Another win for Horsham 4!

On Tuesday the Horsham 4th team travelled away to East Grinstead and with our full team arriving early we could start straight away and the two remaining EG players arrived just as we started, unfortunately this lead to a mix up on boards 3 & 4 where their players took the wrong seats and was only noticed 10 minutes into the games, so we had to carry on.

Mick on board 1 finished first quite quickly with an agreed draw, John C also had a draw on board 3 having gone for the end game against the French as he had high hopes of working his active knight against a very poor Bishop, sadly it locked up and he was unable to press his advantage.

I was playing on board 2 as wanted John to get a game as white for a change, my opponent played an anti-benko system that I’d never played OTB but was able to recall a good line which later gave me a most agreeable position and just needed to press my advantage steadily to get the win.

Meanwhile on board 4 Mark B with the board mix up playing a much stronger opponent, was struggling after his Kings Indian Defence missed by one tempo his opponents queen side attack, leaving him to face the bishop pair with two knights and the loss came soon after.

This left Julie on board 5 and scores level at 2-2. After exchanging off all the minor pieces she had a much better piece co-ordination with her opponents queen rather isolated from the rooks by an advanced pawn on the 6th locking the King behind. After some clever manoeuvring of her own queen she was able to mix some tactics against the rooks with threats of a promotion on the A file and a back rank mate and this won her the game.

Final result 3-2 to Horsham!

Dennis, Ian (156) ½ - ½ Harris, Michael C (143)
Fisher, Robert HC (150) 0 - 1 Richardson, Paul (142)
Simpkins, David (126) ½ - ½ Cannon, L John (142)
Waldock, Adrian DP (141) 1 - 0 Baldock, Mark Philip (130)
Christian, Grau (107) 0 - 1 Denning, Julie L (128)