An electrifying first match of the Summer Chess League saw the Battersea Volts break the Battersea Amps’ resistance to take a shock win.
The Amps drew first blood as Caspar Jones finished off Peter Yusoff early after Battersea’s oldest player found his king exposed in the centre.
Edwin Magombe, making his debut in a rated match for the Volts, battled hard against old hand Malcolm Dancy before finally going down in the endgame.
A titanic battle between Martin Devenney and Joel Morales saw the Volts pull one back when the Spaniard marched three king-side pawns down the board and Martin resigned.
Rayan Balluz then levelled the match with a win full of fireworks against the youngest player in the field, sparky seven-year-old Denis Dupois.
Denis played a razor sharp variation of the King’s Gambit called the Falkbeer Counter Gambit Advanced which had Rayan in deep trouble early on.
But Rayan fought back and found himself two pawns up in the endgame, which he duly converted.
The match result then hung on the top board game between Midhun Unnikrishnan and Adrian Somerfield, and the board 2 game between Tommaso Penna and Howard Groves.
Howard and Tommaso’s game lasted an energy-sapping 67 moves before both agreed a draw with a pawn and rook each.
Your correspondent has not seen the game between Midhun and Adrian yet but it ended with a win for the Volts player, leaving the match score 3.5 – 2.5.
