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By: Stephen Berry Skin
of our teeth
The good news is that Kings Head avoided the drop by
the skin of our teeth, but this was almost entirely due to the efforts of
others.
The Saturday game against Levy Gees was another vexing 4.5 - 3.5 defeat.
Alex and Rick McM won but Colin and Paul lost. Eventually the match
turned on the top board game between Nigel Davies and Yours Truly. I stood
considerably worse, tricked him, may have been somewhat better at move 39,
but blundered on move 40 (in the time scramble). I fought on until
move 60, but I guess you can't expect more than one chance against a GM.
On Sunday Arnaud turned up to play the last two games and the difference
immediately showed. Our opponents, Bristol II, were also prime
relegation candidates and this match decided their fate. In fact we
had 5 wins ( Arnaud, myself, Conor, Paul and Colin) and a draw to record
our best result for some time. I liked Paul's game. He played
20 moves of Alekhine theory against the three pawns' attack and rapidly
administered checkmate -- somewhat to his opponent's surprise. The
homespun wisdom in the team dressing room was that when Arnaud played we
won (this was his first game after the opening weekend) -- otherwise not.
The following day disproved this piece of cracker barrel philosophy.
We had to play Wessex, one of the top teams who were running for
promotion. Still, we could have offered better resistance.
Before you could say Jack Robinson, we were 3 - 0 down. Conor
refrained from his normal Polugaevsky variation against the Najdorf in
favour of something which was equally hairy, but which he knew less well.
The almost predictable sacrifices on e6 and b5 followed. When I last
looked, Conor's opponent had about 5 pawns (not less) for the piece and a
crushing position. Oh dear! There were draws for Arnaud,
myself, Rick McM and Colin, but we all had the worst of it at some point.
So our fate hung on the result of Bristol 1 against Guildford. We
had 7 points before the last round, Guildford had 6. I guess that a
draw would have seen Guildford safe, but it was not to be. Bristol
won rather comfortably so it's Division 2 again for KHCC next year.
Why did we do so badly? I have the indefinable feeling that we
performed somewhat below our grades, but mainly we lost on the margin.
We won three games, one of them against Bristol 1 who gained promotion.
We drew against Witney and Swindon who (I believe) also gained promotion.
We had three bad losses, but two of them were on the weekend when we were
missing players. I think the crux of the matter was the four matches
which we lost 4.5 - 3.5. In all of these another strong(ish) player near
the top of the team would have made a world of difference. That is
essentially what KHCC need to gain promotion next year.
Monstrously Strong Matches
 < Nigel
Short
In Division One there were some monstrously
strong matches. On the last day, Wood Green against Beeson Gregory I
saw Short v Adams, Morozevich v Svidler, Baburin v Roger, Speelman v Nunn
with Julian Hodgson languishing on Board 5. On the Saturday, Wood
Green played Beeson Gregory II with Morozevich v McShane, Short v Hennigan
and Speelman v Norwood. All three game were miniatures with the top
GMs handing out lessons to the 2500 players. The games are at the TWIC
website in PGN format and Morozevich is in particularly brilliant form.
His win against Svidler on the last day was also not too bad. More
details and games at http://www.4ncl.co.uk/
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