Post date: 13-Feb-2015 14:16:09
While regular captain David Robson was on holiday I took over Cowley 1 for two fixtures. Our round one Frank Wood Shield tie against Oxford University 1 had been postponed as it was originally outside of university term. Rescheduled for Thursday 29 January it now seemed to be "out of term time" for most of my players! Just three of the squad were available, numerous replacements barred by eligibility rules and even Cowley 5 had a match the same night. In the end just five of us were able to take the field at New College against a full strength University side.
Despite this the chess was pretty competitive with Andrew Chapman chalking up a notable win against University captain Robert Collopy and Raj Panicker having plenty of activity for a pawn, pushing his strong opponent late into the evening before conceding defeat. The star performance, however, was Rod Nixon's draw on top board. David Martins (ELO 2350) had been beating all and sundry (including GM Peter Wells and Oxford City's Matt Rose) leading to an estimated ECF rating of 250! If Rod had read the script he wasn't taking any notice: he equalized comfortably with the black pieces and generated some kingside play in the endgame. Martins seemed to have this covered and be ready to grind out the win but Rod forced him deep into a bishop ending that proved impossible to convert to a win.
The final result was a 1½-4½ loss which means we will not have the opportunity to revenge ourselves on Wantage 2 (who put us out of the competition last year). Full details of the result here. And so on to Banbury on Tuesday 3 February for which Geoff Rasell and Asif Hameed kindly both made up the numbers and provided transport. On arrival I was hospitably bought a drink by Neil Staples who said they had such a strong team that he wasn't playing. I assumed this was a joke but it wasn't: they had out their occasional 220-rated player from Northampton (they seem to keep him specially to play Cowley!) and a solid crew on the other boards.
Geoff Rasell quickly sued for peace with the black pieces against Carl Portman (rather a good player to be on board four) while I tried the wild and woolly approach against Gary Jackson's Sicilian. I didn't see much of the rest of the chess but Rod continued his excellent form with another win while Asif came close to a win on bottom board. The final result was a 2-4 loss and the details can be seen here.
Wil Burt (13 February 2015).