Richard Smith

Darren Pickering

Lytham 3 vs Lytham 2

The first of hopefully many close battles between the three Lytham teams in Division B this season! The first game to finish was on board 2 between Peter and Graham (his first competitive one in many, many years). Both players were moving quickly, and Peter got the advantage early on with a combination of queen and knight invading deep into enemy territory. A white knight was left hanging and when Peter picked this up with his queen the precise way to get back on even terms with a series of pins was missed by Graham. Once a knight up the conversion for Peter was routine. On board 4 a few poor moves early on by black in a Sicilian led to Andre being a bishop down and it could have been even worse. A bishop was lost shortly after in return though by white but with Andre still a dangerous passed a-pawn up. Torrin again managed to win this pawn back as well though leading to a completely drawn endgame with three pawns and a black bishop each. One bad bishop move by Andre though, giving up the defence of his pawns which were all stuck on black squares, enabled Torrin to win one and shortly after the game. In a long game on board 3 David got an advantage early on as Richard’s queen got chased around the board for a succession of moves and his king was left potentially exposed in the centre. One inaccurate queen move though from Dave and the game was back suddenly to being much more even with black even slightly edging it. However, after pieces had been swapped off and the game progressed into a rook and pawn endgame, David managed to get the advantage again securing a passed pawn on the queenside that proved too strong when it got down to only kings being left on the board. On the top board, Colin gained a space advantage to begin with, especially after a pair of knights got traded on e5 and a pawn established itself there. As he attempted to clamp down on the queenside as well though, I was able to manoeuvre and re-coordinate my pieces and after a few trades I managed to get a fairly comfortable position and even a bit of pressure with a well advanced and protected c-pawn. In the end though there didn’t seem to be a way for either player to progress and with both of us into our last few minutes a draw was agreed.

Darren Pickering