Nomads A took a hard fought point from the match against Barnsley A. We were both weaker than usual and welcomed yet another Withington to the team Sam.
At my first glance round, Sam and Steve were not doing too well, Jamie and Henry were clearly better.
Sam did lose as did Steve. Steve’s kingside vanished and he was 2 pawns down. However his pieces Q & R were more active and if he could have consolidated he could have been Ok. However he decided to sacrifice his Bishop, not necessarily a good decision and soon lost.
Jon’s game on 1 was very solid and Andrew with White seemed more interested in not losing. A draw was agreed.
I thought Chris had been doing Ok on 2, certainly in the early stages. I had my back to their game but I heard Martin say “draw”. What I didn’t know until after was that Martin was in a crushing position and his flag fell as he made his 30th move. The old “had he made his move”, “did he press his clock” “did the flag fall early” etc etc. Now I set all the clock and always give a minute on all clocks at start. Chris immediately offered/accepted a draw and everyone was happy.
Henry was winning confortably but he played a move that we all knew he was going to make, all knew that it lost. very sad he had played really well.
So we were 4-1 down. Although Jamie was winning, I was under the cosh and Arjun turned a draw down.
Some magic, Arjun went into overdrive and crashed through.
I offered a dubious piece sacrifice which my opponent rejected because he thought he was winning anyway. I managed to break through on my Queenside whilst Richard was trying to unlock my Kingside.
Jamie all this time had been winning a double Rook + Queen ending a couple of pawns up. with that amount of heavy pieces on the board it is never easy.
So 4-4.
Very very hard work.
