Post date: 16-Mar-2014 20:42:42
You are never quite sure what to expect against the University teams, This time, maybe because it was almost the end of term, we were faced with a weakened team, and managed to run out winners by 4.5 to 1.5. In fact, we went three-nil up in double-quick time. Catalin was the first to win. He played the black side of a Queen's Gambit Tarrash defence, and with pressure against f2, he managed to trap a piece in a nasty pin. In my game, I managed to sac a pawn and then a rook to draw out my opponents king towards the centre of the board, to win in 20 moves. Nick was next to win. He had won a pawn in a very comfortable position and then won by skewering the queen against her husband.
The University certainly weren't weak on top board, with Howard Chiu grinding down Antonio to win his fourth victory in as many appearances against Cowley opposition this year. On board four Clifford refused Kevin Henbest's greek gift, and after a certain amount of dogged defence, the game was drawn to win the match for Cowley.
With the match points all sewn up, we all settled back to enjoy watching Will's game. Will had taken an early advantage when he had forked rook and bishop to win a piece. For most players in this situation, they would swap off the remaining pieces and transpose into a won endgame. Will always has his own ideas as he demonstrated by winning two rooks for his queen. Although his material advantage had increased, the game was now wildly unbalanced and Will's King had to flee in the face of a an attack with knight, queen and pawns. After more pieces flew off the board, it boiled down to Will's rook and pawns against queen and pawns. It seemed that Will's rook was busy chomping on the pawns to increase his drawing chances, when he spotted the opportunity to fork King and Queen and win the game. All very entertaining, for us, if not his opponent.
This win brings us up to fourth, on the same number of points on Cowley 2 who are just above us by virtue of their better results against us. We are now safe from relegation, and fighting for third spot.
The full results of this match can be found here.