Champions Lose At Alsager

Fenton 'A' made an unfortunate start in their quest to retain the Division 3 Championship, going down by 2 1/2 - 1 1/2 against a very strong Alsager 'B' team. With Rob Taylor unavailable, and Derrick Wallace not around for the foreseeable future, we fielded a weaker than usual team and were heavily outgraded by a total of 64 points.  Coincidentally, our only defeat last season was in our first match and was also against Alsager. We made a good start to the evening when Geoff got a quick win on Board 2 to put us in the lead. Unfortunately I blundered very early on in the opening in my game on Board 1 and struggled for the rest of the evening before finally conceding defeat. Stuart, playing on Board 3, continued his habit of getting into a good position and then throwing it away. He didn't lose on time on this occasion though but confused himself with Bobby Fischer and went for a speculative sacrifice which didn't pay off and he suddenly found himself two pieces down and looking even more confused than usual. Another solid performance from Derek on Board 4 brought a draw but wasn't enough to get us anything from the match. You can click here to see the full score card.