Meir 'B' V Newcastle 'E'

Lucky escape for Newcastle E (and for me)

Newcastle E got back home with a point after a complicate night in which at a certain point it was losing 2-0. Edward's game ended quickly with a loss after a blunder in the opening. He was relatively soon followed by Pete, who had a two pawns advantage after the opening but somehow managed to lose anyway. At that point Brian decided to keep playing rather than taking a draw and he obtained the win that kept Newcastle's hopes alive. All eyes at that concentrated on board 1, were after getting out of the opening with one pawn less than my opponent (a central passed pawn) and inadvertently refusing a free knight momentarily left unguarded, I started some vain attempts to set traps. When Eddie got tired of it he decided to force a queen exchange, but in the process he allowed me to get a passed pawn that I promptly pushed till the 6th rank. The position was still fine for black, so Eddie decided to make some more concessions and allowed one of my rooks to get to the 7th rank where it could check the king. He then decided to move the king away rather than protecting it, and after a few moves he kindly got to a position where I could fork it, winning a rook for a knight. Unluckily for him I wasn't as generous and I went on from there to win the game, so I guess he will be looking for revenge against Newcastle next Monday, when our E team will go to Meir again to face their C team. So, to conclude, congratulations to Meir B, who almost managed to get a win despite being outgraded by at least 20 points on each of the top three board!

Alberto Gissi