The last game of the season for Cumnor 1 was an exciting and nerve-racking game against relegation threatened Cowley 3.
Cowley 3 | Cumnor 1 | ||
1 | Chapman, Andrew (148) | 0-1 | Terrington, Simon ( ) |
2 | Rasell, Geoff C (144) | 1-0 | Varney, Andrew (145) |
3 | Viscu, Catalin (141) | 1/2-1/2 | Varney, Zoe (150) |
4 | Idle, Oscar (141) | 1-0 | Stevens, Gareth (142) |
5 | Keeling, David (141) | 1-0 | Varney, Daniel (142) |
6 | Taylor, John F (138) | 0-1 | Glenn, Liam (141) |
Match played on 07 Apr 2014. | 3.5-2.5 |
Games at the end of the season fall into two categories, either neither team has much to play for and a leisurely game of chess follows or one of the teams has something to fight for and it was the later for Cumnor 1 on Monday night. Cowley 3 needed a result (a win or a draw) against Cumnor 1 to stay up, if Cumnor 1 won Bicester 1 would be relegated in their place. Liam was the first to finish a win on bottom board and Daniel was next he made a real fight of it but lost. With the emotions running high Simon’s opponent tried to claim a draw with only 12 seconds left. The game had just reached drawish position (a draw with correct play), a long discussion started with two outcomes agreed, if the result mattered it would be sent off to George Spalding for a decision. My personal view is that the game would still be awarded to Simon because you can’t claim a draw in a theoretical draw. If it didn’t matter to the result Andrew would resign. With that getting sorted out in the other room, Andrew lost his game saying better theory could have changed the result. Zoe actually sacced a pawn to keep the knight on the wrong side of the board long enough to force a draw. Gareth’s game went down to the wire with only minutes on both clocks but Gareth resigned when he lost an important pawn. That made the result 3.5 to Cowley 3 meaning they would stay up and Andrew resigned. The final score was 3.5-2.5, Cowley were happy to stay up and even though we lost on the night it was an end to good season for Cumnor. The end of season will follow after every match has finished.