This was a most unusual week with no matches for the club at The Mals on Wednesday after the B team travelled to Macclesfield on Monday and the D team went to Kidsgrove on Tuesday.
The B team started their division 2 campaign with a tough match against title contenders Macclesfield (who were the only team to inflict defeat on the “A” team last season). Under the youthful new captaincy of Simon Layhe the team emerged with a good result as the match ended all square 2.5-2.5, with board 1 star Bart Fajfer and board 2 Karl Lockett both victorious and supported by the skipper’s draw on board 3.
Tuesday night saw the D team start the new division 4 season in same vane as last season with a crushing 4-0 win. We had a big advantage with grades so it was no surprise, although captain Les Hall explained ” It was a very friendly game at Kidsgrove, ended in a 4 – 0 whitewash, but the games were a lot closer than the score suggests.” He went on to report as follows:
I was predictively, first to finish as my opponent allowed me to fork a Knight and Bishop on move 5, then, after deciding to lose the Knight, proceeded to make life very difficult by going on the attack, his Queen came out and caused me a lot of problems backed up by his “A” Rook on the C file, pinning my Queen to stop the loss of my C pawn and breaking through to to my back rank. Eventually, I managed to get my F Rook out and boxed his Queen on f4, at which point he resigned.
Next to finish was Simon, our Board 1 star, Si managed to get a couple of pawns advantage and, eventually made this pay.
Nev was third to finish on Board 2, using his experience to get control of the middle of the board, to press home his advantage.
We then had to wait for our rising star ” cool hand Luke “, Lukasz, who despite his tender years and only a couple of years playing experience, played a nice Queen and Bishop attack, against a castled King and a Knight stuck in the corner on h8, eventually swapping off Queens and getting the exchange up, forcing his very experienced opponent to resign.
All in all, a great start to our Div. 4 season, long may it continue !
