Hiccup For The 'B' Team

The 'B' team dropped a valuable point at Cheddleton 'H' last night in a 2 - 2 draw. This means that nothing less than a win at Crewe Pawns later this month will be good enough to take the Division 4 title, while Crewe will only need a draw.

We suffered an early setback when Rob got stuck on the M6 and was unable to make it, meaning that I had to step in on board 1. An early loss by Ernie on board 3 meant that we were up against it from the start but Mike pulled us back into it with a win on board 2. Robert had what looked like an easy draw on board 4 but he played on because he thought that we were losing the match and, unfortunately, paid the price. This meant that I had to win my game on board 1 to get us a draw. I was in desperate time trouble and the exchange down in an exciting finish when my opponent made a disastrous move on move 39, followed by an even worse one on move 41. This allowed me to force the checkmate with only 35 seconds remaining on my clock and salvage a draw from the match. You can click here to view the game. You can click here to view the full match score card.