With safety and mid-table mediocrity assured for Shrewsbury B irrespective of their final two results of the league season, Matt Best’s side slumped to their heaviest defeat of the season against promotion chasers Priorslee Lions B.
After having managed to postpone Wellington A’s promotion back to the top flight by a few weeks, the hosts were hoping to similarly deflate their opponent’s bid with a defeat. However, without Ivor Salter and facing a strong line-up, the heroics were not to be repeated this time around.
Priorslee grabbed an early initiative as Shrewsbury appeared to be mentally on their summer holidays (indeed, actually so in Ivor’s case!). Firstly, George Viszokai beat Eric Inglis on board 5 after advancing a menacing pair of passed pawns down the board, before Norman O’Connor and Munroe Morrison agreed a quick draw in a Reti-type set up.
The games on boards three and four looked somewhat critical. Francis Rooney lost a piece for two pawns in the opening against Gary White, whose explosive attacking set-up derailed the usually solid London system with impressive style. Although Francis (who had no compensation for the material disadvantage) hung on for a considerable amount of time, he eventually crumbled.
Matt Best’s game against the winner of the Minor section at the recent Exmouth Congress Graham Shepherd followed a similar theme. As Black in the Scandinavian Matt made a seemingly innocuous Queen move which ultimately lost the game. It resulted in Matt either having to give up a straight piece, or exchange pieces off but leave an open file and menacing attack lined up on his King. Although he opted for the latter, with the aim of shifting his King over to h8 and bringing across his rooks to launch a counter-attack, Graham exchanged off Matt’s dark squared Bishop for a Knight, allowing him to set an immensely powerful Bishop controlling the h8 square, blocking in the King and preventing any counter attacks. Matt ended up losing a piece and sacrificing the exchange to postpone the inevitable, but, as is so often the case, there was no stopping the inevitable. After having made Graham play on for a little longer than was perhaps necessary, Matt eventually resigned to end his recent run of good form.
That meant the win was sealed for the visitors, and Shrewsbury were reliant upon Mark Smith to get a result against Adrian Zdanowski on top board to avoid their worst result of the season. However, despite holding on for an impressive amount of time, Adrian calmly secured the win thanks to a powerful pawn on the seventh trapping in Mark’s King.
Shrewsbury B 0.5-4.5 Priorslee Lions B
- M. Smith 0-1 A. Zdanowski
- N. O’Connor 0.5-0.5 M. Morrison
- M. Best 0-1 G. Shepherd
- F. Rooney 0-1 G. White
- E. Inglis 0-1 G. Viszokai