Thursday evening saw Cumnor 1 play their first game of the season against MCS/B1 who were the team relegated from the first division last season.
It was a closely fought fight but Cumnor 1 ended up on the wrong side of the 4-2 score line.
| Cumnor 1 | MCS/B1 | ||
| 1 | Terrington, Simon (173) | 1/2-1/2 | D’Souza-Eva, Jon (186) |
| 2 | Glenn, Liam (147) | 0-1 | Moyse, Nigel (171) |
| 3 | Stevens, Gareth (147) | 0-1 | Harskin, Robin (167) |
| 4 | Sayers, Mark (139) | 1-0 | Cole, James (145) |
| 5 | Slade, Richard (-) | 0-1 | Cole, Graham (148) |
| 6 | Varney, Daniel (137) | 1/2-1/2 | Bush, Ian (128) |
| Match played on 16 Oct 2014. | 2-4 | ||
As I did for last season I will give you a quick summary of the games in the order they finished. As I was playing myself I can only give a summary on what I saw and the analysis at the pub after, if I make any mistakes or you think I didn’t get the ‘gist’ of your game please let me know.
Gareth suffered from ‘Chess Blindness’ early in his game, after calculating a deep variation which gave him a good position, he left his Queen en prise and resigned immediately after the move.
Daniel was the next to finish, with his usual quick play. He and Ian agreed a draw once they entered an endgame with rook and a bishop each.
Richard was playing his first game for Cumnor 1 after making his winning début earlier in the week against St. Claire’s in the second team.
Unluckily, he was unable to get anything from this game and lost to the much more experienced Graham Cole. Graham if you are reading this I do mean experienced in the nicest possible way!
Mark was playing James Cole on board four and produced a great King-side attack with a terrific tactic which caused gasps from the crowd, when he pinned James’s Bishop to his King and Queen and threatened a Queen takes pawn check! The attack won him the King-side pawns, and once the game entered the endgame James resigned.
My game was the penultimate game to finish and a play through of my game is below. The game was interesting, I think I had an advantage for most of it but in time trouble I missed a mate in 3, have a look and let me know your thoughts.
Simon on the top board played Jon D’Souza-Eva. In the endgame with a Rook and pawn Jon reached the Lucena position but was unable to get the win.
Both players were under time pressure and Simon managed to take the last pawn leaving each player with his Rook. A draw was quickly agreed at this point.
The end result was a 4-2 win to MCS/B1. Cumnor 1’s next game is in two weeks at home against Bicester 1, on the same night Cumnor 2 are playing away against Cowley 5.
Great game Liam. Good play and both sides and pretty balanced. Of course, playing Qh5 a bit earlier (Move 30 or 31) would have left you winning.
I would also add that Jon played really well and we were both pretty tired after a long and tense rook endgame. He did have a technical win but ‘building a bridge’ didn’t work so it was really hard to work out with no time on the clock.