Thanks to Maks for this report.
| Board | Home player | Result | Away player | Rating difference (Δ) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| one | Paul D Dupré s1983A |  | 1/2-1/2 | Michael W Healey s2250A |  | -267 |
| two | Angus S James s1972K | | 1/2-1/2 | Chris B Baker s1956K | | +16 |
| three | Nick W Faulks s1956A | | 0-1 | Maxim W Dunn s1909K | | +47 |
| four | Malcolm DJ Groom s1832K | | 0-1 | Jon M Eckert s1895A | | -63 |
| five | Alexey Markov s1703A  | | 0-1 | Ian S Mcleod s1894K | | -191 |
| six | G Robin W Browne s1727K | | 1/2-1/2 | Maks Gajowniczek s1800K | | -73 |
| Mean rating | Home team: 1862.2 | Away team: 1950.7 | Δ = -88.5 | |||
| match result: 1.5 — 4.5 |
Another solid result, even with the loss of the coin flip again so it was white on evens for us. We were missing Gavin on board one so in the line-ups; we only moderately outrated our opponents on boards 1 and 5.
The first win came from Ian. He played another nice game in the Modern Defence. Ian managed to use his heavy pieces nicely, getting his queen into the heart of his opponent’s overextended position and soon went on to win.
Meanwhile on board 2 Chris was playing against a dragon setup, although his opponent had decided to also play e5, which is a bit unusual. Mike on board 1 was playing his favourite Mexican Defence (Nf6+Nc6 vs d4) and had managed to double his opponents pawns typical of a Nimzo-Indian strategy.
Jon on board 4 was playing against a Scandinavian. He achieved a space advantage with an h4-h5 push Caro-Kann style and after queens were exchanged won a nice endgame with a Rh3-g3-g6 manoeuvre. I didn’t see all the details but his opponent looked quite underdeveloped going into this endgame. Regardless, a nice win for him.
Maxim on board 3 was playing a dragon setup. Material was even but with Maxim having the more active pieces in exchange for a slightly weak isolated c-pawn. Soon he had traded off his weakness and even emerged a pawn up in a Rook and 4 pawns vs Rook and 3 pawns endgame.
My game on board 6 looked like a sure win. I played into a Queen’s Gambit Declined Exchange Variation, but my opponent misplaced his pieces by putting a knight on c6 and pushing b5. Doing this without protecting his knight first led to a loss of a pawn via a discovered attack. After a while he had also sacked an exchange after mounting pressure on a backward pawn.
Unfortunately I miscalculated a simplifying tactic that was in fact just a combination to blunder back a piece, but got the queens off and was forced to be content with a draw.
After this, Chris’s Dragon game ended up in an agreed draw. His opponent had reasonable counterplay with an open f-file. Already 2 wins and 2 draws up, it was down to Maxim and Mike to get one more draw.
Maxim had made good progress in a position and now his position had chances with two pawns and rook against one pawn and rook.
Meanwhile Mike’s game had gone somewhat wrong. He was a bit all in on an attack on his opponent’s king but didn’t quite have enough pressure.
At this point I had to leave. I hadn’t eaten yet, probably contributing to my earlier blunder with plenty of time on the clock. Turns out that Maxim did in fact go on to win and Mike Healey got an impressive stalemate trick off.
This brought the result up to another undefeated 3 wins and 3 draws. Congratulations to Jon, Maxim and Ian for their wins and also a nice save from Mike.