Andrew Lewis came to the rescue of Ian Davies’ Shrewsbury C team as they started the season with a 2-2 draw at home to fellow promotion contenders Wellington B.
The game was the first on Shrewsbury’s new premises at the Redwood centre (very smart!) and looked to be off to a good start when Fred Harris marked his return to regular league chess by winning a rook against Colin Mace on board 4. Eric Inglis on three then promptly proceeded to win an exchange to put him in a commanding position, whilst Andrew Lewis had a superior position on board two.
The only signs of trouble were on top board where, in the clash of the captains, Ian Davies’ experiment with the King’s Indian had gone slightly wrong, with Derrick Powell’s superb attacking play leading to a very awkward position for the home skipper.
Indeed, after Harris missed a forced mate in three along the back rank, top board was the first game to finish with Ian finally succumbing to the attack and resigning. Harris was able to win shortly after though, levelling the scores.
By this stage, board three had reached an interesting material imbalance, with Inglis having solely a king and a pair of rooks against Neil Sampson’s Rook, Bishop and three Pawns. At this stage, Sampson appeared to be winning until Inglis was able to grab back one pawn and had a guaranteed draw on the cards at one stage, where there could have been a mass exchange, in which Eric would have sacrificed his second rook for the two pawns, leaving the position as just a King and Bishop vs a King.
However, the game didn’t go down that particular route, with Inglis instead opting to go down a slightly more tricky route, but he did end up with a solidly drawn position (see diagram) only to blunder and end up losing. 2-1 to Wellington, and all the pressure on drawmaster Lewis to win.
However, in a time scramble with an exchange up, he duly managed to do so, despite a moment of slight controversy when Dele pressed the wrong clock and had his mistake pointed out to him by teammate Sampson – an aberration of the rules, but the game proceeded as normal and Lewis managed to win anyway, rendering any potential arguments churlish.
Shrewsbury C 2-2 Wellington B
- I. Davies 0-1 D. Powell
- A. Lewis 1-0 D. Ogundipe
- E. Inglis 0-1 N. Sampson
- F. Harris 1-0. C. Mace
The report on Sampson is impressionistic,i.e. wrong, and grossly unfair to Neil Sampson. I didn’t win the exchange: he sacrificed it to achieve a “windmill” that I didn’t see coming. He could have forced a draw by repetition but played on for a win. The ending should have been drawn by me, but I mis-triangulated my king.