Mid Sussex League

Important wins by Phil Stimpson and Paul Taylor on Boards 2 & 5 respectively secured a vital win for the 2nd team against struggling Woodpushers 1.
Phil was the first to finish executing a beautiful attack against Ian Kelly’s exposed King. I made a couple of poor decisions in my game and could manage no better than a drawn rook, minor piece and pawn ending. Paul won a piece and duly turned his game into a win and Ian secured a draw to get to the all-important 3 points !

A catchup to summarise the results of the first team up to Christmas as I've been remiss in my reporting...

A very strong Brighton team gave the 2nd team an extremely tough match last night – the visitors were taking no chances after we had held them to a draw last year.
As I spent most of the evening concentrating on my own game I am not able to provide any commentary about the other games, save to say Paul played very solidly with the Black pieces to gain an impressive draw against Geoffrey James. Although I was a pawn up at adjudication the Queen, Rook & Pawn ending was technically drawn, so we ended up going down 1-4.
P Stimpson (171) 0-1 R Cumming (213)

Horsham 5 came up against East Grinstead 1 last night. We were out-graded by an average of 17 points across boards 1 - 4, whilst their 5th board player was on his first MSCL outing after a long absence from competitive chess. He was last graded 167 in 2000. It could be argued he should have been higher up the playing order, but I recognise East Grinstead would have had little evidence on which to judge his current strength and will no doubt take account of his first few results.

The 2nd team entertained a strong Worthing line-up who out-graded us on the top boards. We were again strengthened by Dix playing on Board 1 and yet again he secured a draw against a higher graded opponent, this time with the black pieces.

Unfortunately, Horsham 5 only fielded 3 players against Hastings & St Leonards 4 on Tuesday. We were caught out by an ineligibility that had been overlooked - not something that was expected to catch us out this early in the season, but between agreeing to play and the actual event Roger notched up a 4th match for higher teams. The other default was an unexplained no-show. I succumbed quite quickly on board 1, putting the match beyond contention, but Richard Barrowclough and Peter Helliwell both drew, ensuring at least some honour for the team.

A tough Friday night for the 2nd team who travelled down to Eastbourne - four of the five games went the full session but it was worthwhile as we gained a 3-2 win, thanks in part to a little bit of good fortune.
The team was strengthened by the appearance of Dix on Board 1 and he played strongly against Rasa and held a slight advantage throughout the game but did not have quite enough to convert the endgame into a win. Paul had been the first to finish accepting his opponent’s offer of a draw in a level position that resulted from the exchange variation of the French.

Four Crowborough juniors travelled to Horsham to kickstart our campaign in the MSL's new rapidplay league and an exciting match ensued...

A pleasant evening at The Args ended with victory for Horsham, but by a narrower margin than the score suggests...

The 2nd team had a disappointing Division 1 match away at Haywards Heath, eventually losing 4-1. Despite being heavily out-graded on the top two boards both Phil & Peter had very close matches - their opponents only gaining advantages towards the very end of the playing session.