The good news from yesterday – as well as there having been no Tube strike! – is that Battersea 3 continued their unbeaten start to life in the Central London League Division 2, writes HOWARD GROVES.
A drawn match with TfL was achieved without any of our five boards having the edge on grading, which was an excellent effort overall. A full scorecard is below.
Most of the drama in this match came early & late. Indeed, poor Ryan struggled to find the venue & get started at all – which was to prove significant in his game later on.
It seemed that no sooner had I dived out of the playing hall to talk Ryan in from the murky depths of Pimlico, than Tim was leaving the room with a quick draw secured: his neat piece sacrifice having forced a perpetual check.
Ryan’s delayed start did not seem to affect his play – he was soon a pawn up – but the time deficit he had begun with eventually counted against him, unfortunately.
Meanwhile Ben’s opponent took a novel approach to also falling a pawn down: he elected to give up the exchange instead! Ben took the offered material, kept up the pressure & converted his advantage for a second successive win in this division.
Both of the top two boards went right to the wire, time-wise – which at the Pimlico venue involves the players shutting their ears to the din of home players scraping & carrying tables, chairs & sets, in readiness for leaving promptly.
If only they’d known how boring the England v Slovenia match was proving to be, I wonder if they would’ve been as keen to rush to the pub!
Anyhow, the mutual time trouble on both top boards saw the player with the initiative come out on top – a valuable lesson that I hope I can build into my own game in future!
Fortunately for the team, Joe demonstrated how it should be done & kept cool amidst the surrounding melee to liquidate the endgame position & salvage a draw in the match.
Moreover, the drinkers in the team made it into the pub just in time to see Harry Kane score the winning goal, and round off a successful night!
