Our SCS “A” team played away at The Gables on Monday (5th) and were hot favourites for the win with huge rating advantages on three boards against the Gables youngsters, while their top board would outgrade us. Captain Steve Ballantyne sent his brief report:
My game was first to finish. I sacrificed my Knight for his pawn on f2 to open up his defence. He defended well but the attack was too strong 0-1. Pav was next to finish, after going a knight up and taking that advantage in to the end game it was 0-2. Jamie was attacking well and after capturing his opponents Queen for 2 minor pieces it was soon 0-3. Nev played well against an experienced opponent and eventually a draw was decided. A good win to keep Crewe A at the top of the league.
With two matches stil to play, the “A” team lead by 3 pts from our own B team and need 2 more pts to guarantee the (Summer) Shield Trophy.
In other news we held our AGM on Tuesday, where the main event was the presentation of trophies.
Followed by an enjoyable Team Blitz competition where 25 players participated in four teams. Richard Lee’s team won the competition (shown as Crewe 1 on the LMS Team Blitz event) as his players all scored more than 50% on their respective boards. The only player to score 100% (with 6 out of 6) was Ebube Christian, while 7 players notched up a healthy 5/6 including 3 of Richard’s team. This was our first Blitz event to be submitted for ECF rating separate to the main ratings.
Next week should be a busy club night with both South Cheshire teams playing at St Mary’s, and there should be a resumption of all three Internal Summer Knockouts which are at the quarter final stage.