A fantastic night for Woodseats Chess Club, the A Team winning in Rotherham and, what I think was the best C Team performance of the season so far to secure victory at The Abbey; as on Monday, by a 4-2 score-line.
Ecclesall lined up slightly weaker than they were in our WSC encounter and we outgraded them marginally on every board but translating a couple of grading points into victory, away from home, is far from straight forward.
Unlike Monday, when we came from behind, this time we led from the front. Playing Black, as I have in EVERY C team game this campaign, I was able to capitalise on what must have been a slight opening inaccuracy to gain a pawn. However my opponent, playing very quickly, did very well to create a counter attack around my king and exchange down to a rook and pawn ending. I played on for a couple of moves after his draw offer but looking around I could see we were clearly winning on 2 boards and behind on none and thus took the half point.
Bill, also Black, flawlessly reached a knight and 5 verses Bishop and 5 ending which was also drawn. Chern, whose fault it was that we were all playing Black, offered a draw, again, when he had any slight advantage that existed, but we were so far ahead on the other boards this was the right thing to do.
George had castled long against a Kings Indian and blew great holes in his opponent’s queen side, winning a clean piece after a series of forced exchanges. Dave was totally in command, the exchange and a pocketful of pawns the better. Carefully he overworked his opponent’s knights and it was just a matter of time until Black’s position collapsed and we had our first point. We now needed only one point from two winning positions to take the match. We were cruising!
Then we started going off course. Somehow George lost a pawn or two and had reached an endgame where opposite coloured bishops made his opponent’s pawn landslide appear ominously difficult for his extra knight to control. Certainly our man seemed to now lack credible winning chances.
Srini’s game was very complicated. At first glance it appeared that he had won a queen for two pieces but his own queen was being shoved around and he was bound to lose at least an exchange more before he could counter. He sat for long periods without moving, score sheets virtually unmarked and his clock entering the danger-zone. A frantic rattling off of moves left him with queen and rook against 2 rooks and an unshiftable bishop and pawn lock. All results seemed possible, especially given both players record with the clock. (Srini was playing the guy I had beaten on time in the previous match).
In was in this state of uncertainty that George elected to play on when offered a draw since it wasn’t clear that we could count on Srini to draw. As Srini is allergic to draws this was probably a fair premise but I was getting very nervous because I couldn’t see a way for George to win. The match seemed to be slipping and when George had to give up his knight to reach an ending when he was a pawn down, he really did have to accept the draw.
As he likes it, Srini had all eyes on his game. His opponent’s rooks were connected first on the e file and then along the seventh where they began a series of checks from behind Srini’s advancing king. But Srini countered with forking checks from his Queen and chose to ignore the now undefended bishop in preference to creating mating threats. With so much to think about Black’s flag fell and Srini had won on time to secure the match.
A wonderful team effort. The first 3 draws were sensibly taken and George was very noble in striving for more when it seemed the team may need him to. Real credit to Dave and Srini though for finding the energy and concentration to win a second game in 3 days and lift us above Ecclesall into third.
