Round 5 saw us paired with White
Rose 1 who, lying comfortably in our pool at the
start of play, surprised us by fielding their
strongest line-up of the season to date. Despite
this reckless, even, some would feel,
un-Yorkshire-like behaviour, we remain friends
with the White Rose clan or will do as soon as
we start talking to them again.
We had not expected to have any
realistic chance of a positive result with
regard to the match result before play began but
had hopes of picking up some bits and pieces in
individual games.
The course of the match never
threatened to upset the odds and we were unable
to match even our modest hopes. One or two of
our players were upset by their individual
performance but in the main we were able to
accept that without being too far from our best,
we had been outplayed by our polished rivals.
Not quite all was doom and gloom as Martin
Mitchell on board 3 delivered a draw with the
black pieces against GM Colin McNab. Martin
played an effective blend of solidity and
aggression which saw a repetition completed on
move 29. This 7½-½ reverse is our record defeat
in the 4NCL although we came close to that score
on a couple of occasions in our previous visit
to the top flight.
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Captain: John Carleton |
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And so to our evening meal
in Northampton ... this did not start
auspiciously with neither table to meet our
arrival nor sign of one being made
available. This is the first time in this
our eighth season of 4NCL competition that
Grubmeister Dave Robertson's thorough
planning had met with such inadequacy.
Prompt action on the WAGS network [Fran C
and Jeannie L in attendance at the meal
linking with Laura R in Liverpool] saw us
furnished with documentary evidence of the
booking although it was actually never
needed as the restaurant recognised its
inadequacies and promised us a free drink
once we were seated. Some forty minutes
later we began to order and to assuage our
thirst with the promised drink. An enjoyable
meal followed and additional drink flowed
freely. A further surprise, pleasant in this
case followed when we came to pay the bill
and found that all alcoholic drinks were
free. This set us on our way with a spring
in our step back to the hotel.
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Rounds 5 & 6,
Weekend 3, 2018 |
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Round 6 is the time for
"basement battles" across divisions. 1[a], 2[a]
and 3[a] when the two lowest seeds are paired
together. For very good reasons related to the
pairings in round 8 the bottom seeds meet in
round 5 in divisions 1[b], 2[b] and 3[b]. [Note
to editor before he puts a note to me: No, O.K.,
I don't actually get it. You could ask Natasha
Regan]. Thus we, as 8th seeds were to play
7th seeds The ADs. They had gained promotion
with us last season beating us in our tense
individual encounter by a single point.
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In round 5 they had fielded, in
the words of their player-manager, Ian Snape,
their "strongest team". That team was very much
beefed up from last year but still contained 5
of the team who had beaten us and they opened
their match-points tally with a hard-fought draw
with Grantham Sharks in Saturday's game. Our
team was virtually unchanged with 7 of our
line-up from our previous match. Overnight,
however, something changed and a substitute was
introduced into their ranks.
And so battle commenced with a
flying start for us; Peter Ackley on board 8
winning a piece and the game early on against
substitute [and mother of Amardip, who was
playing on board 6 for The ADs] Balvinder
Atluwalia. Alas for us, our lead did not last
long as I played what I felt was my worst ever
4NCL game against John Pigott. It was here that
I found the team support invaluable to help lift
my depression, many of them saying that I should
not worry and that I had played lots of games
just as bad if not worse than this one.
There
followed two relatively early draws: on board 6
Sheila playing the black pieces against Amardip
saw an early swap into a flat queenless ending
which soon led to the point being split. On
board 5 Nick Ivell with white against Darren
Wheeler saw an understandable reluctance by
either player to disturb the safety of their
king by trying to engineer a pawn break and a
draw was the natural outcome. So 2-2 was the
score with 4 games in play. A big result for us
was a draw on board 4 between Glenn House and
Ian Snape.
Ian had slowly built up pressure
through a gradual advance of his pawns towards
the black king. Glenn kept calm, at least
outwardly, and despite time pressure and gave up
a pawn for some freedom . The draw was agreed
when Glenn was about to regain his sacrificed
pawn. Then, with the tension really cranking up,
there followed a decisive result for each side.
Firstly Martin on board 3 unleashed a series of
pawn sacrifices to rip open the cover around
John Richardson's king and then moved in for a
mating attack against the hapless monarch in the
centre of the board . This was a very
entertaining game and a strong candidate already
for the Spirit of Atticus game of the season.
Also impressive was the win on board 2 by the
ADs young star in the making, Ashley Stewart,
who outmanoeuvred Brett Lund, who had looked
comfortable for a good while. After protracted
probing Ashley finished with a snappy and direct
attack on the king. There was just one game in
progress now and it was the board 7 encounter
between Dave Latham and Jana Bellin. Jana had to
really dig in to hold this endgame which was
uncomfortable for her despite the reduced
material. The game was duly drawn as the
spectators anticipated, even though the Atticus
camp dared to dream of victory. So 4-4 with each
side wondering what might have been.
Division 1a after round 6
The next round sees an encounter
against Guildford 1 who reached the milestone of
50 consecutive wins in round 6. Well done
Guildford 1 indeed!This will be a dead fixture
for both sides so I have taken the initiative
and offered Guildford supremo, Roger Emerson,
the chance to gives his boys [and girl] a
well-earned rest in round 7 with 8 quick draws.
Obviously, the outcome of discussions is not
confirmed but I can only echo the thoughts of
David Davis in his recent negotiations about how
well his matters are going. Then, round 8 sees
us resume in earnest as we begin our fight for
first division survival and earnest we will be.
© 4NCL | Steve Connor
In the above games you can
activate the engine analysis board by clicking
the E8 (assuming White on bottom, D1 otherwise)
shortcut square on the main chessboard.
-
explore variations by
clicking the from and to squares for the
intended move
-
click the arrow buttons to
move back/forth through the variation being
analyzed
-
click the plus button at the
right of the arrow buttons to force the
engine analysis board to auto update
following the position of the main
chessboard; this is useful for instance when
following a live broadcast; limitations:
some pages might not offer this
functionality and some browsers do not
support this functionality
-
click on the side to move
indicator to switch the side to move; this
is useful to check for threats in the given
position
-
click on the principal
variation to execute its first move on the
engine analysis board
-
click on the evaluation mark
to activate/deactivate the engine
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