Woodseats A v. Ecclesall A or the return to the land of the Snooker table.
It was a return to familiar surroundings, the climb up the back stairs and then the room that had once been the centre of Sheffield Chess! An old friend was still occupying most of the available space-well that's a bit of an exaggeration. However the snooker table was still in residence but the chess sets were laid out and waiting when we arrived. The reception was very friendly and there was time to ' catch-up' before the action started.
Amazingly Andrew against Dave Adams was the first to finish. I don't know what happened because I was too busy exchanging pieces. However the Ecclesall player had a rather gratified expression on his face so I suspect that he had pulled off some tactical wheeze or other based on craft and guile accumulated over the years...resulting in Andrew's granting him a draw. A few minutes later my own opponent offered me a draw...and I thought why not? I certainly wasn't winning. Bill quickly realised that we were using new tactics tonight and got into the swing of things and also concluded hostilities with his opponent. First lull them into a sense of false security and then pounce! We didn't pounce quite yet because John, in spite of his excellent result in the recent Major Open on the Isle of Man (of which more later, I hope-we are promised at least a game) couldn't overcome the resistance of a well-prepared opponent who played very carefully. All level and it was left to Allan, Paul and Mark to make the final assault. Mark, with black, played aggressively and put a lot of pressure on his opponent who, understandably, finally cracked under time pressure and allowed a fatal check. Allan had black in a Najdorf Sicilan. His opponent adopted the positional approach with Be2 but went astray in the middle game and Black finished the game nicely. With two wins in the bag, Paul, after striving hard to extract the maximum from his position, agreed a draw in, what seemed to be, a level position. Final score 5-3 to Woodseats!
