URP vs Crowborough

At the last session on 12th Feb we had a junior Rapid Play home match against our traditional rivals and next-door neighbours of Crowborough. As this fixture was in the Mimi-League subsection of the Mid Sussex Rapid Play Leagues, and as we could still be in contention to win that, yet again the team had to be fairly experienced so I kept the same top three.  Interestingly former Uckfield club member Daniel Longley was playing for Crowborough on Board 2 so Hugo Ullmann knew he would have a difficult task.  That said, he took it on with great gusto and some way into the game, having coached Daniel since he was eight I knew Hugo had him in some difficulty. However that proved too difficult to sustain, momentum changed and Hugo eventually lost.  That was quite a settled game by comparison with the other three, which proved why chess coaching can be damaging to your health, not to mention over the years to my hair !  Freddie Day on Board 4 was playing his first ever competitive evening game at this level and remained outwardly calm at least throughout, but as he knows there is a big step to this level with twice as long to play and sometimes he played too fast and missed strong opportunities, albeit he played extremely well to win his game quite comfortably.  Oliver Christian on Board 3 also had a bit of harum scarum to what otherwise was a very well-played game, and he missed an opportunity on his opponent’s queen, but by solid application of pressure converted to the advantage and won through. This left us 2-1 up and Benedict Weis on our top board knew he had a tough opponent graded nearly 20 points higher, and a strong Sussex player to boot. Holding only a slight positional advantage from the opening and being aware the team were 2-1 up, Benedict midway offered a draw, but his opponent knew as a captain he had to try for the win for his team. That proved too difficult for him as Benedict was playing sensibly with solid defence everywhere. Time ran down and at one point they both had less than two minutes left.  Under some time pressure they both made errors, but the Crowborough captain made one more critical.  Standing at the side without pressure from time, it was possible to calmly analyse that Benedict could have gone on to win if he had more time, but as the captain he did a wonderful thing by forcing his opponent to a draw by repetition and it is impossible to be critical of that as he knew with time running down that further mistakes were possible and a draw secured a match win for his team. So a 2.5-1.5 win means that we now have to win or only draw our last game in the Mini-League to win this part of the competition !