It was a tough weekend for Oxford’s first team in the first half of the March “split” weekend at a slightly snowy Wokefield Park. Skip was glad all of our players got there safely, and hopes they all returned home safely.
The results: Oxford lost both matches, 3-5 to White Rose 1 and 1½-6½ to Wood Green Hilsmark Kingfisher.
On Saturday, there was a moment when skip thought we might beat White Rose 1 and Grantham might fail to qualify for the Championship Pool. That would have given us 4 points to start with in the Pool. Unfortunately neither eventuality came to pass and we start with nul point. We still have nul point but, as I said to the troops, there’s no relegation pressure on us.
Oxford players of the weekend:
(1) Matt, who produced what skip considers to be one of his best-ever efforts in beating Sam Chow on Saturday. That proved to be our only win of the weekend.
(2) Zoe. She scored a mere ½/2 but was tasked with Black twice against a WIM-seconded by a super-GM and a GM. If we believe Botvinnik in Fischer’s My 60 Memorable Games #39, her endgame today (Sunday) could have been a theoretical draw. In that, Botvinnik says “… is left with two rook’s pawns and the draw becomes a question of theory” [yes, Botters had a spare f-pawn, but believed drawn without it]. Neil told skip about that game on the train home, recalling that it had been a Gruenfeld where Botvinnik blundered a pawn in his home analysis (17. … Qxf4!). He (Neil) knew Fischer had fallen for a Botvinnik trap in an endgame with two rook’s pawns and made sure of avoiding that. Still, skip thought Zoe played very well indeed and deserved 2 draws.
We also appreciated Jon‘s Saturday efforts. He went for broke in the last stages of his game trying to salvage the team a 4-4 draw. Skip is sure Jon didn’t really believe his Nxg6 sacrifice worked, but went for it anyway in his opponent’s time-trouble.
Justin scored two quick draws in his two encounters with GMs, playing a total of 20 moves – two fewer than Saturday opp Peter Wells. He needs another draw from his next game for a GM norm.