B Team Chalks up First Victory

B Team Captain, Ian Davies, writes,

“The B team’s second match and first home game of the season ended in a resounding victory over town rivals Telepost B.  I will just give a short resume of what went on as I don’t think I’m expert enough to give a detailed account of each game. This will be the theme of these reports as we go forward into the season. [N.B. if anyone else wants to submit comments on their own games in the B team, please send them to me – Francis]

It was the same board order as our opening match with Andrew first to finish, securing a draw against Charles Micaleff’s Sicilian defence by completely blocking the position and offering a draw!! Mark on board one played a Gruenfeld defence against Keith Tabner, dropping a pawn but getting some compensation in return.  Indeed, he eventually won the pawn back and the game was drawn.  Third to finish was Ivor, who was up against the dangerous Quentin Mills.  However, the latter had no answer to Ivor’s Albin counter gambit, in which White has to be very careful and know the lines.  The Telepost player never got developed properly, dropped a piece and went on to lose.  Hurray, we were in the lead!

I played the Dutch defence against John Casewell on the bottom board and managed to lose a critical pawn after John had played one or two unusual moves.  I put this down to my lack of concentration, which he took full advantage of, as all my opponents seem to do!  However, I hung in there and played what I thought was a killer rook sacrifice, the end result being my opponent losing his Queen.  At the last moment, though,  John saw the trap and calmly went on to take another of my pawns.  Why don’t people just do what they’re supposed to do!!

The game appeared to be heading for  a draw, with me desperately trying to hang on.  Then, just to prove there is a God, John put his Queen where I had hoped he would have put it a couple of moves earlier, and I pinned it to his King with my Bishop.  This meant we had won the match with Norman still to finish his game on board two.  He duly did this with a very nice win over the rapidly improving Alistair Benjamin.  Norman opened with the Reti and built up tremendous Queen side pressure, eventually winning the exchange and the game.  Not Telepost’s full strength team but still a great result for us.”