Onliners, we recorded these results tonight:
Our games are available for persual/analysis here.
Ox1:
Tashika potted an enemy rook in an early endgame.
Jan’s other kibitzer opined “38. Ke4 would have won”, but skip is sure Jan saw a potential counter involving 38. … f5+? That said, he doesn’t lmow what it was. Black dropped the exchange later and he had to win R+g v B+h, later R v B. Technical. The defending king dived into the right corner and a win was not to be. Theoretically.
While Jan tackled R v B,
David defended Q+R v Q+B! Is that drawn? Your skip does not know. They liquidated to R v B momentarily before the bishop skewered the king and rook. Back in the Jan endgame, Black found a faux pas at move 97 conceding the game immediately – and the match. This is Ox1’s THIRTEENTH win by 2½-1½, would you believe it?
Ox2: Dimi salvaged a potentially-lost rook endgame with the power of doubled-rooks on 7th. (his oppo DI Hulme – not a police title! – is well-known to skip, he was around at OxUni in the early 1990s. Skip is astonished he is only ~1840 FIDE, he was much stronger at that time.) When skip glanced at Graham’s late R+3 v R position I forgot he was Black and thought his pawns were on b6, c7, h7 not g3, f2, a2! He dodged a late stalemate trick with the flashy f2xe1=N+. With Asif demolishing his opponent on 4 that added up to a well-earned match win.
Ox3: it came down to Alex to save the team from a whitewash, being somewhat outgunned on rating across the board. He generously gave David Flynn a draw in a better R+P endgame – hey, another ex-OxUni player from skip’s 1990’s time! Nostalgia, begor.