Preston v Lytham

Aaah…. April in England and the semi- finals. This can mean only one thing, a trip to Wembley in the sunshine.
Well okay, Jalgos then. Oh alright we haven’t had any sunshine either.

First game to finish was board 4. Torrin, in his first 8 moves, moved his queen twice, and moved one of his knights twice, breaking two of the opening ‘golden rules’. He saw a mating attack that just wasn’t there. This meant he was undeveloped come the middle game, and had real problems activating his queenside pieces, and in keeping white’s active pieces at bay. After an exchange of pieces, Torrin was about to suffer the loss of a piece and he resigned. But notwithstanding tonight’s game Torrin has recently played very well against strong Preston players and has a bright chess future.

Next to finish was board 5. This game proceeded along the same lines as a recent game between these two protagonists. Andrei went for a kingside pawn storm, and castled queenside. His attack produced no advantage but Hambel counter attacked on the queenside with a pawn storm of her own. The white king on c1 was vulnerable. Hambel simply had too many threats ( winning a piece, mating threat, plus the option of queening a pawn which had arrived on a3), and this was enough for victory.

On board two Phil was putting up stiff defence to Malcolm’s attack but Malcolm simply had too much initiative and forced Phil on the defensive. Advancing his pawn to f4 opened up the diagonal for Malcolm’s g2 bishop, and with an undefended rook on b7, Phil was facing the loss of a piece and resigned.

On board three Phil had completely messed up Peter’s pawn structure, which resulted in a row of three of Peter’s pawns on his f file. That said Phil was unable to then get at these vulnerable pawns and Peter defended stoutly for the draw.

So at half time Preston 3.5 to 0.5 up, things seemed to be progressing nicely. But there was a sting in the tale.

On board 7 Ben won a piece but Becky had some glimmer of hope with a passed pawn that had made its way to h2. However Darren played solidly and ensured that the pawn was never in danger of promotion and closed out for the win.

On board 8 Guy had a bishop buried on h2 and was effectively playing a piece down. Darren slowly invaded on the queenside and gobbled up three of the white pawns. With queens still on the board in the endgame Guy was looking for some opportunity for a drawn game but the loss of his remaining bishop ended the match.

Board 1 looked a level affair throughout, with neither player gaining any significant advantage, which resulted in a drawn knight and pawn endgame.

So the final game. Board 6, Dave a pawn up into the endgame. Dave had a white squared bishop, Carl had a knight and his remaining pawns were all on dark squares. Despite being a pawn up the position was totally drawn, Carl had played accurately at this stage to ensure Dave could not break through. Dave glanced at his captain who told him he needed to win to square the contest. Dave let out a sigh and a groan and bravely played on for another 32 moves but there was simply no way through, and with only 20 seconds left on his clock, Dave offered Carl the draw which he sportingly accepted.

So a tremendous fightback from Lytham who deserve much credit for a fine performance.