Marple 3 ECA 3

I think we were all expecting a tough match on Monday and we were not disappointed.

Here is what happened:

1. John 0.5 - 0.5 S Hegarty (182)

Sarah allowed the dangerous Marshall Gambit and John built up a dominating position with a sequence of accurate moves. However Sarah defended carefully and with time getting low and mental energy running out John offered a draw which was gratefully accepted.

2. Phil 0.5 - 0.5 N Livesey (147)

My opponent played some unusual moves on the White side of a King's Indian and ended up with a Knight on b6 that was either annoying or stuck out of play. Sadly it seemed to be more annoying and I gave up a pawn to get a bit of freedom. My opponent then created a passed pawn on the Queenside and as I had only a minute on the clock things looked grim. However I finally got going and created enough counterplay to win my pawn back and exchange the rest of the pawns resulting in a draw.

3. Steve 0.5 - 0.5 G Trueman (159)

Steve played an unusual 2. b3 system against the French Defence and got a promising attack but was unable to break down his opponent's resilient defence.

4. Tudor 0 - 1 P Kirby (158)

Tudor had a promising King's Indian when I looked. I missed how this one ended.

5. Dave N 0.5 - 0.5 T Kay (141)

Dave played his new Colle system and ultimately ended up with K + P vs K. Unfortunately he had no time to think and threw away a won ending.

6. Dave B 1 - 0 C Baker (126)

When I looked at this game Dave was a Rook down but had some pawns to compensate. As both players only had 3 minutes left on their clocks anything could happen. As I expected Dave moved faster than his opponent, unfortunately missed a chance to quickly end the game but was about to win on time when Chris was advised to stop the clock and claim the draw as Dave apparently was not trying to win.

After some controversy Chris agreed to concede the game which meant the match was drawn.