Shrewsbury B were just unable to secure a result against second division title favourites Wellington A on Friday night.
Wellington had a grading advantage on every board – at its smallest on board 5 and increasing on each board, to the stage where the visitors had a 38 point grading advantage on top board.
Shrewsbury captain Matt Best had called on the services of Francis Rooney for the second time this season to play board 5, and he faced Ken Hickmott. Rooney, Black, played a Sicilian Dragon set up, but found himself with his dark-squared Bishop trapped in by his own pawns, and ended up having to give it up for two pawns, although he had a little counterplay for it.
On board 4, Best had managed to build up a reasonable position against John Lenton’s French, with a strong Knight outpost on c5. However, an oversight allowed Lenton to simultaneously win a pawn, exchange a pair of rooks and force the retreat of Best’s Knight.
Things were looking a little better on board 3, where Norman O’Connor had a solid position in the middle against Richard Gillespie with material level. However, the main interest was on board two. Ivor Salter was white against Toby Neal, and Neal opted to sacrifice a rook in order to build a thoroughly menacing attack on Ivor’s Kingside with a rampant f-pawn and Queen, Bishop and his one remaining rook all aligned.
Top board was looking fairly quiet, with Mark Smith able to engineer a solid position against Colin Roberts despite the significant grading gap.
It didn’t take too long for Rooney’s attack to fizzle out on board 5, and he eventually fell to defeat. There was, however, better news on board 4. Matt managed to set up a solid fortress, meaning that John was still a pawn up (and a passed pawn at that) in a position with just Kings, Queens and a rook apiece to join the collection of pawns, its lack of support from other pawns and a poor pawn structure meant he was unable to force a way through, and draw was agreed.
By this stage, it was looking as though Toby’s sacrifice was going to pay dividends on board two, as there seemed to be little Ivor could do to avoid defeat. Norman dropped a piece on board three and promptly resigned, meaning Ivor had to soldier on.
At this stage, Colin offered Mark a draw on top board. Mark had a slightly superior position, although he was down on the clock, and opted to play on in order to preserve some chance, however slim, of a result for Shrewsbury.
Ivor managed to rescue a draw with a perpetual – despite the match situation, it was all he could do in order to prevent defeat, so he had to take it.
Mark meanwhile had managed to engineer a winning position on top board at the expense of several minutes’ precious time. As he advanced his passed a-pawn, he forgot to press his clock with barely three minutes left. In a hugely generous, sporting gesture, Colin pointed this fact out to Mark when he could have let the time run down – footballers take note!
Mark managed to secure a quite brilliant win in a hectic time scramble, but it was too little, too late for Shrewsbury. It does, however, mean that they will find themselves outside the relegation zone over Christmas with just one game left until the halfway point.
Shrewsbury B 2-3 Wellington A
- M. Smith 1-0 C. Roberts
- I. Salter o.5-0.5 T. Neal
- N. O’Connor 0-1 R. Gillespie
- M. Best 0.5-0.5 J. Lenton
- F. Rooney 0-1 K. Hickmott
Hi, Toby here. Your report of Ivor’s game against me was a little ungenerous to Ivor. Ivor had outplayed me. I was actually in desperate straits and close to resigning. I was very relieved to swindle him and escape with a draw.