Dorchester v Weymouth

Weymouth surprised us by not fielding their strongest team, which meant that Dorchester needed 4.5 points. Wins on Boards 5 and 6 was a good start and these were followed by well contested draws on Boards 1 and 3. A mistake on Board 2 meant that my efforts to win a difficult endgame on Board 4 were in vain. Good luck to Weymouth in the next round.

We lost fairly quickly on the bottom two boards where we were heavily out-rated. Now we needed to share the points on the top 4 boards in order to go through. It was all very close but I thought we were doing well on at least 3 of those boards. Chris took a draw in a dead position, and Jon in a position where he was a pawn up in a knight ending. I thought he could have continued, but didn't realize he was effectively playing on increments. Steve's position had gone from good to bad and Frank seemed to be poor as well. Nervous moments for the captain as the match seemed to be slipping away. All changed when Dave H unexpectedly blundered away a piece and match result was secured. Steve missed chances to draw his game late on. A good competitive match and enjoyable to watch.