A Team Progresses

Only time for a quick update, I’m afraid.  Our most recent match was against Telford A on bonfire night.  There were a few fireworks on the board too, with nice victories from Daniel Lockett against Stuart Ross, and David Everington against Stefan Tennant.  I drew against Dave Gostelow and was able to watch Ivor Salter’s game against Windsor Peck, Peter Kitchen having drawn with Richard Thompson by this stage.  Ivor was a pawn up against Windsor in a rook and pawn ending.  Although “All rook and pawn endings are drawn” is the quip often applied to these endings, this one certainly had winning prospects for Ivor.  After a while, though, Windsor was able to bring his king in front of Ivor’s last remaining pawn and a draw was agreed.

For those interested in these things (and shouldn’t that be all of us?), Chess magazine is currently running a series of articles on the basics of rook and pawn endings.  I also lent Ivor my copy of Jonathan Hawkins’ book, “Amateur to IM,” which has an excellent chapter on the basics of rook and pawn endings in it.

Anyway, a draw was fine to clinch the result for us, which was enough to move us to the top half of the league table for the first time this season.

Francis Best, A Team Captain