There was a hush in the playing hall as the first of the Summer Knockout finals was played on Tuesday (17th) between Nathan Fourie and Julian Bulbeck for the Intermediate trophy. The tension was palpable as colours were chosen – but not by the expected use of a coin – but by the good old fashioned “pick a hand from behind the back” as Nathan drew the black pawn. Young Nathan seemed to be heading to victory with a minor piece advantage, but struggled to deliver the telling blow as time evaporated. When down to a few minutes left for Nathan, Julian managed to cause enough confusion for Nathan to give the piece back and while Nathan still had an endgame advantage a draw was agreed as the enemy of time expiring got ever closer ! By now it was too late to play the Armageddon as both players felt pretty exhausted and therefore agreed to postpone the play-off to a future date (TBA).
The other two summer knockout finals are due to be played this Tuesday (24th) as covered in our News item on 4th September.
The new NSDCA season commenced earlier than normal, with Crewe D playing Crewe E in division 2 with teams closely rated within 78 points of each other near the 6600 range for the four boards. First blood went to the D team, but I am not sure how George Bowkett (on board 2) escaped from a massive attack to emerge a piece and a pawn up before converting comfortably into a 1-0 lead. Next to finish was board 4 where Ebube Christian made it 2-0 to the D team when appearing to be in a difficult bind as his opponent threw all his Kingside pawns onto the offensive in what looked would be an overwhelming suffocation. Clearly something went awry. Next up Lukasz Michalek gained a fortunate win for the Es on bd 1, as David Hulme misplayed a straight forward winning combination to drop a piece instead of gaining a piece. This narrowed the score to 2-1 in favour of the D team, where so easily the score could be reversed. Last to finish was George Bulbeck agreeing a draw with E team captain Dave Price when in a superior endgame position, taking the draw to ensure team victory 2.5-1.5
This Tuesday sees our two 4th division teams open their campaigns with home games. The “H” team play Gables B and the “I” team play Kidsgrove with Mario Scarpa as one of our new captains.
Just a reminder the club is closed on Tuesday 1st October, although we do have two teams playing away that night both at Fenton, with our “F” team playing Fenton “A” in div 3, and the “H” team against Fenton “B” in div 4.