Shrewsbury B faced an uphill struggle against champions Newport A on Thursday. Unfortunately, we were only able to field three players due to a combination of circumstances. Newport were also below full strength (no Lawrence Cooper, Nick Rutter or Nick Arkell), so, as Ian Jamieson pointed out after the match it might have been interesting had we been able to field a full team.
The games which did take place were Peter Kitchen on board 1, White against Nat Paul, Olesegun Ilesanmi with Black on board 2 against Ian Jamieson, and Mark Smith White on board 3 against Chris Lewis.
There was general amusement at the opening on board 2 as Ian opened against Ile with 1.b4! I know I am going against my vow by discussing openings here but I don’t believe I am betraying any secrets by pointing out that 1.b4 is Ile’s favourite first move.
I could similarly break my rule by discussing my own opening with Chris Lewis without betraying any secrets but I’ll leave you to guess what it was. A balanced position resulted, in which Chris had an isolated pawn on d5. I posted a knight on d4 which looked great but didn’t really do much. Chris was looking to make headway on the Kingside but my defences seemed adequate; in other words, balanced.
Unfortunately, the same could not be said of board 1. I couldn’t betray any opening secrets, even if I wanted to, because I have no idea what the opening was! All I know is that the first time I looked at it, the position looked wild but already very difficult for Peter. By the way, I’m not sure I’m buying Peter’s excuse that he got a bad position from the opening because he had prepared for Nick Rutter or Lawrence Cooper and not Nat!
Ile’s game featured a lot of early exchanges and Ile offered a draw. Normally, I wouldn’t be in favour of an early draw offer when we’re two boards shy but in this case I think it was a fair call, as Peter was pretty much lost by now but also the position looked dead drawn and we needed to salvage what we could from the evening. Even at this early stage of the season, it looks quite likely that relegation could be decided by board count. Initially Ian declined Ile’s offer.
Not much later Peter had to bow to the inevitable and resign. A tough evening for Peter; board 1 in division 1 is a hard gig. Hopefully, he’ll get plenty of points as the season goes on. The result of that game and, therefore, the match decided, Ian took the draw against Ile. This left just me and Chris to finish. We had reached an ending or late middlegame with one pair of Rooks and all the Knights; quite an unusual balance.
Chris thought he saw an opportunity to win a Pawn, his Knights on d3 and a4 targeting my pawn on b2. While this was happening, Ile and Ian agreed their draw, so I played 29.b3 and offered a draw. Chris thought for a minute or so, declined my offer and played 29.Nxc3? missing that 30.Re3 skewers the knights. He thought for another minute then resigned, a bizarre end to the evening. In any other circumstances, I’m sure that Chris would have been more careful but he was focused on whether or not he wanted to spend an hour or so trying to grind out a win in a dead rubber, rather than on whether or not he could actually take the Pawn.
Final score Newport A 3.5 Shrewsbury B 1.5.
Mark Smith, B Team Captain