Category: 4NCL-O Season 6

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.

Onliners, we recorded these results tonight:

Our games are available for persual/analysis here. Skip commentary* with some general impressions for each team from seeing Round 1 team line-ups:

Ox1: as skip surmised, Hackney Heffalumps & Charlton Cobras A are the teams to beat, and they met in Round 1 – a title decider, so early? Tomasz’s game never got going, quickly exchanging into a drawn rook endgame. Tashika’s game almost went awry but she bailed out into a drawn opposite-bishop endgame. Jan competently held a R+P endgame a pawn down. Sadly Edgar’s king perished in the late middlegame.

Ox2: It looks likely Ox2 can expect mid-table, but Barnet Knights A can be far stronger than their R1 line-up suggests. An exchange sac didn’t work for Chris’s opponent. The dreaded double-rooks on the seventh polished things off. Neil & Grahamgrabbed draws to open Ox2’s account with a honourable 1 match point.

Ox3: Our Pool looks difficult from R1 pairings: skip reckons it will be a good season if we avoid relegation. Shambavi’sopponent ran out of ideas at move 23, shuffling his rook between c2 and c1. I liked her extra space on the queenside but making progress was tricky. By move 40 complete and utter Black world domination had been achieved, but there was still no way to break through due to the lack of open files. Drawn. Alex grabbed a mildly warm pawn on c2 and regretted it (skip is a “grabber” but this one felt wayyy too warm for him!).

* (remember he hates watching games with the engine on, so his impressions of your games may be well off the mark …)