Shrewsbury B’s hopes of promotion from the second division were dealt a blow last night, as captain Matt Best was left wondering quite how his side managed to slip to defeat away to a strong Oswestry A side. Shrewsbury claimed a narrow victory in the reverse fixture, but the hosts were bolstered by the subsequent addition of one of the county’s strongest players, Richard Bryant, on top board and so outgraded their visitors on each of the top 4 boards.
It was the sole board on which Shrewsbury held the grading edge which finished first. On board 5, Andrew Lewis – standing in for Mark Smith – was up against last-minute stand-in Ron Thomson. Andrew got an edge out of the opening, controlling the open c-file and forcing Ron’s two Knights back onto the 8th rank. However, Ron’s experience saw him fend off the pressure and trade off all the major pieces, leading to a predictable draw.
Next up was the board 3 encounter between Norman O’Connor and the visitors’ captain Graham Ives. From an early stage, Norman looked to be building up an advantage, forcing Graham’s King into an untidy position – meaning he had to castle “by hand” and that his Rook was trapped in for a few moves – and pushing through his isolated but passed and powerful d-pawn. However, Graham defended tenaciously, his resilience eventually leading to an untidy, drawish position in which neither player could really make significant progress.
It was now, with the scores level, that the wheels started to come off the Shrewsbury bandwagon. On top board, Matt Best – rejuvenated after a slow start to the season – was facing a daunting task against Richard. However, in a game on its way towards the interesting games page (it may well be there for your delectation by the time you read this), he slowly and painstakingly built up a slight edge – the computer analysis suggests White was better for 39 of the first 41 moves (or 78 of the 82, depending on how you class it!) and level for another – and eventually managed to engineer a technically won endgame with a massive time advantage: he had around half an hour to Richard’s 5 minutes. However, with youth comes naivety and, although Matt does know better really (trust me!), he rushed the ending and Richard’s quality shone through, first leveling and then eventually winning the ending to edge Oswestry ahead.
That placed the pressure on the final two boards to score at least 75% between them to rescue anything from the match. However, it was not to be. Ivor Salter let slip a superior position and pawn advantage from the opening against John Davies on board 4, first giving back the pawn, then losing the exchange and seeing his significant time advantage eroded. Although he fought on for a while, it was a thankless task and John sealed the win to wrap up the points for Oswestry. There was, however, still time for some consolation for Shrewsbury as Daniel Lockett – the only Shrewsbury player who looked worse off early on – turned down a piece sacrifice by David Bennion on board 2, consolidated and expanded, winning the exchange and eventually forcing through his a-Pawn to Queen and win the game, continuing his superb form for the season.
Shrewsbury B 2-3 Oswestry A
- M. Best 0-1 R. Bryant
- D. Lockett 1-0 D. Bennion
- N. O’Connor ½-½ G. Ives
- I. Salter 0-1 J. Davies
- A. “Quick draw” Lewis ½-½ R. Thomson