On account of the unavailability of four regular A team players, no fewer than three members of the B team were drafted in to take on the mighty Newport A, plus Peter Kitchen, who is currently out of chess action normally, because of work and family commitments. A team regular, Mark Smith, found himself elevated to board one in the absence of most of his usual colleagues.
I was first to finish after playing some of the best chess I have in a long time, by completely crushing my opponent with the Grand Prix attack which, on a very stormy, windswept night (thought the windows were going to come out at one stage), got us off to a great start. Just what all captains should do!
Things then started to go downhill, as Mark on board 1 was a pawn down to the ultra strong Nick Rutter, and Peter on board 3 was rapidly running out of time and also a pawn down to Chris Lewis (although the incremental time control was in operation). Both eventually lost and it looked as if we and the windows were both going to be blown away. So it was a case of, “Send for International Rescue.” This, of course, came in the form of Celia and Ile, playing boards 2 and 4 respectively. Dr Ile, who mentioned that he would have been happy with a draw earlier on, now knew that it was all or nothing. After going through a little stressful period (don’t we all), he settled down to the task in hand and played superbly to outwit his opponent.
All was now down to Celia, and what a cool customer our Senorita is! In a very complicated endgame, which, to me at least, looked lost, as her opponent, Nathanael Paul, had two very strong looking passed pawns on the a-file, ready to race up the board (but again what do I know?) The 14 year old Spaniard showed remarkable endgame skill to let Nathanael do just that, but also queened her own pawn at the same time. The game and match were drawn to end a memorable night.
Ian Davies, Acting A Team Captain (thanks Ian and team – Francis)