Exploring the wilds of East Sussex

Horsham 2 made the long trek to play Hastings 1 only to find that the A27 was closed for the return journey which led to exploration of parts of the globe I had never visited before!

Anyway, as regards the chess we were not unexpectedly heavily beaten (an average grading deficit of 270) but did get on the scoreboard with one draw and indeed might well have added to that.

First to finish was Peter on board 1 as white who employed a sort of reverse Slav (or Saragosa?) but the game never really took off and peace was declared after just 20 moves.

Employing a Benoni(?) on board 2, I was under pressure from early on and at the critical point missed a trick which would have freed my position. Instead I allowed my pawn structure to be ruined and from there was steadily outplayed.

Rob on board 3 opened with the English including a later e4 whilst his opponent employed a sort of Dutch. After the rooks came off there was endless manoeuvrings of knights with black eventually improving his position sufficiently to win a pawn and after a queen exchange this ultimately (after 60+ moves) proved decisive.

Tim on board 4 also had a long struggle, entering the end game on an equal footing though then allowing his opponent's King to infiltrate with terminal results. Tim tells me that he missed the correct continuation at move 58 to secure the draw (computers can be very annoying!) and had to resign 4 moves later.