U2 vs Worthing

On Monday just past, the second team suffered a bit of a disaster. We knew we had a weakened team anyway with two unavailable, but two from the original team selection dropped out during the last week and we were left facing the match with no reserves at all, so I am thankful all stayed healthy and we maintained no defaults on the season.  Worthing is a great club but sometimes parking is a nightmare, and originally early after a fast drive from another commitment it took me time to find a space, by which time the match was in progress.  After half an hour I was pleased to see that although badly out-rated on paper, all of us were doing well.  It then emerged that Artur’s opening strategy on Board 2 had failed and his opponent exploited the weaknesses in his defensive structure which were designed to open the game for Artur.  Ian A on Board 5 played way above his experience and for a long time I thought he could hold on for a draw, but that too turned against us as Ian’s weaker pawn structure was very well exploited.  I am not sure what happened to Graham on Board 1, as my sights of his game were fewer but I thought for much of the time he was in at least a solid position from which at least a draw seemed likely, albeit that too turned sour for us. In my game on Board 3 I took a very strong advantage from a variation of the Ruy Lopez which I knew well and finished two pawns up, and I knew my opponent was in great difficulty as at one stage he was 28 minutes behind me; however he defended expertly and I had to divert to block an advancing centre pawn which I maybe ought to have stopped earlier and although at the end I was three pawns up with an advanced pawn of my own on the sixth rank, he managed to avoid defeat in a forced draw by repetition which I could not evade;  Steve on Board 4 was the last game to finish and at midway he also had a great attack and was two pawns up; unfortunately the attack floundered and material returned to parity, after which both sides made errors with Steve eventually missing the draw.  So we ended with our worst defeat of the season at 0.5-4.5.

That causes great difficulty for the second team in our aspiration to achieve one of the promotion places, although it is still mathematically possible if we do well in our last two games, but we would perhaps need other results to also go in our favour.  That said, the second team has had a very good season already.