Division 4 – Poole E 1- 3 Poole D – 25/1/18

Poole E vs Poole D Two dark horses for the B&DCL Division 4 title locked horns last night, hoping to prove that they have all the credentials to win!

Board 1: Richard Smith vs Ciaran Southey

Play began on board one with the intention from both players of a decisive result via a King’s gambit accepted. However, a slightly weak trade of pieces losing the Bishop pair for Ciaran led to a gradual accumulation of positional pressure due to the absence of the light square Bishop for Black.

With a Knight on g5 for White Ciaran played the natural move h6 forcing either the retreat or the sacrifice of the knight. The knight was flung onto the f7 square and a series of tactics using pins from a diagonal and a Rook on the f file won the piece back, culminating in the win of a pawn and an exposed King for Black. Eventually the difficulty of the position to play showed for Black and Queen and Bishop converged for a Checkmate. A tough loss for Ciaran, but he showed great maturity analysing the game afterwards and he is only getting better and better.

Board 2: Adam Jaggard vs David Burt

Far from their first confrontation, Adam looked to gain the better of a Solid looking opening for both sides, gaining the slightly more active pieces and soon found himself up an Exchange with powerful heavy pieces marshalling the open Centre of the board.

Dave Burt is never one to roll over, however and always tries to find the most active defence possible. Adam being characteristically optimistic attempted to trap Dave’s Queen culminating in the loss of material which proved decisive. Unlucky for Adam, but reasons to be encouraged with his performance. Congratulations to Dave, who has been in unusually patchy form of late.

Board 3: Chris Ambrose vs Tim Mc Cullagh

The battle of the Captains and bragging rights began with Chris opening with 1.c4. Aggressive in it’s own regard. It seemed Chris was able to hold a slight advantage for the opening 10 moves, with a solid Fianchetto setup and the usual Queenside expansion associated with 1.c4 setups. Tim was out for blood though and he quickly capitalized on one or two passive moves by Chris and started to gain a large amount of Space on the Kingside and in the Centre with monstrous pawns on e5 and g5. Chris having wasted a Tempo on the scary Kh1 walking into the same File as a Menacing looking Rook on h8 started to realize he was slightly worse and aimed to trade off some pieces.

Tim in the knowledge he had the slightly superior position attempted to take actions to increase this advantage, however Chris soon won a pawn taking a pawn on g4. Tim, looking to drive the Queen on g4 away with his own Queen, undefended his Rook on f6. The piece proved to be decisive and the rest; as they say Was just a matter of Technique. A Very thematic game 1-0

Board 4: Tony Pritchard vs David Lockwood

David Lockwood sporting his signature Philidor defence faced a determined performance against Tony, who looked uncompromising in securing an opening advantage. He was quick to exploit a natural but slightly misguided attempt by David to trade off some pieces playing nh5 and take some pressure off of his cramped position, and soon was advancing an intimidating pawn storm on the Kingside.

David found a way in his typically resilient fashion to trade some pieces off on the Queenside and Tony traded off Dark square Bishops allowing an Open a file towards his queenside castled king, perhaps allowing a little more counter play than was deserved given his excellent play up to that point. Soon enough though Tony managed to win a pawn with the more active Rooks as well and showed good technique to professionally convert the W.

4 Boards with 4 very engaging games and played in the right spirit.

Poole E 1-3 Poole D

Report submitted by Richard Smith

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January 26, 2018