Next up came our fixture against Newport A. Having won the home fixture, albeit narrowly, it stands to reason that Newport would be out for revenge, but at least we knew we could in theory win the match. Alas, it was not to be.
Matters started amusingly in that boards 2,3 and 5 all started with the Scandinavian. After a few quips about mirroring moves on boards 2 and 3, in order to guarantee a score of 50%, the positions duly diverged pretty early on. Peter has described his game against Chris Lewis:
“For this game I owe the team an apology: due to a very busy couple of days at work, I was shattered by the time I got to Newport and played my worst game for a good few months. I caught Chris out in the opening, but as often happens to me in that variation (French Tarrasch), I lost the thread in a quiet sideline. I didn’t know a tactical refutation which rendered his play harmless. I then offered a pawn to get developed (which seemed the right thing to do at the time), but with some accurate play (particularly centralising his queen), Chris nipped my play in the bud. A solid pawn down, I knew I had good drawing chances if I made it to an opposite coloured bishops ending and, in my desire to do that, and through tiredness, I missed an obvious tactic which cost me the exchange. Game over.”
Fireworks were erupting on board 5 where Mark sacrificed a knight on f7 for an attack against Danny Griffiths’ King. In Marks words, “The game contains quite a lot of mistakes. Perhaps the sacrifice isn’t entirely unsound if I exchange rooks on move 20 then play Nf4 (Fritz reckons its level). Neither of us played the ending very well either, though at least I have the excuse of being down to my last 5 minutes. However I do think it’s quite an exciting game and that some of the positions are interesting.” The score of the game can be played through here.
In the remaining games, it looked like we should stand a chance of at least getting 50%, maybe more. My own game against Nick followed a similar pattern as our game at the home fixture, except that the computer reckoned I had a persistent advantage out of the opening. I played a closed Sicilian, subsequently building up pressure against Nick’s isolated d-Pawn. In trying to increase my advantage, I started getting behind on the clock, finally missing a tactical blow at the very end, which would have clinched the game in my favour. Credit to Nick, as always, for continuing to cause problems even in a difficult situation. An interesting game which can be played through here. Shortly afterwards, David and Simon agreed a draw on board 3, leaving just the game between Daniel and Nathanael to finish. Clocks were down to the last few minutes, with Nathanael slightly ahead in terms of time and a pawn extra in terms of material. In this situation, Daniel wriggled and fought valiantly, but to no avail, Nathanael managing to avoid a stalemate trap and checkmate with his newly promoted Queen.
| Newport A | Shrewsbury A | |
| N. Rutter | ½-½ | F. Best |
| N. Paul | 1-0 | D. Lockett |
| S. Maydew | ½-½ | D. Everington |
| C. Lewis | 1-0 | P. Kitchen |
| D. Griffiths | ½-½ | M. Smith |
| 3½-1½ |
Francis Best