Club Knockout Quarter Finals

The Club Handicap Knockout is one which is always competitive, Poole along with Highcliffe fielded two teams, and both were in action tonight. Ellis’s fresh faced youngsters were up in Ringwood, and John’s veterans were hosting Bournemouth. I decided to stay in the cooler climes of Poole after Ringwood was described as “sub tropical paradise that is Greyfriars of a Monday evening” by Martin C.

Poole The Other one needed 3 points, Bournemouth needed 3.5.

Unfortunate start for Bournemouth as they were short players, one sub stood in, and the other board stood empty hoping that the promised arrival was just a little late. That left Martin O standing behind the board without even a pawn move, shadow boxing and psyching himself up muttering words of destruction only for the clock to slowly countdown to 30 and a handicap in the handicap for Bournemouth. Would have been nice to see the game played but it started with a point for Poole.

Tony S had a fairly quick game, unfortunately not a good result and suddenly the head start had been wiped out.

David F was next to fall, from what could have been a perpetual to half a point less than a perpetual. Suddenly we were 2-1 down.

Damon was short on time, playing on increments and about 2 minutes, his opponent had 50 minutes. It was a spicy 2 rooks + knight vs 2 rooks + bishop end game with pawns littered. Damon was able to swap off the knight and bishop at the advantage of a pawn and ended up with two passed pawns and rooks doubled up vertically then horizontally. His opponent was able to defend one of the promotions, but not both and once it was clear a pawn was queening the game was over. 2-2.

Tim had a very tight game, slightly separate pawns which didn’t seem to be too much of a bother, and a very even game. It seems a draw would have been accepted if Bournemouth didn’t need to get 1.5 out of two games. The game carried on as Bournemouth had to push and it settled to the Bournemouth king being closer to a pawn than Tim’s and it could usher it home to become royalty. A very tight game that nobody wanted to call.

3-2 to Bournemouth, they needed a draw, we needed a win from John W, sitting on board 1, I’m sure they paused their clocks for half an hour just so they could have a dramatic end. It looked fairly even, the white Bournemouth pieces had queen and knight attacking h7 and f7, protected by the black queen, but with the queen holding down the position there was a lot of interesting play with the remaining rooks and spare knight. Slowly John was able to improve his position, pick off some pawns, and hang his knight. A poisoned knight I grant you. Bournemouth didn’t take the bait and tried to hold everything together, but John’s rook was a lot more active and able to cause mayhem where the Bournemouth rook was blocked off by the knight asking to be taken. With clocks low, John managed to claim the win.

A very entertaining match with great games on both sides. A pleasure as always to welcome Bournemouth and look forward to seeing them again in the new season when no doubt they’ll be trying to pry the Poole-Bournemouth trophy from our grips again!

With one match settled and one Poole team into the semi-finals, eyes turned to phones and awaited word from Ringwood. Over the copper cables came the morse code of a result….3.5 needed…..Chip drew on top board….Zander drew on second board……Andy drew on third board……Leo won on 4th board……Harshal drew on 5th board…….on 6th board we had the returning Angus, first match of the season (in May), out of match fitness, a fairly level position and his opponent went for an aggressive queen for rook+knight trade. Perhaps because the queen was being trapped out of the game, perhaps because a perpetual could have been forced otherwise, perhaps an attempt to push home a space advantage. Angus took the trade and slowly unraveled his pieces and with the queen advantage won the final game to secure the match (okay, result order for dramatic effect and due to lack of information on the other games).

Final score 4-2 win for Poole, 3.5 was needed. A second team though to the semi-finals.

Well done to both teams for some excellent matches and plenty of excitement. A great day for Poole in the cup with 7 valuable points putting two teams through.

Thank you to our opponents for traveling and hosting and making them exciting matches.

Tarik
May 21, 2024