Having been a bit short of time to update the website in respect of A team matches, I thought I would catch up before our next match, the fixture against Telepost A on Friday 6th February. Thanks to other players who have contributed comments.
First, my game against Richard Croot from our Ludlow match before Christmas is now included in the “Interesting Games” page. You will probably have seen the sad news regarding the death of Ludlow player, Alan Wright, and Ludlow have now withdrawn from the league. This means that we are now at the bottom of the league at the time of writing. See the earlier post for a description of that match.
First in the New Year came our rearranged against Wellington on 14th January. This was an interesting match in that all the games lasted for virtually the whole time allowance. Peter Kitchen describes his game against James Kuczynski:
“A rare occasion when I was quickly half an hour up on the clock. He tried to pay a Staunton Gambit (1.d5 d5 2.e4 – surely the Blackmar-Diemer – FB) but I spoiled his fun by playing a French. Clearly uncomfortable, he took a long time playing into a variation of the Advance that was ultimately very good for me. I enticed him into a premature 8.Bxh6 which enabled me to win a pawn at the cost of doubled h-pawns. I then grabbed a second pawn. I felt at the time it was wrong and I shouldn’t have been so greedy (a view shared by Mark) but after consulting my book, it is actually fine. I made an inaccuracy in the ensuing moves which put me on the back foot, enabling James to win both pawns back and get two rooks on the seventh.
“At this stage things didn’t look great, but with two bishops versus two knights (and a rook each), I took command of the ensuing endgame, winning one pawn and getting my rook active behind his passed a-pawn. I still had a time advantage, and concentrated on tying his pieces down. But I mistakenly assumed his a-pawn was his last chance – in winning that he managed what looked like a desperate f5 break in the centre which caused great confusion. I missed the best continuation and walked into a mate where my pawns entombed my king. Even had I found the right continuation (…f4), James still had good chances to make a draw. “
In the meantime, I had walked into Toby Neal’s prepared line against my closed Sicilian. I gained a pawn but Toby had a lasting initiative. We gradually progressed towards a double Rook and Pawn ending, where for a number of moves, Toby could have doubled his rooks on the seventh, which looked like it might have been dangerous. I advanced my central pawns in an attempt to generate counterplay and returned the extra pawn and then another to keep active. Eventually, we simplified to a Rook and two Pawns for Toby against my Rook and single Pawn. With the Pawns on the same side of the board, this quickly simplified to a draw.
By coincidence, David’s game against Tiago Faustino had also simplified to a Rook and Pawn ending, except that this one was going distinctively Wellington’s way. This was unfortunate as David’s position had been looking very promising earlier on, after playing the Warren Goldman line against Tiago’s Caro Kann; this had served David well against Chris Lewis earlier in the season in our home fixture against Newport (see interesting games tab). David has sportingly annotated this game, which you can play through here.
Mark Smith continued his fine run of form by defeating Wellington’s John Lento on board 5. Unfortunately, by this stage, it was for consolation only, as Daniel’s position was also looking difficult against Colin Roberts. With both players getting short of time, Colin was happy to agree a draw, thus clinching the match for Wellington.
| Wellington A | Shrewsbury A | |
| T. Neal | ½-½ | F. Best |
| C. Roberts | ½-½ | D. Lockett |
| T. Faustino | 1-0 | D. Everington |
| J. Kuczynski | 1-0 | P. Kitchen |
| J. Lenton | 0-1 | M. Smith |
| 3-2 |
Francis Best