Post by admin on Feb 1, 2013 14:07:57 GMT
Wednesday 30th January saw Hastings & St Leonards 3rd Team playing "The Argumentatives" in the Mid-Sussex League (div 2). Headline results as follows (based on Jan 2013 Grades):
1 Ollie Willson (161) v Peter Farr (191) Adjourned
2 Mel Young (163) v Jim Graham (171) 0 - 1
3 Steve Blewitt (161) v Paul Kington (143) 1/2 - 1/2
4 Omer Namouk (139) v Mike Garson (107) 1 - 0
5 Ken Lucas (139) v Default 1 - 0
The Argumentatives are a small but friendly club based near Crawley. Because they only have a handful of active members, it is easy to see the potential makeup of their team (very strong at the top, much weaker at the bottom). So, when putting the team together, our strategy was to try to balance their top board strength with bottom board dominance for us; if we could win the bottom two boards, we might nick something from the top three and get some sort of result. Hence, my thanks to those drafted players who helped out!
The evening before the match we were informed that they would be defaulting on their bottom board due to illness. I had every confidence that Ken would have come up trumps anyway, but it's always nice to get off to a good start! Unfortunately I was unable to keep this up as I lost the toss, and they elected to play white on odd boards.
Omer was the first to finish. His opponent brought his queen out early giving Omer a juicy target to aim at. Swift development followed with a much superior position. Omer went a piece up with a nice tactic, and he continued to dominate the position throughout. After losing a couple of pawns, and with a rook incursion onto the 7th imminent and further significant material loss looming, his opponent had had enough and resigned. So 2 - 0 as hoped.
Steve was next to finish. A very close game throughout, Steve always looked like he had a slight edge. He declined a draw offer with equal material, and waited for a favourable queen swap to enter a rook and pawn endgame. With his more active rook and his opponent's isolated mid-board pawn, Steve had winning possibilities but it was not without danger. Despite giving it a go, rather than push for a risky win that could easily turn into a loss, Steve quite rightly accepted the final draw offer to guarantee us at least a drawn match.
The top two boards went right down to the wire without a firm conclusion on the night for either. There was an amazing similarity: as they moved from middle to endgame, both games were materially equal with double rook and minor piece each (where we had knights against their bishops), and the Args both had a protected passed pawn on the 7th rank. The Args were also both pushing for wins in an attempt to draw the match.
With 10 minutes to go the position looked dicey for us on both boards. Mel had a sharp tactical foray during which he stole an outside pawn, but his opponent retained a strong hold on his passed pawn in the center. As the 3 hour time limit was reached, it seemed that they had a strong winning line, and our resident GM Herr Fritz has subsequently confirmed that Mel had no defence, so we have conceded the board. But to say it was close is an understatement, as Mel was only a single tempo away from holding on. Cracking game.
Board 1 was last to finish: as the time control approached Ollie was able to "bridge" his rook forcing a swap and thus take the passed pawn on his 42nd and final move. Now being a pawn up with no obvious compensation for white, we were comfortable that a drawn game (and hence a match win) had been achieved. With no apparent way forward for White, we also suspected a win as Ollie's knight dominated the bishop, and again Fritz puts Ollie 1.5 up. At the time of writing we are awaiting their official position, but at the very least we have won the match. An exciting end.
All credit and thanks to the team for stepping up to the plate.
Gary Willson
1 Ollie Willson (161) v Peter Farr (191) Adjourned
2 Mel Young (163) v Jim Graham (171) 0 - 1
3 Steve Blewitt (161) v Paul Kington (143) 1/2 - 1/2
4 Omer Namouk (139) v Mike Garson (107) 1 - 0
5 Ken Lucas (139) v Default 1 - 0
The Argumentatives are a small but friendly club based near Crawley. Because they only have a handful of active members, it is easy to see the potential makeup of their team (very strong at the top, much weaker at the bottom). So, when putting the team together, our strategy was to try to balance their top board strength with bottom board dominance for us; if we could win the bottom two boards, we might nick something from the top three and get some sort of result. Hence, my thanks to those drafted players who helped out!
The evening before the match we were informed that they would be defaulting on their bottom board due to illness. I had every confidence that Ken would have come up trumps anyway, but it's always nice to get off to a good start! Unfortunately I was unable to keep this up as I lost the toss, and they elected to play white on odd boards.
Omer was the first to finish. His opponent brought his queen out early giving Omer a juicy target to aim at. Swift development followed with a much superior position. Omer went a piece up with a nice tactic, and he continued to dominate the position throughout. After losing a couple of pawns, and with a rook incursion onto the 7th imminent and further significant material loss looming, his opponent had had enough and resigned. So 2 - 0 as hoped.
Steve was next to finish. A very close game throughout, Steve always looked like he had a slight edge. He declined a draw offer with equal material, and waited for a favourable queen swap to enter a rook and pawn endgame. With his more active rook and his opponent's isolated mid-board pawn, Steve had winning possibilities but it was not without danger. Despite giving it a go, rather than push for a risky win that could easily turn into a loss, Steve quite rightly accepted the final draw offer to guarantee us at least a drawn match.
The top two boards went right down to the wire without a firm conclusion on the night for either. There was an amazing similarity: as they moved from middle to endgame, both games were materially equal with double rook and minor piece each (where we had knights against their bishops), and the Args both had a protected passed pawn on the 7th rank. The Args were also both pushing for wins in an attempt to draw the match.
With 10 minutes to go the position looked dicey for us on both boards. Mel had a sharp tactical foray during which he stole an outside pawn, but his opponent retained a strong hold on his passed pawn in the center. As the 3 hour time limit was reached, it seemed that they had a strong winning line, and our resident GM Herr Fritz has subsequently confirmed that Mel had no defence, so we have conceded the board. But to say it was close is an understatement, as Mel was only a single tempo away from holding on. Cracking game.
Board 1 was last to finish: as the time control approached Ollie was able to "bridge" his rook forcing a swap and thus take the passed pawn on his 42nd and final move. Now being a pawn up with no obvious compensation for white, we were comfortable that a drawn game (and hence a match win) had been achieved. With no apparent way forward for White, we also suspected a win as Ollie's knight dominated the bishop, and again Fritz puts Ollie 1.5 up. At the time of writing we are awaiting their official position, but at the very least we have won the match. An exciting end.
All credit and thanks to the team for stepping up to the plate.
Gary Willson