Thursday 5 March 2020

ECA 4 - 2 Marple A

No handshakes last night.  Taking a leaf from the world's great leaders we did our bit to contain the corona virus.  Having said that, chess has to be a pretty hazardous pursuit, locking heads over a board whilst your opponent labours over whether to move his knight to c3 or d2 whilst constantly taking huge breaths in and out.

Anyway, back to the match!  The sight of John Reed on board 4 was an unpleasant surprise for Marple and the look on some of their faces was priceless.  The psychological effect seemed to work.  John finished his match well before 9.00 after his dominant centralised Q had caused his opponent to throw pieces up the board in a flawed counter attack.  Tom finished soon after having equalised against his more than useful opponent.

Things then started to get a bit interesting.  Keven had replied well to an accelerated London and aided by a strong outposted N launched pieces at his opponent's K in what looked like a decisive attack.  Unfortunately.... going in for the kill he had a moment's lapse and placed his Q on an unsafe square.  It happens.

In my game my opponent had spent a lot of time on his opening moves but just ended up 2 pawns down and I was able to convert it into a fairly comfortable endgame.  The remaining 2 games both looked pretty wild affairs.  Steve eventually settling for a perpetual and Geoff finding the winning plan in a game he never looked like losing.

So all in all things worked out OK and a win's a win.

Tom   1/2   Glen Trueman (160)
Steve Tr   1/2   Alan Hall (144)
Geoff   1 - 0   Chris Baker (124)
John   1 - 0   David Preen (115)
Keven   0 - 1   Tony Doust (110)
Paul   1 - 0   Paul Horrocks (111)