After a promising start to the season Castell Nedd sat on 3 wins out of 4 before the trip to Daventry (It’s been a while!) for the 3rd weekend. Could we keep up the pace, and would the curry be as good as last time?
Due to our league position we were expecting 2 more tough matches, and sure enough we were underdogs going into round 5, outgraded on every board, but manageable. The good news is that from struggling to find a team, with Dale unavailable, we actually managed a coup in persuading our first titled player, Welsh International, WCM Chong, to finally play for us. Also, Glyn agreed to play. (:
In the match, Josh crushed his opponent, but Kim, with her shiny new title, was rusty and blundered a back rank tactic that she had seen but played anyway. Stupid hands! Sam got spanked in the opening. Occupational hazard on board 1. Andrew seemed to be making a meal of things, but perhaps it was all in hand, and he eventually mopped up on 3. The big surprise, at least to Glyn, was that Glyn brought home the full point on board 6 after telling me all the way up that he had no chance, and he was extremely excited to tell us all that he had won a “really boring game”. Steve’s opponent went wrong somewhere in the middle and his position collapsed. Steve then converted all the way to mate with only one horrendous blunder that thankfully went unnoticed.
Another excellent Indian was found, BYOB, so Glyn sent us an extensive alcohol order and Sam marched out of Tesco with a big ol’ bag full of booze. Everyone was well behaved, though, and made it to breakfast completely hangover-free. Just as well, as we were drawn on top board against a team with 2 FMs, 2200+ up top, and a 2100 CM on board 6. Good luck everyone!
In the event, everyone played well, but the inevitable conclusion was reached. Sam had a nice game going, but at some point trusted his opponent, lashed out, and never recovered. Steve made the position scary but lost a super-complicated game that stockfish hated. Andrew got ground down in an ending. Glyn played well and was heading for a draw, but one mistake cost him. Josh got us off the mark with an excellent draw, apparently completely untroubled. But huge congratulations to Kim who having not played for a year, took down her 2050 rated opponent in a rollercoaster game, declining a draw offer in a weird position before finding a winning tactic a few moves later! A completely respectable 4.5 – 1.5 defeat against a team surely destined for promotion.
