ECB 5 - 1 Marple B

On a sweltering evening we managed to keep our cool last night and came up with some good finishing in a tense match.  The scoreline flattered us a bit and at one stage it looked like we were going to be lucky to draw the match at best.

John Reed  0  Andy Jenkins (140)  1
It can happen to the best of us.  An oversight by John let his opponent in for an unstoppable attack.

Geoff B  1  Terry Cowling (131)  0
Geoff got off to a flier and was 2 pawns up but then it became awkward and he had to give a pawn back before finishing it off.

Paul  1  David Preen (129)  0
In a tight game it looked like it was an even endgame but I managed to fix a weakness on his b pawn then come up with a tactic to force my a pawn through.

Keven  1  Chris Baker (126)  0
As usual Kev varied his opening and this Sicilian led to a very exciting game.  Kev was a pawn down but had more activity, particularly with his R's, and was eventually able able to sac a R on the h file to set up an unstoppable mate.

Jim  1  Tony Kay (124)  0
Jim also was a pawn down but had a strong "dragon" B.  He was later able to create an advanced passed pawn which caused his opponent to panic and Jim won easily at the end in a time scramble.

Tudor  1  Jeff Barlow (101)
Our secret weapon on board 6 gives us a 1 - 0 head start every match (no pressure on the next game Tudor!)  This time he created pressure and then struck with a N fork winning a Q.

So, we're sitting pretty at the top of the table and just need a draw from our last match to clinch the title - and if Altrincham drop any points in the meantime in their last 2 matches we've won anyway.