Poole come from behind to win The Team Handicap semi final at Dorchester

So all was set in the comfortable surroundings at the Colliton Club at Dorchester last night with the average gradings on 140 vs 141 so all equal and no average grade differential required for either team.

An early suprise when Seth playing on Bd 5 in a at least a comfortable and probably winning position missed a simple mate and was undone by Ted Paul a promising junior. 0-1

All other games looked fairly even from the openings and into the middle games at this point however on Bd 3 Dragi circled his A.Young’s pieces with a cunning tactic and in no time a piece dropped in an inferior position and so he resigned. 1-1

4 games to go and all square. On Bd 1 Mike Duggan playing Nick Poole had a strong K side attack but had to think very hard to find the right moves knowing  it was there. Bang, defence, bang defence, bang defence, and this went on until on about the 8th charge the a possible answer was not made and 2/3 more moves and it was all over . 2-1 Poole.

Meanwhile David playing Geoff Searing on Bd 3 had a typical K side charge and managed to open both Kn and R files and with a pawn on the 7th rank had a winning position. But again the right moves need to be made and with an excellent tactic managed to win Q for R but still not easy as his opponent was building something in the middle with two rooks but could not stop the combination of the long white squared bishop the Q and Pawn to find the winning mate and eventually succumbed. I felt this was such a good and exciting mating attack and shows the honesty and beauty of chess.

So it was now 3-1 and the match was won by virtue of winning the top 3 boards at this stage.

However  boards 4 and 5  were still in progress and  both looking like draws.  All credit to the  Dorchester players David Hardie and Paul Brackner for playing on to win these games when the match was already lost, hard luck Simon Patterson and Richard Smith.

So Poole progressed and are very pleased to reach the Final for the 2nd year running but I would like to thank the Dorchester team for making the match enjoyable and providing hospitality.

 

 

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March 23, 2018