Wirral team off to winning start

The club kicked off the new league season with a lucky win in the Wirral League Division 2 match vs Pensby (last Tuesday 12th Sept). It was a case of ” black magic” as all players won their games with black pieces to produce a narrow 3-2 win for us. The opposition were much weaker than normal without their regular top board and fielding two players below grade 100 on the bottom boards, giving us an advantage of 140 grading pts over the 5 boards. Unexpectedly we trailed twice with wins by Martin Gill and Ola Titiloye leveling the score on both occasions. It was left to skipper David Hulme to clinch the match with a huge slice of luck as his opponent lost on time in a tricky position when failing to make the 35 move time control with a piece down, only for one of Pensby’s spectators to point out there was a forced mate imminent which would have given them victory.