Central 2 Away to Gambit 5
The 2nd team got the new season underway on Tuesday night with a visit to our near neighbours and newly promoted Gambit 5.
We turned up ready for battle so there was no need for Graham’s (in)famous ‘car-park speech’. Indeed Gambit have no car-park so it would have been tricky.
The teams were fairly well matched so it was no surprise that the honours were even at the end of the night.
Graham recorded a smooth win on top board against Ronnie Watson, whilst both Andy and Pat split the point without too much drama.
Simon, after shouting ‘QUIET!’ at the top of his voice just after the start due to excessive Gambit raucousness possibly managed to put himself off and made a bad mistake in the opening. The position became pretty complicated and unbalanced later on (at one stage it appeared that the pieces had been dropped on the board randomly) but eventually he succumbed.
I unleashed Bird’s Opening on an unsuspecting Ken Heath and played pretty solidly, setting up a Stonewall pawn formation completely neutralising his Bishops. The stage was set for my Knights to maraud but somehow the pawn formation neutralised my Knights as well. Oh well, I’m happy with a solid draw in the first game of the season.
1. Ronnie Watson 0-1 Graham Gibson
2. Derek Padvis draw Andrew Sutton
3. Mike Seagrave draw Patrick Allen
4. Alan Groves 1-0 Simon Parham
5. Ken Heath draw Kevin Argyle Match drawn.