Poole C and Bacchus Double Header: 2.5 – 1.5 wins!

Monday saw two matches, Poole C vs Highcliffe C in Division 3, and also Poole Bishops vs Southbourne Seagulls in the Bacchus.

Poole C started the results coming in with Zander drawing on board 2. He’d sacrificed a knight in the opening but evidently couldn’t get the decisive breakthrough. A good solid start.

Bacchus then followed with Angus winning on board 1. An opening on the king side let Angus own that side of the board with an open file and a vicious pair of bishops preventing castling and really splitting his opponents army in two leaving only half to fight at a time. A real lesson in the value of pieces when they’re working well.

Andy then finished for Poole C falling to a very capable Thomas Trach (the 3 grading point advantage didn’t help!). After getting squeezed in the opening, an attempt to break out just left the king too open.

Daniel was the next to finish in the Bacchus on board 4. His first game for the club and conducted himself really well. He managed to gain the exchange, and when the game came down to RvN and pawns, sacced his rook for a pawn leaving him with a pawn that could queen with no hope of the knight getting there in time. A beautiful finish. Well played and welcome!

There was a crowd around Jonathan’s match for much of the night, it was an hour each but played like it was 10 minutes each. They got to the end of the scoresheet and then some, and there was still half the time on one of the clocks. There were early attacks, shades of a fried liver, a bishop capturing rook on a8 but then being trapped by the pawn on c6 and isolated from the game, Southbourne’s king being forced into the centre and going for a walk, mate threats that never came, requirements for constant checks for fear of the strength of the counter, and then a forced queen trade that took the game into a tactical endgame. A nice counter let Southbourne capture a pawn with threats when his rook was threatened leading to the rooks coming off the board, but that pawn seemed vital. The momentum was then the other way and the pawns needed to be escorted in a 3v1. The bishop was exchanged for the knight gathering a loose pawn to make it 2v1 on the king side and 1v2 on the queenside. It then fizzled with the kings able to mop up the pawns but the only remaining pawn was for Southbourne and on the h file with Jonathan’s king safely on h8 forcing the draw. There were still another 20 moves to prove this, but neither player was going to make a mistake and somehow it ended up as a draw. I currently have the game set up in my classroom. (sorry if that was a brain dump, it was manic)

This left the scores as:

Poole C 0.5 – 1.5 Highcliffe

Poole Bishops 2.5 – 0.5 Southbourne

The next game to finish was Dragos who was unable to hold out on board 2 on the Bacchus, but the match was already decided.

Well played to all involved with the Bacchus match, it was an excellent fixture with some really good chess and entertaining games. I hope all the players got a lot out of it and enjoyed.

Now to focus on Poole C!

Mike and Tim were going for a late finish. Mike wasn’t even aware he was playing until after 7:30 when he walked into the club. It was supposed to be me but in a fit of cowardice, I saw Mike and offered him my seat. After sitting down he realised he was then trapped in the middle of a match. The club had mostly emptied with these two games going on. Mike managed to get into a rook and two knights endgame a pawn up and worked it very well to make it two pawns and get the win.

1.5 – 1.5 All on you Tim!

Tim had a position with rooks and queen and bishop and all the pawns. It looked very blocked but he managed to open up and get the queens off and three passed pawns! But even these were blocked by his opponent’s rooks and king. With his opponent down to the last seconds (made one move with 1 second on the clock!) and Tim not far ahead in time, he made the final breakthrough to promote a pawn. Exciting finished on both Mike’s and Tim’s boards and a 2.5 – 1.5 win for Poole in both matches.

Well played all, and a pleasure seeing the traveling teams, thanks for making the journey.

Tarik
November 30, 2022