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B Team Battle to Draw

Shrewsbury B played their season opener against Maddocks A last Friday.  Shrewsbury were without Ile, who has been working nights, and Dan Lockett stepped in.

The first challenge of the evening was to arrange the tables so that everyone could play comfortably as we now have less space then previously.  I think it was just about ok.

I am not going to get into opening details too much this season, partly because some people have raised concerns about giving away opening secrets, but mostly because I’ve come to the conclusion that worrying about what everyone else is playing is not good for my own opening play!

All of the positions from the opening seemed to contain plenty of interest, almost from the outset. Peter Kitchen looked to be under the cosh on board one as his opponent, Adrian Zdanowski, quickly built up what appeared a massive position. Board 2, with Francis Best white against Dave Gostelow, was more of a slow burner but looked interesting.  Board three saw Ted Eales with black against Glyn Pugh and seemed to be doing ok.  My own game with white against Tony Preece got quite exciting quite quickly, as well as being rather sharp.  I felt as if I had a clear advantage, though going through the game afterwards, I no longer believe this, at least in the early stages. Dan’s game with black against Gary White also looked interesting, with a big battle for squares in the centre developing.

Glancing across to Ted after the games had been going an hour or so, I was aware that Ted was unhappy with his position, though it didn’t look that bad to me. It was clear that whereas before the position was probably about equal, now it was definitely Glyn who was pressing.

Not much later we had the first result of the evening and it was not in our favour! Peter bowed to the inevitable and resigned.  A tough evening for Peter with the black pieces against a strong player and an unpleasant position from early on.

Board two was progressing and most of the pieces were still on the board. I have to admit that I saw very little of this game, partly because it was on the other table and I had my back to it, but mostly because my own game was now demanding my complete attention.  With Kings on opposite sides I had marched my h-pawn up the board and was lining up my major pieces on the g and h files.  The engine reckons black was still ok with precise play but Tony moved his king up to g7, after which he had to advance his Kingside pawns. I could and probably should have taken his pawn on h5 but instead tried to get fancy, after which Tony found a resource with e5 giving up that pawn but at least getting some play.  The position remained extremely sharp. While this was going on, quite suddenly (it seemed to me but, as I say, I was absorbed in my own game) we had two results.  Francis had lost against Dave but on the other hand, Ted had succeeded in completely turning his game around against Glyn and winning, a fine performance.  There had been some exchanges in Dan’s game and it looked pretty even to me but I only allowed myself the briefest of glimpses.

According to Francis, his game was a closed Sicilian.  After a dubious decision on Francis’s part, Dave was pressing on the Queenside, whilst Francis was attempting to generate attacking chances on the Kingside, with Dave’s pressure proving more effective.  A bit like the Smith v Preece game, a succession of dubious moves resulted in an oscillating computer assessment of the resulting positions, but Francis made the final mistake.

I was still hoping to win at this point; I was a pawn up and my pieces were on good squares but now both kings were starting to look a bit draughty, so when Tony offered to exchange queens, I did it without thinking much.  Now a still sharp semi-ending arose, which, I’m afraid to say, I didn’t play very well (Tony made mistakes too but mine were worse). We both made losing blunders which weren’t taken advantage of.  In the end Tony managed to liquidate all material and the game was drawn.  At least I didn’t lose!

All down to Dan on board 5.  By now he was a bishop up (not sure how that happened) but both players were into their final five minutes.  Still, Dan held his nerve and brought home the point.

Final score Shrewsbury B 2.5 Maddocks A 2.5.  A decent start to the season.

A request from Francis,can we let him have score sheets from our games for his interesting games post?

Mark Smith, B Team Captain

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