Horsham 1 bounce back with win vs Haywards Heath 1

Horsham 1 bounced back from their disappointing loss to Hastings 1 to beat a weakened Haywards Heath 1 by a big margin. On the morning of the match, I was rung by the Haywards Heath captain to inform me that Feliks Kwiatkowski was not going to be playing. This meant that their line up was noticably weakened, although we would have been favourites to win in any case.

Morgan Blake, making his debut, built up a commanding position as Black against his opponent's passive opening. He was fairly soon able to break through and force his opponent's resignation. This gave Horsham an early lead in the match.

The other games took longer to resolve.

Mike Forster had a complicated draw against Martin Faulkner.

James Mansson emerged with an edge from a decidedly unorthodox opening and was able to convert it to a win, not without adventures as both players ran short of time.

Dix Roberts overcame his opponent on bottom board.

The last game to finish was Gavin's against Jeff Boardman. It was a complicated struggle, with both players running very short of time, but when the players reached the time control, analysis convinced both of them that Gavin was winning, so Jeff resigned.

This gave Horsham a 4.5-0.5 win. The full score of the match is given below:

Note that Horsham 1, as the away team, were White on odd-numbered boards.