Not a good night to play White...

Horsham 1 defeated Hastings 2 by a comfortable scoreline on Tuesday night, in a match where Black dominated White, scoring 4/5 unbeaten across the two teams...

Andras Adorjan famously claimed that 'Black is OK' and so it was - no White player seemed to have an advantage at any stage of the match. First to finish was Amy who faced one of the queen exchange lines in the Philidor, and agreed an early draw with Jim Wheeler. Great to see Amy representing Horsham and we hope to see more of her during the season when she is available. Next up was Peter on board 5 who won queen and pawn for rook and knight, and after much pushing of pawns and testing of the walls finally broke through Daniel Lowe's defences.

I had a pretty steady draw on board 2 against Howard Tebbs, who played the somewhat risky 1...f5 against the Van Geet but followed up solidly and there was not much for either player thereafter. Gavin's post-match recommendation of 1.Nc3 f5 2. e4 dxe4 3.d3!? looks interesting (I played 3.Nxe4). On board 3 Mike raced out of the blocks against Steve Blewitt's Birds Opening and aimed everything at e4 until it was his. Pressure won a pawn, then another, and finally Mike exchanged down to a won endgame. Finally Gavin faced current British U16 champion Ollie Willson on board 1 and equalised straightforwardly in a Slav triangle structure. Later on Gavin utilised his rooks and bishops well to create pawn weaknesses and eventually the win of a pawn. The game was adjourned at move 43 but White resigned after a couple of days consideration.

So Horsham 1 finish this calendar year so far having not conceded a single board loss out of 15 played so far - a great start! Keep it up everyone...

G.R. Lock 1-0 O.Willson
A.R.J. Higgs 1/2-1/2 H.L. Tebbs
M.C. Forster 1-0 S.D. Blewitt
A. Hoare 1/2-1/2 J.M. Wheeler
P. Harbott 1-0 D. Lowe

4-1 overall.