Two seconds from success...

Horsham 2's away fixture vs Eastbourne 1 on 6th March ended in a narrow loss, two seconds being the exact margin of defeat...

Apologies for the late report, this one slipped my mind. From what I can remember:

On board 3 Paul had the White side of a Sicilian vs Paul Carpenter and ended up with an awkwardly placed knight on c3 that could be pinned to his king. Fortunately his queen had sufficient activity to create counterplay and see off the threats and a draw resulted. Next to finish was Roy on board 4 who continued his superb season by beating the dangerous John Herbert. Roy picked up a pawn before John's bishop ran short of squares and White resigned faced with the loss of more material.

Next a decisive result happened on board 2, where Rasa and I had agreed to a quickplay finish. Under some pressure, I planned to sacrifice the exchange for activity but missed Rasa's counter-sacrifice of a pawn, which led to a deadly pin and the loss of a piece. Thanks to my active pieces I was able to resist but ended up in a R+N+P vs R+Ps endgame. With two seconds left on both player's clocks Rasa made an illegal move, but I played my next move too quickly and therefore couldn't claim the extra time, and my flag fell.

Two games were adjourned - on board 1 Phil's super-sharp Sicilian came undone when Oli Froom drove his king into the centre and swapped material down to a winning endgame. On board 5 Tim worked hard against Laurence Butt's closed pawn structure but there was no way through and White had to be careful not to be worse. A draw resulted when the computer confirmed neither player could make much progress.

O. Froom 1-0 P. Stimpson
R. Norinkeviciute 1-0 A.R.J. Higgs
P.J. Carpenter 1/2-1/2 P. Taylor
J.G. Herbert 0-1 R.D. Page
L.A. Butt 1/2-1/2 T. Pavlovic

3-2 to Eastbourne overall.