It was a busy evening at the club on Tuesday with 4 of our teams playing, two against each other. In those 4 teams were 5 of our 7 team captains, and amazingly all 5 won!
Our 2nd team faced newly promoted Grantham 1 who welcomed the return of Paul Cumbers who had been on loan to Newark last season. Up against him was Mike B, who had never previously beaten Paul with the black pieces in a league match, but on Tuesday he played an excellent game, managing the position before gaining an advantage that he never gave up. Onos, after having driven over 500 miles since 5am that day for work and arriving hungry, failed to remove Andrew Hebert’s knight from a good outpost and this cost him dearly as Andrew broke through the centre to win. Turning up to play after such a long and tiring day really showed Onos’ commitment. Drag cancelled out this loss after pouncing on two errors by Francis Bowers to win material both times before producing a neat checkmate. Steve looked as if he had the beginnings of a decent king side attack against Chris Hill but allowed too many pieces to be swapped off and the game petered out to a draw. John H had a solid draw on 5 against Chris Holt. 3-2 win for us.
Our 5th team gained an important win over WN 2. Paul trapped Simon Scott’s bishop. John T and Robert Willoughby, two highly experienced players, played out a draw. Charlie won a piece but then gave one back, eventually losing to Eddie Jones. Andy recovered from a tricky looking position to emerge victorious against Jonathan Ellinsfield. 2.5-1.5 win for us.
The big clash of the evening was Gambit 4 v Gambit 3, which the third team won 2.5-1.5. Nikolai lead the way for the 3rd team on board 3 with a swift victory over Marian. This was their first rated encounter, but surely not the last, with both players rapidly improving year on year. Felipe guaranteed at least a draw for the 3rd team when Tom resigned while low on time in a very difficult position. Peter G-M, entrusted with the tough job of manning the top board, was nursing the advantage of an exchange for a long time. The slow build up could have ended sooner, but Peter missed the opportunity of pinning Brian’s queen against his king. Nevertheless, facing the threat of the a-pawn reaching the 8th rank, Brian was forced to resign. The 4th team could only find respite on the bottom board. Keith played a brilliant game with the black pieces, but a blunder meant that Graham was able to go to an endgame being a bishop up. The 4th team captain missed mate-in-2 on move 46, but Keith eventually had to concede anyway. Gambit 3 have a new captain for the 24/25 season, Felipe, who has big boots to fill leading the top Gambit team in the 3rd division. This victory displays how unwise it would be to bet against this rising quartet of chess players.
We might be only two weeks in (or at the end of ‘Week 1’ officially), but our 1st and 2nd teams lead the way in division 1 while all our 3 teams occupy the top 3 places in division 3. We’ll enjoy this for as long as it lasts.