Club Night - 20th May 2024
Crawford Macnab
20 May 2024
Busier than expected at the club with four games played in round 6 of the club championship and three graded friendlies.
Club Championship
Matt Rounds defeated Richard Scott to reach 5/6 but as mentioned previously lost out on the tie-break. That is two years in a row where Matt has finished with the same points as the winner.
Matt and Richard had a complicated game with passed pawns and exposed kings to consider. Richard ran really low on time and in the end blundered. In the complications he missed a chance to take a sacrificed bishop and use a discovered check resource to prevent a pawn from queening.
Patrick was unlucky to lose to a fork of his king and bishop that forced immediate resignation. Just prior to that he missed that he could simply march his king over to win Sam’s knight that was trapped on the side of the board by a bishop.
Isaac had not played against the Nimzowitsch-Larsen Attack (1.b3) before and played a much too early e5 pawn push that was simply taken by white exposing an open e file against the uncastled black king.
Emma got a winning advantage by playing a sneaky Bc5 to pin Gerrys queen against his king.
| White | Black | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Richard Scott (3½) | 1692 | 0 - 1 | Matt Rounds (4) | 1825 |
| 2 | Sam Clucas (2½) | 1245 | 1 - 0 | Patrick Miller (2½) | 1413 |
| 3 | William Lindved (2½) | 1 - 0 | Isaac Boyd (2½) | 1385 | |
| 4 | Gerry Davis (1) | 0 - 1 | Emma Scott (1) | ||
| 5 | Mathew Boyd (½) | 1255 | Tommy Li (0) |
Graded Friendlies
William put pressure on whites f7 square with Qb3, Bc4 and Ng5, but lost to Charles in the end.
Andrew won rook for minor piece against Stuart.
Eric and Paul had an exciting game with Eric looking to queen his passed extra pawn in an exciting endgame. Despite being well behind in the clock, Paul managed to reach a drawn ending and the honours were shared.
| White | Black | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | William Maier | 0 - 1 | Charles Gunn-Russell | 1763 | |
| 2 | Eric Smith | 1601 | ½ - ½ | Paul Girdwood | 1564 |
| 3 | Stuart McKinney | 1464 | 0 - 1 | Andrew Wright | 1280 |