Heavy defeat for Horsham 2

Not helped by the captain blundering into a smothered mate when enjoying a reasonably solid plus, Horsham 2 went down heavily on its trek to Eastbourne 1.

On board 1, Phil faced the Sicilian with both sides castling queenside and appeared to have more space and a bit of an initiative. I didn’t see the denouement but apparently an infiltrating knight then put paid to his chances.

Peter’s Petroff on board 2 proved resilient and peace was declared without too much alarm on either side.

Meanwhile I faced the Nimzowitsch defence and was reasonably pleased with how the opening panned out, indeed by late middle game (with Q, R and N plus some P’s remaining on the board) I was two pawns up and looking to consolidate. Unfortunately, this had come at some expense on my clock where I was down to the increment and which my opponent sought to exploit with a series of tactical threats. I readily obliged and achieved a complete reversal of fortunes with just one painful move.

On board 4, Rob employed the Kings Indian defence but lost a pawn somewhere along the way which proved decisive when his opponent liquidated into the end game.

As such, a disappointing 0.5-3.5 defeat, only marginally mitigated by the grading differential.