"After instructing the team to ensure they had circulation all the way down
to their toes, and deafened by the sound of a table-top heater beside the next
climber below me, I embarked on a “Fort Knox” defense of the French variety,
which proved to be unsound against a titanic avalanche on the left hand side,
with rooks and queen and bishop tearing at my grip on the ice-wall. Alas,
my best efforts failing, when all the powerful pieces had exchanged, a mere
snowball of an h-pawn swept past my king and knight.
This gave me time, fallen to earth, to watch the other climbers. Of
particular note was Steve, who allowing his rook to be skewered (do climbers use
skewers?) I gave up as lost, only to find him triumphantly scaling the peak of
Mt Mate, disdaining to fork K and Q, but trapping his opposed king between h-
and g-pawn pairs and impaling him mercilessly with a Q disguised as an
ice-axe.
And so to Jim...... what can I say? His assault on the peak of “King
in Castle” having failed, and to my despair allowing a predictable discovered
check to set up a family fork of K Q and R, he fearlessly struggled on,
virtually ropeless (- hopeless), until as light failed and the awful darkness of
the venue closed in upon him, his well clad opponent slipped and dropped his
flag, losing on time.
And Dave B - the backup man? He sailed to the top behind a
barrier of advancing sherpa pawns, as if to say “What’s the problem?”
Of course, we did outgrade them!"
Tudor's game - explained as only he can....
"The team assembled to check their puffa jackets at paraffin lamps. All in good order. The assault on the South face of Mount Chorlton was underway.
Dave Newell led us into battle, with Dave Taylor as captain and ropes man on board two.
Jim and I made up the next wave of attackers. We were stuck in a crevasse with an additional mobile heater which gave comfort if restricting our movements. I could only barely see the icy surface of the shelf. Beneath us I could make out the figures of Steve and Dave, the silent assassins.
I played an Alekhine defense and found a remarkable way of squeezing an advantage of a great bishop on the h8 a1 diagonal against a knight with less control over its footing than a weary climber.
Some moves later I had marginal gains and hopes before blundering a pawn. Even then there were hopes of an endgame squeeze if I switched into full complications mode. My king was advancing fearlessly, intent on mopping up a queenside majority. Then horror, I had trapped my king, and was about to be mated by the two knights, the pawns I was attacking, and the cowering white king.
Time pressure for my opponent and I did not resign. He played a move which forced me to escape the mate at the expense of my beautiful bishop, now on a shorter diagonal.
I was three pawns down, admittedly all on his crashed queenside, and with my king still active. Much scrambling and huffing and puffing before we ended with two kings and me with my a pawn and a few seconds on the clock.
I accepted the draw offered about fifteen moves earlier.
I plead ice-sickness for my irresponsible play.
Fortunately the exemplary efforts of the others meant that the expedition was a success, with. 4-2 result."
CHORLTON
B
EAST CHESHIRE B
A Beresford (132)
0.5 D
Newell (160) 0.5
H Eskadari (124)
1
D R Taylor (134) 0
P Horwell (130)
0
J McKie (129) 1
H Hughes (123)
0.5 T
Rickards (139) 0.5
P Bennett (121)
0 S
McCall (130) 1
D Otto
(120)
0 D Broadbent
(139) 1
Chorlton B:
2
East Cheshire B: 4
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