Central News
An interesting week and a bit for Central with all three teams in action. Unfortunately Central 3 took the only point with a draw against Nomads 3 last night.
Last Monday Central 2 travelled to The Willow Tree to take on the lowest of three West Bridgford teams in division 4. As always, a Monday away match proved difficult for recruiting players and I am grateful to Mick Frings and John Dell for answering the call when they would rather have been doing something else. Pat had completely forgotten about the match but luckily Simon cleaned his windows earlier in the day and reminded him.
With four players graded under 100 it was always going to be difficult and so it proved. I lost horribly, badly misplaying the opening, losing a piece and allowing my King to be flushed out into the centre. It was actually quite relaxing as after move 10 pretty much all of my moves were forced leading up to checkmate. Simon was a piece up and cruising but allowed a perpetual check. Pat got a solid draw. Again. Mick also drew but John was unable to save a King and Pawn ending a Pawn down. We lost 3.5-1.5.
The U100 County Team was well-represented by Centralites away at Leicester. John Dell, Alex, me, Simon (who was travelling as a sub) and Mike Seagrave from Gambit made the short drive and we were unbeaten. Upon arrival, Dorothy Blampied gave up her place in the team to Simon having spotted the bar and immediately set about making inroads into their brandy supply. I was able to join her soon after, my young opponent blitzing out bad moves despite the long time controls. Alex won very quickly, John drew and Simon once again threw away a win by stalemating his young opponent in an overwhelming position. Mike also won. A really enjoyable afternoon. Not sure of the final score but Notts won comfortably.
The First Team travelled to Nomads 1 Monday night and were again unlucky in that John Harrison thought it was a Thursday match and didn’t turn up. There were all sorts of shenanigans regarding board order, defaults, then no defaults before we eventually lost 4-1. Steve has already put out a full report. The important part was “A good night out in a good pub”.
Last night the Third Team entertained Nomads 3. Lukasz, on board 1, played his favourite Scandinavian and was checkmated after 6 moves. There was a silver lining in this as he was able to play his Club Championship game against Pat. It appeared to be a very interesting game judging by the amount of time they spent analysing it afterwards. It was almost like being at Gambit. Pat eventually won after Lukasz dropped his Queen, but he had serious winning chances earlier.
I won (again!) with a pleasing game against Clement Owusu who is ungraded but has been doing well so far this season. Simon managed to win a won game. John eventually succumbed to Mike Swanwick to leave the match drawn 2-2.