Tuesday 8th September was Round 2 of the 4NCL online season. The AOL team were facing Warwickshire Bears A in division 3, and the BOL were playing Enfield 1 in division 6.
The return of Rick (the Grenade) Renegade to the A team brought the usual explosive action as he delivered in style on board 4 to put us in the lead. However losses on top two boards left us trailing, with captain David Hulme in trouble on board 3 down by two pawns. Fortunately David managed to trap an opponent’s Knight which had run into a cul-de-sac and overturned the position to win the game and save the match, ending in a 2-2 draw.
The B team had the strange of experience of playing the match over two nights. The match was shaping nicely as Neville Layhe, Lukasz Michalek and Kobus Nienaber all headed to draws, although I am sure we might have edged the top board, and Lukasz was hanging on in a dramatic time struggle. The board 4 game had started well for us but apparently the wrong colours had been applied and the game was eventually stopped and cancelled with an unusual agreement to replay the game the following evening. That did not work in our favour as our initial attack fizzled out, before loss of material and inevitable defeat resulted. So the Brave Bees went down to a narrow defeat 1.5-2.5.
Full results and games can be seen on the 4NCL website.