It was the week before Christmas and Chris’s Mean Machine rolled out to do battle with last year’s Champions Ecclesall. Missing Captain Chris and his noble stand-in captain earlier in the season, Andrew. Thus it was left to humble servant who had over the years been adept at exchanging teams and tossing coins. This art seems to be lost, as the coin fell on the floor and Alan called correctly. Not an auspicious start.
So we set off. John was not present and frantic phonecalls resulted in him driving over at great speed before his flag fell. (Do flags still fall?) Whilst John was enroute Kieran with the precious white pieces yawned his way to 14 moves in a Slav before remembering he had either left something in the oven or wanted to watch something on TV. I played a Czech Benoni against Alan. He played it cautiously and only the b file was opened. The prospect of all the Rooks and probably the Queens prompted a draw offer. Not by me honest! Jon and Jim played 1.d4 d6. When it was old it was the Old Indian, when it was modern, it was the Modern. What do I know? I cannot even toss the coin correctly. It seemed a base line game and a draw quickly ensued. So 3 draws.
By now John was in full flow, made up his time lost and quickly won. I was in and out of the room as I cannot watch….
When I retuned Sam was a piece down for a really monster position and an unstoppable h pawn. Naturally I assumed that the piece had been sacrificed….Wrong. An accidental pieceloss to get a winning position.
Oskar who seems to be fearless, sacked the exchange as black in a Tarrasch. You know where white’s Queen gets buried at h8. Ewan was up to the task and a hair-raising game ensued. Oskar won – see below.
Oskar’s game v Ewan Cormack – with annotations possibly to be added later.
The match was won but Vasilis and Stuart were playing powerfully and confidently and the match was rounded off in style. 6 ½- 1 ½.
Geoff
[pgn]c7957e64e07d62cf2a993335b9e5f80b[/pgn]
Great report and excellent result!