Horsham 1 move up to 2nd in top division

Apologies for the late report - Horsham 1 beat Worthing 2 away this time last week which puts us 2nd with three matches to play...

Worthing 2 fought hard and with the exception of board 3 all of us had tough matches. Although we didn't lose a board, three Worthing players achieved draws and the win on board 5 wasn't straightforward either.

Mike was first to finish against Colin Parker on board 3 with a quick win - Black's inadvisable early ...h6 and poor development tempted Mike into an e6 pawn sac which quickly turned into a raging attack. Mike won a piece, entombed the enemy rook on h7 and swapped down to a won endgame. Next to finish was James on board 4 - Don Banks played very solidly on the White side of a Sicilian and did not give James any weaknesses to target, a draw being the deserved result.

Peter won a piece for two pawns on board 5 against David Wallis, but the pawns ended up being connected and passed so there was certainly some compensation. Fortunately Peter went on his usual pawn-grabbing rampage with the result that his a-pawn was even more dangerous and closed out the win. Two games went the distance - Gavin on board 1 accepted a draw offer from Rakesh Nair in a position where Gavin was a pawn up and better, but with no clear way to make much progress and with a few moves still to make in under a minute. I had an interesting finish on board 2 - after a 'dynamically even' game for most of it, I left myself two seconds to make my 42nd move! I successfully made the time control with one second on the clock, but the move I chose led to a worse position. Sportingly my opponent Peter Larwood offered a draw which was gratefully accepted.

R. Nair 1/2-1/2 G.R. Lock
P. Larwood 1/2-1/2 A.R.J. Higgs
C. Parker 0-1 M.C. Forster
D. Banks 1/2-1/2 J.C. Mansson
D. Wallis 0-1 P. Harbott

3.5-1.5 to Horsham.