4NCL 2017-18 Rounds 9-11: Div 3c, 4s report (Sean)

Sean writes:

A shame we couldn’t challenge for a promotion for Oxford 3 at the weekend, but we had a good enough time playing in Div 3, as Oxford 2.

In fact had myself and Justin tried a little harder on top boards on Saturday (Wessex A) we could have won that match also, as each of us were held to a draw after having dominated proceedings against our 2100 FIDE opposition, while I’m sure also that James Cole was winning but couldn’t find a way after adjournment. On bottom board Nigel was offered a draw on move 3(!) – you can imagine his reaction [skip: yes, especially in his first-ever game for us!!] – and typically he recovered from a poor position to win when his impatient opponent overpressed.

My losing on Sunday (Rhyfelwyr Essyllwg) didn’t affect our team winning as Justin took down a 2100 player who was apparently out of book after 1. d4 Nf6 – he’d expected a Dutch, after a brief examination of the database, and wasn’t prepared for a Nimzo. Eldar ground through his opponent who resigned after 5.5 hours when the position had completely stabilised, and he found himself 3 pawns adrift.

Monday saw us re-enact ancient rivalries (Cambridge University 2) and a close and quite exciting encounter emerged. With a quick draw from Justin ensuring an undefeated season at the chessboard in competitive outings, allied to a smooth conversion on board 2 Jason, I managed a draw in an exciting game where hindsight suggested I was slightly behind on initiative throughout. A loss on board 4 (Tomasz) meant that after 4 hours Phil Hayward and Neil were carrying the flag for the darker blues. By then Phil was looking good (not many pawns left but about to win a minor piece), while Neil was 2 pawns down in a rook & pawn ending. Phil reduced the board to BN and wrong h pawn v N, and managed to convert elegantly. During this time Neil had reduced his pawn deficit to one, and was then able to secure the draw in R+bc pawns v R + c.

I don’t have much info on Oxford 3, as my games were upstairs and I was engaged for most of each first session… but we missed out on Rod’s presence on Monday. After Hugo blundered on board 6 against much weaker opposition, we were -1 v 2 down, and so couldn’t complete the season with another point. This meant that we ended up joint 8th when clear 7th would have sounded so much better! [skip adds: yes, but Rod would have had to beat the rising mega-star Shreyas Royal to accomplish that.].