A report from my game versus Methuselah Garrod.
After a heroic drive from Nathan through the foul squall we arrived before our opponents, however they decided not to default and soon showed up. My game was against Keith Garrod on board 4, and I regret it was a weird one. Keith opened with d4 and I played for a kings Indian set up with nf6, however he soon manoeuvred into the Colle System. Great, I thought, he has a useless dark square bishop, its the London without Mr dark square. Before I castled he pushed f4, and with my bishop on g4 pinning his knight I got it in my head I could smash through the kingside with Harry and Garry, so I made a couple of nothing moves to clear the way for queenside castling. Mistake. This gave him time to jink around and free himself up a bit and he got his knight to e5, I took, he took with his f pawn and suddenly I'm looking at losing my f pawn with his rook on rank 7. I panicked and moved my attacked knight back to the 8th rank where it was now stuck defending my fianchettoed and now horribly exposed dark square vicar. F pawn down! Ok, so I countered down Harry and Garry and got to h4 and g4 facing h2 and g2 and king on g1. I managed to get g3 and g x h2 check in but that was the end of my fun as he managed to force light square bishop and queen exchange's leaving me with 2 rooks, a lonely Harry, stuck dark vicar and knight and a pawn down. This is where I cracked, I pushed c4 desperate to free up some moves and then activated my knight completely forgetting he was the reverend dark squares only defender. After that I flailed about desperately frankly looking for a pawn break or trap that never came. He murdered me calmly and psychopathically to the grim approval of the observing Cotterell, and I laid my king down before the inevitable. Annoying because after the weird queenside castling decision I was never really in it, I won't be doing that again without a better attack plan. His dark square bishop btw was indeed useless and never entered the fray, grrrrrrr. As for the others, Nathan beat Steve Cotterell with a faultless display, Rod earned a very solid, flawless draw against higher rated opposition, Olly got forked very early losing a minor piece but fought hard from there right through to an endgame which unfortunately saw weight of pressure and the extra piece told and he was bested. 1.5 to 2.5 but they are top of the league so not too shabby. by Dave Knave
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