ECA 3.5 Altrincham 2.5

ECA beat a strong Altrincham team last night.

Here is the scorecard:

1. Y Kolodiy (168) 0.5 - 0.5 John

2. R Clucas (158) 0 - 1 Phil

3. K Lockett (155) 0 - 1 Steve

4. M Whalley (149) 1 - 0 Keven

5. N Lowe (135) 0 - 1 Dave N

6. B McCartney (130) 1 - 0 Tudor

Tudor's game finished first. Tudor lost a piece but had some vague attacking changes. However his opponent defended carefully and Tudor ran out of attacking material.

Keven had a cramped game with a backward e pawn and ultimately had to resign.

Dave had a nice win when his opponent wasted a lot of moves in the opening and left his King in the centre. In Dave's words: "My opponent resigned on move 20 having played very passively against the Colle and his king was stuck in the middle with his kings bishop and rook still not having moved and unable to move without losing more material."

John drew a sharp game where he gambited a pawn for a promising position but then misplayed it and had to fight for a draw.

This left the match at 2.5 - 1.5 to Altrincham. Dave takes over the commentary from here:

"This being my only home match of the season (I live 5 mins from Altrincham) I had decided to stay and watch until all the games had finished. With 2 games to go it did not look good! Alti were 2.5 to 1.5 up with Phil and Steve still playing on boards 2 and 3 respectively.

Steve's was the easier game to assess as he was in a rook and pawn ending, a pawn down, and short of time. Some drawing chances but no prospect of a win. Phil's game was more difficult to come to a conclusion about (unclear!!!). Both players were short of time in a sharp position. Phils opponent seemed to be applying most of the pressure but Phil was countering accurately.

Steve's opponent then contrived to voluntarily swap off the rooks in a position where he was losing his extra pawn and leaving Steve with the more active king. John Reed left at this stage and we were agreed that with best play it was now a drawn game. How wrong we were! Steve applied pressure and his opponent crumbled allowing Steve's king to mop up pawns and a pawn race ensued with Steve queening and then then playing very accurately to prevent his opponent queening.

Over to Phil's game with both players having about 3 mins left on their clocks. Major pieces were exchanged and Phil's opponent offered a draw which was quickly refused as now it was Phil applying pressure. Thinking for 30 seconds over a move when you have only 3 min left is not a good idea (trust me I know!) and down went white's flag leaving East Cheshire winners 3.5 to 2.5. A fantastic result and such an exciting finish that I had to get a bottle of wine to take home to celebrate."