A testing venture out to the Halifax area to face Calderdale A. The Rose Forgrove A team were looking to avenge last seasons' encounter where they were mauled 5-3 by Calderdale. Having been involved in a couple of real nailbiters in their last two Yorkshire Chess League matches, Rose Forgrove A were hoping for a smoother ride at the weekend. Any chance of this happening?...you must be joking!
| Calderdale A |
3.5 |
|
Rose Forgrove A |
4.5 |
| Name |
Grade |
Result |
Name |
Grade |
Phil Watson |
189 |
0 - 1 |
Taka Chipanga |
194 |
Robert Newton |
181 |
0 - 1 |
Mark White |
185 |
Peter Mulleady |
177 |
0.5 - 0.5 |
Rich Archer |
177 |
Martyn Hamer |
187 |
0.5 - 0.5 |
Mike Round |
174 |
Mark Whitehead |
173 |
0.5 - 0.5 |
Roger Jennings |
175 |
John Morgan |
173 |
0.5 - 0.5 |
Eddie Hurwitz |
163 |
Darwin Ursal |
166 |
0.5 - 0.5 |
Clive Davies |
168 |
David Patrick |
165 |
1 - 0 |
Andy Bagley |
165 |
 Draws appeared to be the order of the day early on. Indeed, Captain Clive was none too happy when "Fast" Eddie did his famous tactical "trick" of offering a draw regardless of the match position and without consulting his captain. Will Clive put a stop to this?, who knows, yet I'm sure some action will be taken soon.
Calderdale A 0.5 - 0.5 Rose Forgrove A
Both Roger and Mike had pretty much even positions throughout their respective games and it came as no surprise that hostilities were brought to an end quickly
Calderdale A 1.5 - 0.5 Rose Forgrove A
Andy seemed to have obtained a positional advantage with the black pieces against Dave Patrick. However, the Calderdale stalwart defended well and even started to place pressure on our player. Andy could probably have held for a draw but tried to push for a win in the ending. Unfortunately, it was a classic case of bad bishop vs Dave's good knight. Indeed, Dave Patrick solidly converted his advantage and it was good "knight" as far as Andy's was concerned.
Calderdale A 2.5 - 1.5 Rose Forgrove A
 At this point the team was losing and things did not improve quickly as only two draws came from Archer & Davies both of whom had inferior positions. After being outplayed in the opening the ever resourceful Archer found a nice tactic which should have given him a great chance of winning. Sadly, even the best make mistakes and I managed to blow the last move of the combination and left myself a piece down for two pawns. With time drawing short, yet still having some counter play, I offered a draw which Peter took. Along with Clive's draw this still left us one point adrift...
Calderdale A 3.5 - 2.5 Rose Forgrove A
So, it all came down to the top two boards and, to be honest, things were far from looking rosy on board two. Mark had been defending for almost all of the game after a sack/blunder?! from Bob Newton which gave him an enormous attack with the white pieces. However, Mark managed to build something of a fortress and pulled the draw bridge up, gradually exchanging off pieces and going into an ending which saw his bishop pair outplay Bob's lonely rook. The match was all square and we were finally back on level terms....all now rested with Taka!
Calderdale A 3.5 - 3.5 Rose Forgrove A
Last to finish, Taka seemed to have a slight advantage in the early stages, but some cunning manoeuvring from Phil Watson produced an equal position. All things came down to a rook and pawn ending. Although Phil was the first one to strike out with a cunning pawn move (...c5), Taka seemed to get to grips with the resulting position better than Phil and managed to bring home the bacon for Rose Forgrove.
Final score: Calderdale A 3.5 - 4.5 Leeds Rose Forgrove A
A good result and all's well that ends well. I'd like to put some quotes from Clive to describe Eddie's "performance". Most of the words came after useless and began with the letters C and F. The profanity checker on my computer doesn't allow such output to be distributed. If anyone would like to guess what the words are they will win a signed copy of Eddie Hurwitz's latest thriller - "Exciting draws taken when I hadn't got the balls to play on for a win".
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