Gentlemen,
With St Johns getting a bye into the quarter finals last night saw an exciting and very close match v Aylsham Lightings being played at the Coachmakers Arms. After doing the maths it was agreed that we needed to win by at least 5-3 otherwise the grading difference would see our opponents through. In round one of the two match affair I played the tenacious Rupert P Martin and on paper I was the favourite, out rating him by 40+ points. However, as is often the case, ratings mean little and despite a strong attack I managed to go wrong, sacking the exchange unsoundly and missing a crafty queen move that forced perpetual check. The other games looked fairly even, although Harry was already getting short of time against the evergreen David Owen. With a pair of rooks v 2 knights and a rook it was a tricky endgame and the knights prevailed and caught Harry with a nasty fork. Mark had a strong position with the black pieces and although his opponent Bruce Carmen had a nicely placed passed pawn, his queen was vulnerable and in a flurry of moves Mark won material and spotted a mate in 2 that could not be stopped. Dan v Dan on Bd 1 looked even but our Dan had an advantage on the clock. The knights, pawns and king endgame was speedily played out and the Alysham Dan’s flag fell. So after round 1, St Johns were ahead 2.5 – 1.5. In round 2 we swapped opponents and I played David Owen. I messed up the opening but fought back to get a fairly even position. I didn’t see any of the other games but Dan won quickly v Bruce and not long afterwards Mark succumbed to Dan Hedges so the match was all square! Harry played Rupert Martin and in a pretty wild game (Harry can report on this if he has time) and was victorious which meant my game was key in the match – I needed to draw for us to get the magic 5pts The game seemed to be going well but I missed a cheeky rook check that put me on the back foot and the exchanges favoured my opponent and I went a pawn down in a knight v Bishop endgame. I evaluated the position and felt that my knight was going to struggle to cope with the pawns on both sides of the board. With his team watching closely, trying to decide who was better, David offered his hand and a draw. We shook hands and I sighed in relief! David looked to his captain and asked what the match score was and realised his error. I genuinely felt sorry for David as he is real gentleman but he should have checked the match situation before offering the draw. So, St Johns had won and will now progress into the Semi Finals in the New Year.
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October 2022
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