Highcliffe A v Poole B

Many thanks to Poole B who engaged in highly competitive games across all boards.

My thanks for to Bruce for seeing the team over the line with the only decisive result at around 10.30: it could not have been closer.

Ken

Well done to Highcliffe for their win and for their great start of the season

With the rain lashing down a trip to Highcliffe wasn't everyone's idea of a nice trip to the seaside, but us Poole chaps are made of sterner stuff so off we went. Or rather I went as by 7.30 only I was staring at our four Highcliffe colleagues. It seemed that the weather and the plethora of doorbells at Greystones had foxed our teams best efforts to arrive on time, but in the nick of time the Inaugural David Fuller Simultaneous Exhibition had to be cancelled and normal service was resumed (thank goodness).

B4: Smith (W) - Popovic kicked off as usual with Dragi bashing his moves out using only a fraction of his time in the first 45mins of play. The resulting position looked a bit bunged up with with White a little better, I thought. Quite soon after this assessment a draw was agreed with which both players seemed content.

As an aside (you know I like a nice aside) I am looking forward to our team playing Ringwood where I have a cunning plan to engineer a Dragi Popovic v Kenny Harman game - that will be amusing - they will be in the bar before I have played. 2.Nf3.

B3: Calauz (W) - Kemp saw Sergiu use far more time than Paul in an open but tricky position only to see his position turn critical. Down to his last three minutes (against around 25) Sergiu was able to get his pieces onto active squares putting Paul under no little pressure. Unluckily for Poole, the time pressure prevented Sergiu finding a mate in four sequence and a draw was agreed. I didn't have time to check but I assume by repetition. Great game.

B2: Westrap (W) - Fuller and I was looking for a bwtter result than last time againat this irritatingly tidy opponent. My Classical Dutch response to 1.d4 saw a flurry of book moves before a slight innaccuracy on Christian's part gave Black a chance for an edge. I couldn't find a way to make the obvious b5 move to consolidate Black's advantage work and alas it was only afterwards that we both noticed the tactical trick which allowed it to be played. From that point on the game stayed level distilling down to a drawn K+ps ending, although even then I had to be careful to confirm the half point.

B1: Stanciu (W) v Jenks looked a very interesting game with an initiative for White early on getting active against Black's kingside from another d4 opening. But that Jenks chap is a tough nut to crack and despite Chip's best efforts Bruce always seemed to have that one extra tempo required to keep the position together. In the end, the White position had too many weaknesses, caused by the attacking intentions, and Bruce was able to exchange down to a won ending - we know what he usually does with those - and Black took the point. A good game of chess!

And so Highcliffe 2.5 - 1.5. Well done. I think that Poole can consider themselves a little unlucky not to get something from the match. Nevertheless, Ken, Paul, Christian and Bruce were lovely hosts so we didn't mind too much (not quite true, the bit about minding that is).

DF