Friday 1st November saw Shrewsbury B take on Telepost A in our third match of the season. We were without Francis for this one, and Ted has now moved to Manchester, so Dan Lockett and Jim Wilkinson were drafted in.
Telepost were also slightly under strength, without the services of Trevor Brotherton, Phil Zabrocki and John Bashall but they still looked a good side.
A slight tweak was made to our board order as we swapped Ile and Peter around, with Ile now playing on board one. This was partly to give Peter a bit of a break from board one, but also because Ile has played well against Nigel Ferrington in the past. On board two, Peter was white against Matthew Clark, on board three, I was black against Graham Shepherd, on board four, Dan was white against Paul Officer and on board five, Jim was black against John Westhead.
The games got underway on time and things quickly got interesting on the bottom three boards. On board four, Dan seemed to get a strong position at the cost of a Pawn. Jim looked under some pressure from early on; he told me afterwards that he had mixed up his opening systems and he had a weak pawn at c7. I shall deal with my own game in one go, as it was the first to finish and not great chess from me. Actually, I played the opening pretty well and had a big, possibly winning advantage by move twelve. However, my play thereafter was very poor. I made no outright blunders but with a series of second-best moves, I frittered my advantage away and, when Graham offered a draw, I accepted. I was unsure of this decision at the time but in retrospect, I stand by it. Any advantage in the position was now Graham’s and I wasn’t playing well.
One advantage of finishing early is that one can look more closely at the other games. The top two boards looked alright for us; Ile’s game was competitive and, while Peter’s game was pretty much still in the opening (no change there!), I liked his position.
I didn’t like Jim’s position quite so much; he was now a pawn down and John was pressing hard. The problem with Dan’s game wasn’t so much the position – he was a Pawn down – but it was the kind of heavy piece position where that tends not to matter so much. Instead, Dan’s problem was the clock. He was down to fifteen minutes and Paul still had an hour left. Paul seems to be one of those players who moves quickly without it compromising his play, but Dan kept fighting on.
As is so often the case, at around 10 pm things really started to happen and quickly. First, under intense pressure, Jim made a final mistake which cost a piece, as his Queen was hanging and he had to resign.
Secondly, and sensationally, Ile was suddenly a piece up against Nigel and clearly winning!
Also, Peter was now the exchange up in an admittedly still complicated position.
Dan’s game finally ended in defeat, despite a valiant effort; a tough hard-fought game. Just two games still going and we needed to win both to salvage a point from the match.
We got one when Nigel, now running out of time as well as being a piece down, bowed to the inevitable and resigned. Apparently, this was Nigel’s first league defeat in two and a half years; a terrific win for Ile!
All down to the final game, and Peter was Rook for Knight up, with about ten minutes each left. Not only that, but he had two passed Pawns to Matthew’s one. Both Jim and I looked on in disbelief as Peter eschewed a Pawn check that would have forked King and Knight, but Peter had seen a much more elegant win, exchanging down to a King and Pawn ending. Peter’s passers were four files apart, so Matthew’s king was unable to stop them both. Matthew played a couple more moves then resigned. Peter was very pleased afterwards; he had every right to be, as he had just played a terrific game.
Final score Shrewsbury B 2.5 Telepost A 2.5
Mark Smith, B Team Captain