Wimborne D vs Poole C

Today we went to Wimborne for the final match of the season.

We had the usual team of Dragi, Richie, Adam, Eric, Simon and me, all crammed into a 20 year old Vauxhall Corsa. We sang sea shanties on the journey as the suspension was so bad it was giving us sea sickness.

The clocks started and 5 minutes later Dragi arrived. I’m not sure how he was late when he was in the same car as us. He then went out for a cigarette leaving his opponent to ponder a tricky move 2.

Five moves in and Richie had already sacrificed 6 pieces and was in a very attacking position.

Eric was looking fairly flustered at his position, somehow he’d managed to get all his pieces developed without moving a single pawn. His opponents pieces were gathered in one corner of the board with their king alone in the other corner.

My game was looking in poor shape a queen down.

Simon had all the pawns from both sides in a jagged formation right on the center line so none of them could take another, both players were moving their pieces around in time to the music seeping through from the fruit machine next door.

Soon we all retired to the bar.

Then we went back to our matches.

As we went in it seemed someone was still at the board, in my seat. I looked closer and Danny had taken over and managed to equalize the position.

All the matches came to their conclusion within 5 seconds of each other with hands not being shook, instead thumbs to noses and fingers wiggling. Richie had managed to checkmate his opponent with just a King. Adam had decided to get 9 queens. Simon had a rock solid defense so had lost no pieces, but neither had his opponent. Dragi’s match had 5 pawns each, looked fairly level until Dragi announced it was a won game for him with proper play and his opponent resigned. Eric had somehow started using the board next to him as well as 64 squares wasn’t enough, a 16×8 square chess board. I just let a carousel of other players win my game for me.

At that point Mike Jay wanders in, sees that there’s actually 6 players and declares the match void.

All in all an entertaining end to an entertaining season. We look forward to seeing how this result will effect the final standings and huge thanks to all the players who turned out this season.

Tarik
May 14, 2020