Thursday 13 February 2020

ECA 3.5 - 2.5 Stockport B

We entertained Stockport B last night who had inflicted our only league defeat on us so far this season when thy beat us narrowly at their place.  So we were looking for revenge and fortunately we just got over the line against a decent team.

Steve Tranter was the first to finish and got us off to a good start.  After almost getting a draw against a former world champion at a simul in Spain last week he was in confident and relaxed mood and never looked in any trouble.

Things then got a bit tricky for us.  Geoff had lost to his highly graded opponent and Jim was also under the cosh.  He had lost a pawn out of the opening but sensibly had manufactured a B versus N ending but was just unable to hold on for a draw.

I was in a spot of time trouble (4 minutes to his 40) but was a piece up for 2 pawns and he offered a draw which was very tempting, but I decided to keep plugging away.  In the meantime Tom's game looked pretty even and he declined a couple of draw offers before going on to win on time and keep his impressive form going.

John had a good battle before it fizzled out in to a draw so the match result hinged on my game.  Ian had defended a difficult position early on and made it tough for me before he played an illegal N move (chess blindness!) which had given me the initiative again.  At the end I was a R up with 2 pawns about to promote but he carried on, hoping I would lose on time but he made another illegal move (!) and I claimed the win.

So it was a close run thing in the end but the result sends us to the top of the table again.  Nice to see East Cheshire on top of two divisions at the moment with the B team also flying.

Geoff  0  Andy Stoker (177)  1
John  1/2  Jill Barber (152)  1/2
Steve Tr  1  Mike Tunstall (152)  0
Tom  1  Gareth Griffiths  (142)  0
Jim  0  Peter Taylor (129)  1
Paul  1  Ian Anderson (115)  0