Know your classics...

Horsham 2 travelled down to title holders Brighton 1 yesterday and put in a creditable performance against a strong team...

On board 3 Paul faced John Henshaw, and played a strange setup with Bf1-e2-f3 against the Najdorf. He had a perfectly playable position but unfortunately overlooked a Bxf2+ tactic later on and his position folded soon after. On board 2 I recovered from a poor opening against Geoff James and equalised, soon after which Geoff missed a classic tactic straight out of the manual (see diagram and moves below) and was lost in the blink of an eye. On board 5 Ian's double fianchetto English went down to talented England junior Callum Brewer, after Callum's queenside pressure netted too many pawns.

Tim had fought very well on board 4 against Paul Batchelor but was eventually pushed back by Paul's advancing central pawns. Faced with a mating attack and the loss of a rook Tim resigned. Finally Phil played a very interesting variation of the Trompowsky against Brian Denman on board 1 which ended up in a sort of Benoni structure. Brian agreed the draw when the match was safe for Brighton in a position where Phil still held some pressure.

B.J. Denman 1/2-1/2 P. Stimpson
G.H. James 0-1 A.R.J. Higgs
J.C. Henshaw 1-0 P. Taylor
P.A. Batchelor 1-0 T. Pavlovic
C.D. Brewer 1-0 I.S. Comley

3.5-1.5 to the reigning champions.

The diagram shows James-Higgs after Black's 25...Rd5. Geoff rightly rejected 26.Rxd5 exd5 27.Qe5 Qxe5 28.Nxe5 Ne2+ 29.Kh1 Rb8 when White is in trouble. However his choice of 26.Ne3?? was unfortunate, what was the sudden conclusion? Answer below in the comments.