It was a great night for Fenton in the Open Cup as we came back from 3 - 0 down against Crewe to draw 3 - 3 and win the match on board count. We had a disastrous start to the evening when I lost in 14 moves on board 4. This was followed by Grenville's now customary endgame blundering, where he went from a piece up on board 6 to losing his Queen for a Rook. Glyn then proceeded to lose on board 2. Petru brought us back to 3 - 1 but Kas looked totally lost on board 3. However, the next time I looked he had somehow won a Queen for a Rook and brought us back to 3 - 2. All eyes were then on Max, who was a pawn up and in a very good position. With both players in time trouble Max skewered his opponent's Rook against his King to go the exchange up. By now his opponent had very little counterplay and the end came rapidly to pull us back to 3 - 3 and a win on board count - a scenario that had looked very remote 10 minutes earlier. We will now play Cheddleton in the Semi-Final on the 16th February. Click here for last night's match score card.
