Close, but not close enough

Horsham 4 again failed to field a full team last night on our visit to Woodpushers. Our intended board 1 pulled out at the very last minute - indeed I only found out by a phone call at 7:45. As we hadn't actually started yet, we had to move everyone else up a board. The Woodpushers captain (Julian Mitchell) would have played on board 3, but then elected to move himself down to board 5, allowing all his other players to get a game.

Ian Comley held Ian Kelly to a draw on top board, while John Cannon also drew against Julian Clark on board 3. My game on board 4 was pretty level until my opponent, Julian (Juju) Samworth-Calvier tried a tempting, if somewhat risky, sacrifice of a knight for 2 pawns. It was unclear whether this would have paid off for him, but he then blundered away the exchange and his additional pawns were not defendable against my rook.

With the score now at 2 - 2, all focus was on the board 2 game between Nick Warren and Roger Hutchings. Nick was a piece down, but appeared to miss an opportunity to regain at least the exchange and succumbed to the material advantage a few moves later.

We remain on 1 point from our first 4 matches. Our next match is at home on 12th January against Worthing 2, who have already scored a 3.5 - 1.5 victory over Horsham 3.