Horsham 1 scrape draw with St Francis and Haywards Heath 1

Horsham 1 just managed to scrape a draw against St Francis and Haywards Heath 1 after the three unfinished games from the match were agreed to be one win for Horsham and two draws. The match, played on the Tuesday of last week (30th October), saw the first team confronted by a strengthened Haywards Heath outfit, who have acquired the services of former Crawley stalwarts Chris Baker and Robert Noyce.

Gavin Lock managed to hold against Baker on board one, but elsewhere the team were under pressure. My position threatened to go downhill as Feliks nursed a nagging advantage. Phil Stimpson was defeated before the time control by Noyce. Dix Roberts looked to be in terrible trouble against his junior opponent. Only Paul Taylor was able to achieve a winning position against Vivian Cole.

Fortunately, as the team reached the time control, things took a turn for the better. Feliks missed his chance against me in the time scramble and the position looked very drawish. Dix achieved a Rook vs Rook and two pawns endgame that might be a draw. Paul maintained his winning position. As it turned out, analysis of the positions showed that I was in no trouble, Dix's position was a tablebase draw and Paul was indeed winning, so those results were agreed.

The results of the individual games are given in the table below: